A Whale of a Time

I know I said that I haven't been doing many adventurous things, but that's not completely true. Last weekend was an amazing weekend. After spending all of Saturday walking around downtown with Jack (really awesome person and friend from Virginia who goes to William and Mary) and working on my paper for most of Sunday, I got to go whale watching at 9 pm on Sunday night. 

We get down to the pier, pay for our tickets (they were really cheap which is awesome), and THEN Jack decides to tell us that he gets really seasick on boats. Fun fact about me: I am a sympathetic puker and hypochondriac (I think that's when you feel sick just because other people say they feel sick?), just like my dad. 

Also, the lady at the counter tells us that conditions are "very rough", at which point my mind is instantly transported back to my whale watching experience with Dad, Kate, and Kelli in Boston where the entire boat (literally the entire. boat.) besides us was vomiting all over the place. Terrible. 

We board the boat - one much too small for comfort - and are told that we must sit inside unless we want to be soaked from head to toe. They also make us put on these jumper thingys that I actually really dig and now kind of want to own. Apparently it is too cold outside not to wear them. When we go to sit inside, we are looking right out at the ocean level and can't even really see the horizon because we are sitting so low down in the water.

The ride out to sea is as bad as they made it sound before we boarded the boat. With me is Mack (really awesome girl from Colorado who goes to school at Whitman College in Washington), Carter, Megan, Larry (you know them), and seasick Jack, who is sitting right across from me. I had never seen someone get really really seasick before, but it was really scary watching him go from bad to worse to downright awful. He was pale white and shaking, I felt really bad. So he went to the bathroom to vomit as soon as we slowed to a halt, and was fine for the rest of the trip. Larry also vomited apparently, even though the entire way out to sea he kept talking about how "this isn't even that bad, I feel totally fine." 

While we were out there, we saw soo many dolphins and I almost cried. Mack and I were on cloud nine. It was blissful, especially listening to the sounds of the ocean as we patiently waited to see whales. 

Which we did! 2 humpbacks that got really close to our boat once. We also saw a bunch of puffins, but the highlight for me was definitely the dolphins. <3

Another unexpected perk of going whale watching so late at night was seeing the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my entire life. 

Overall, a really really beautiful night :)

Here are a bunch of pictures: 

Pre-seasickness Jack

The amazing sunset <3

Me looking rugged in my jumpsuit

ugh it's so beautiful

Megan, Me, Mack, Carter, and Larry on our way back to shore <3 

I'm Alive I Promise

Hello!

I'm sorry for being so MIA this week (has it been longer than a week?), so hopefully I can try to catch you up on my adventures in this post. 

The main reason for my lack of blogging is that my writing brain has been completely bogged down with our 10 page research paper that I have been working on for the past 2 weeks (remember that one?). I'm happy to say that the paper is done and turned in! After several long nights and lots of blood, sweat, and tears. 

The funny thing about Reykjavik is that being here is exactly like being at home...just in Iceland. We have class every day for at least 3 hours, and then the rest of the afternoons and nights these past couple of weeks have been dedicated to our research papers. So most days, at least recently, have been wake up, go to school, come home from school, do work, make "dinner" (a sandwich or eggs because I am poor as Mom keeps reminding me), and then go to sleep. I have spent far too much time in this hostel, which I am just now realizing as I write this out. 

Thankfully, the week ahead will be filled with much more adventuring. So hopefully more interesting stories will come out of that. 

The good thing about hostel life is that everything that's not school-related instantly becomes more interesting. Like my friend Jack and I spontaneously went to the grocery store downtown at 11 pm the other night because we both needed food for the next day and it was the most adventurous thing I had done in like a week. Fun stuff. 

The other good thing about hostel life is that being cooped up here, just the 24 of us and bunch of other people from all over passing through, is that this group really feels like family to me. And I get really sad every time I think about having to say goodbye...