HP - Iceland 2-4 April

Ísland

To celebrate John's birthday, the boys enjoyed a weekend trip to Manchester for a United match. While they were away, I decided to go see what was lower on their priority lists and high on mine...the Northern Lights. Realizing that it was a bit of a long shot being so late in the season, I kept my hopes low.

My dear friend Anna had connected me with her beautiful cousin Gunnur, so I cemented plans with her and boarded my Iceland Air flight a few hours after the boys headed to the UK. Landing at 3pm gave me enough time to enjoy the famous Blue Lagoon rich with silica and other minerals before heading to my hotel. The hot springs is a geothermal pool of steam rising out of volcanic stones all around. It looks like an island oasis in a sea of black.  The mud mask is a nice touch, and I thoroughly enjoyed soaking for an hour in the warm water and steam. 

Heading straight then to my hotel with only a granola bar for dinner, grey line tours van picked me up 10 minutes after checking in. We commuted to their bus terminal and boarded a huge coach. The next 5 hours (9pm-2am) were spent chasing the Northern lights all over the island. It didn't appear to be a good potential that we would see them as we drove out into clouds and rain, but God answered my prayers about 30 minutes outside Reykjavik and lit up the sky with His beauty multiple times. We stopped twice to stand under the dancing colors and enjoyed watching from the coach as well while we drove ahead of the clouds and rain. Unfortunately none of the videos or photos came out on our fancy Canon or on my GoPro, but the IPhone at least grabbed a couple blurry ones.

After a short night (morning) of sleep, I enjoyed thoroughly one of my best breakfasts in Europe.  Then the tall church down the street called my name with its chiming bells, so I walked there and took the elevator to the top floor. The view of colorful Reikjavik was outstanding. I love all of the brightly painted buildings dotting the landscape surrounded by a sea of blue ocean against snow covered mountains. Truly stunning!

By 11,with map in hand and GPS set, the Yaris and I hit the open road. The Golden Circle beckoned me to explore, and I was thrilled when just outside Reykjavik, the snow covered ground came in to view. It was crazy, almost every 10 minutes, I had to pull over for photos. The landscape is so incredible!

The highlights on the circle are the Bingvellir National Park, Geysir (after whom all geysers in the world are named), and Gulfoss Falls.

With a huge lake in the middle, Bingvellir is covered with amazing hiking trails that I longed to climb but didn't have time. The views were incredible though just from the road.

Geysir and its buddies were incredible explosions of steam in an otherwise volcanic rock and snow covered tundra. The largest of the hot springs, Strokkur, gives an amazing show about every 10 minutes with enormous eruptions of steam and boiling water. To not get soaked, the crowd has to take into account the direction of the wind. Many people miscalculated and no doubt enjoyed their soggy memories for the rest of the day. The modal Atlantic ridge cuts Iceland in half and the sides are drifting away from each other at a rate of 2cm per year. The geothermal zone where these geysers are located are in the volcanic zone with base temperatures of 250 Celsius and surface temps of 100C. Geysir only erupts after earthquakes and its last one was in 2000. Strokkur's eruptions are roughly comparable in height to Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park which I had visited as a child with my family. However, Strokkur launches every 8-10 minutes whereas faithful plus more like every 30 minutes.

Here's a video of one of Strokkurs' temper tantrums!  

Definitely some soaked photographers after this one.

Gulfoss Falls was truly majestic with its roaring waters tumbling in multiple levels. There was a closed path due to "treacherous winter conditions" that dared me to travel closer to the top. I did. It was worth it.

Miscalculating how long I would dilly dally along the path to the furthest point, I now returned directly to meet Gunnur and her family. They were delightful, and Gunnur showed me around her area through the hot springs, black rock beaches, and a black sand beach where Clint Eastwood filmed a movie. Dinner was a delicious traditional Icelandic Sunday meal of lamb, potatoes, and red sour kraut. I was thoroughly happy enjoying a yummy meal with warm new friends in such an incredible country rich in beauty.

Another short night of sleep, and I snuck out their door at 3:45am for my flight home.

Netherlands Adventures from Jack Higgins - with Photos/Captions from JP & CP

My Trip to The Netherlands
by Jack Higgins

First of all I am very grateful and blessed for the opportunity to visit the Pucas in Europe. Being 13 and traveling overseas alone was exciting especially since I would be with my friends.  I was looking forward to seeing what life was like for them in a different country.

I arrived on a Friday morning and for my first few days there I biked with Josh and Caleb as they showed me around Wassenaar.  We went to the Dunreil amusement park and Luciano’s for gelato. We also walked around the village square and they took me to the village’s candy store.  Josh and Caleb had basketball game,too, where I noticed differences between American youth basketball and the Dutch youth basketball.

Our first meal out with Jack was for Dutch style pancakes at the Panenkoeken House.

On Tuesday morning we got up and hung around the house.  Then at noon Josh and I biked to the village square to have lunch with a friend. Afterwards we biked back to the house, got Caleb and went to a park. That evening the boys had basketball practice, and I was very kindly invited to practice with them by their coach.

We had a blast goofing around the house, and Caleb decided sumo wrestling sounded fun.

Jack came to many of our basketball games and practices.  It was so fun to show him baketball in The Netherlands.  Here I am breaking Jack's ankles.

Wednesday evening we left for France and spent the night in Belgium.After driving several more hours Thursday afternoon, we entered France. We were headed to the beaches of Normandy to learn more about WWII.  We ate dinner that night where I tried pear au vin. This was an uncommon dessert I would not normally have picked for myself in the States, but I appreciated the unique taste.

Big breakfast in Belgium before we finished our long drive to France.

Awesome cars in Ghent Belgium.

Friday morning we got up and started on a tour with a private tour guide. We went to Point du Hoc, where the army rangers had to take out a land-to-sea gun emplacement; Omaha Beach, where some of the hardest fighting occurred; a German inland gun-armament position; the Arromanches cliffs overlooking the artificial harbor; and the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial.

Our nice house on the beach.

Walking to the beach we all thought this sign was funny.

This is Gold beach where the British attacked

Going into a bunker on Point Du Hoc.  The Nazis were completely contained in these bunkers and could stay in them for a long time when attacked.

Look at this crater!

There was a machine gun here during WWII.

The guide showed us a picture of where the big guns used to be and told us a story about taking the gun out of this base.

The guide also drew us a map in the sand of the attack plan for each beach.

We liked the tanks.  This is in front of one of the American Museums.

This was one of the remaining machine guns that could fire for 1000 of feet up the beach.

 American cemetery.

Map of the landing beaches and attack plan.

These big guns were used to take out the ships at long range.  They were relocated to the bunkers after being taken off of naval vessels.

Artificial Harbor at Arromanches

Saturday we drove to Le Mont Saint Michel and climbed up to the abbey via the rampart way.  After going through the abbey we came back down through the very crowded main street.  We ate lunch at a cafe where I had a baguette sandwich, Coke (labeled in French – cool!) and for dessert, flan.  We left France Sunday and drove through the gorgeous French countryside back to Wassenaar.

Le Mont Saint Michel monastery.

We liked the old elevator.

Sidewalk in Le Mont Saint Michele. View of water surrounding island.

Clay like sand that felt extremely cool on your feet.

Crepes!

On Monday we went back to the Dunreil amusement park, but that night we took a bus to The Hague. There we walked through the city to see the sights and then ate at Taveerne De Resident.  I found The Hague to be a mix of old and new buildings, and it was interesting to see an old castle still being used today for their governing body.

Off to dinner.  This is the Parliament building in Den Haag

Dinner at Tavern de Resident, one of our favorite restaurants.

Tuesday, my last full day, we biked around Wassenaar, filming as we went, and then came back to the house for lunch.  We then biked out again on a photo scavenger hunt for points towards gelato at Luciano’s, and got every possible item on the list.  That night Mrs. Puca made Thai food for dinner, we played Apples to Apples, and we had a late night. 

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Ice cream at Lucianos, the famous award winning ice cream shop in our village of Wassenaar.

Wednesday morning we left for the airport and I said my farewells to the Pucas.  Though I boarded the plane sad, I left with lifelong memories we will all look back on in years to come.

In closing I hope to be able to visit Europe again, but more importantly, I cannot wait for the Pucas to return to the States.

Saying goodbye the next morning at Schipol airport in Amsterdam.