A pig with tummy issues, you ask?  I’ll get to that.  In the meantime, let’s talk about something nice.

Land of ice and fire.

Iceland is, by far, the most stunningly beautiful place I’ve ever seen.  Day two has Kevin and I traveling to the southern part of the country, where glaciers, icebergs and black sand beaches reign.  The journey to this destination can only be described as magical.  It’s really hard to describe the sights and do it any justice.  As I took every picture, I knew that the digital image representation would only be a pale approximation of the actual scene.  It’s amazing to see a landscape that has such severe lines, vivid and stark contrasting color combinations, and enormous scale combine in so many different and pleasing ways.  I found myself with a lump in my throat, wanting everyone I know to be able to see through my eyes at that moment.  Iceland is inspiration.

You can shove that selfie stick where the sun don’t shine!

I hate selfie sticks.  You look ridiculous when you use it, and the pictures they produce always seem distorted and odd.  Just ask someone to take your picture; most people are happy to oblige.  And why is it always the really unfortunate looking people who insist on taking so many pictures with their unsightly face in the foreground.  “Gee, Margaret (name chosen at random, so nobody take offense), that mountain in the background looks lovely, but I can’t quite focus on it because I keep staring at the single long hair on your chin and your wonky eye makeup.”

There was a guy on our tour today that I didn’t see take any regular, non-selfie pictures; it was entirely him extending his arms out, snapping the picture, pulling the camera back to himself, checking the LCD screen on the back, and repeating over and over and over.  I thought, if you’re trying to get one where you look decent, good luck, they don’t make a filter for that.  I’m probably bitter about selfies because I’ve taken a few myself….instant deletes.

On our Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon tour today, we asked one of the guides if anyone has fallen off of the boat and into the icy water.  He said there was only one person that he knew of…some idiot with a selfie stick.

Tour bus improvements.

There were many improvements to our tour today, which was good, because it was, or I should say is, because I’m typing this on the bus right now, 14 hours long.  For starters, Downton Flabby is nowhere to be seen.  She’s probably in some sleazy bar somewhere, face down into a toilet that’s straight out of the movie Trainspotting. And secondly, our tour guide is an absolute dream.  I have a problem with Icelandic names, so I can’t tell you what hers is.  I wish they would say, “Hi, my name is <insert Icelandic name>, but you can call me Glenda.”  Actually, I wish I was more educated about the language where I didn’t have to worry about the tour guides giving us fake names.

So Glenda (that’s what I’m going with) is a peach.  She speaks perfect English, is able to provide interesting tidbits about things during the tour, and is just stinkin’ cute.  Such a contrast to our marble-mouthed tour guide yesterday.  I forgot to mention, one of his little “informative” statements he made yesterday was, after pointing to an apparently important house on the mountain, “That is a house….it is made from wood.”  I would like to tell you why this wooden house was important, but that’s all I’ve got.  Ms. Flabby found it fascinating, however; she grabbed Trashy Spice and took a picture of it with her selfie stick.

Nobody fall on their ass, please.

Saljalandsfoss waterfall was our last stop of the day.  What makes this waterfall unique is that you can walk behind it.  I was looking forward to taking pictures, but because of the time of year, it was getting dark by the time we got there, so all I managed to snap were some grainy, high ISO pictures (sorry, I didn’t bring my tripod with me).  Pictures aside, I was excited to walk behind the falls and view it from the other side.  Glenda told us that we might get a little wet and warned us that we shouldn’t do it if we had problems walking.  Whatever, Glenda.

What Glenda should’ve said was, “If you decide to make this little trek, please be aware that you will be absolutely drenched as you walk behind the falls.  Yes, ladies, it will destroy your perm.  Also, please note that the trail can be a little steep and slippery.  We recommend you do it only if you’re a mountain goat.”  Kevin and I made it without too many problems.  It was actually fun watching Kevin try to run from the waterfall’s spray; I haven’t seen him move that fast in quite a while.

While nobody biffed it on the trail, there were some sorry looking faces as they got back on the bus.  I wanted to take pictures of them, but it’s awkward to say to someone, “Ooh, can I take your picture?  You look absolutely pathetic and I would love to put you on my blog!”

Will you get to the pig already?

So why in the hell does a pig need Pepto-Bismol?  Before I answer that, let me backtrack:

Europeans drink.  A lot.

Kevin and I have noticed on our travels in Europe that there seem to be a good deal more publicly intoxicated individuals than there are in the States.  And I’m not talking about people being a little loud and slurry, I’m talking about people who have a hard time walking down the sidewalk without following some sort of wobbly wave formation.  We’ve also noticed several people on the tours the past couple of days that are walking around with beer cans in hand.  There’s nothing that complements a path on a sheer cliff like a blood alcohol level of 0.08%.

As we were walking to the restaurant last night, I noticed a statue of a pig that reminded me of the ones we have in Seattle at the Pike Place Market.  As we were leaving the restaurant, I noticed a young woman on all fours with her head positioned directly in line with the posterior end of the pig.  As we got closer, I noticed that the woman was vomiting.  Since her head was practically between the pig’s legs, she was leaving a pile of vomit directly below the pig’s bum.  Since I doubt she bothered cleaning up her mess, I’m sure that this morning it looked like that pig had a bad case of diarrhea.  Poor pig.

After leaving that lovely scene, Kevin and I continued to walk back to our hotel.  On the way, we passed three people who were having trouble walking due to their intoxication.  Is this a party city, we asked ourselves?  We asked that question again as we were trying to sleep in spite of the loud crowds on the streets outside our hotel that were quite active until about 6:00 am.  The lobby of the hotel was also loud enough for the sound to travel up to our room.  Kevin lost all street credibility as he called down to the front desk to ask them to get those rowdy youngsters under control.