Icelanniversary: Iceland Sky Updates

A year ago I was in Iceland, on my last solo travel adventure; that’s last as in latest rather than final, although it could be the latter too, as it was for the greenYgrey in the last of the trilogy XaW Files: Beyond Humanity. It includes lots of wonderful wordplay, as I hope Icelanniversary is another example; it also reminds me of Inveraray, the Scottish town I visited afterwards last year.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I’ve put XaW Files on a Kindle ebook free promo this week, to celebrate the mistYmuse pagan winter festival reaching its most important central time Y-day on January 21st, a month after the midwinter solstice, and a passing from MIST (Most Ideal Sunrise Times) darkest winter to MUSE (Midwinter Until Spring Equinox).

The party is already two days old on this site’s sister site fmpoetry.wordpress.com with MEW (Mist Evaporation Week) hotting up with every day.

Northern Lights or Ice Pillars: UFO Book Explanation

Funnily enough, I recently saw what could be an explanation for the long streaks I saw one day in Reykjavik, coinciding with a rainbow creating snow shower. I thought they might be northern lights, having seen similar on the Sky at Night television show shortly before then.

In Nigel Watson’s UFO Investigations Manual, p.80, he has a photo of something similar, and explains the ‘vertical streaks of light are caused by Ice Pillars.’

On p. 84 he writes about meteors and fireballs, and I saw a great one of the latter one night in Borganes while out northern lights hunting: like a big dollop of paint falling from the northern sky.

I saw another one last month during the Quadrantid meteor shower.

Magical Light Day on Borganes Fjord

While I was disappointed not to see the big Northern Lights sky show I did feel lucky to have had high pressure dominate the week I was in Iceland, after heavy snowfall had created very photogenic panoramic scenery. It provided some great POP (PinkyOrangePurple) twilight times, and I had one especially magical light show spending the entire (short) day on the Borganes fjord.

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There’s more POP and UFO to come this week, and if you’ve got access to Kindle books, XaW Files: Beyond Humanity, with its thrilling Iceland finale, is now freely available:

Iceland Travel History Article Published

An article I wrote about my January trip to Iceland has been published on travelthruhistory. In the article I remember my original Beat inspiration, going against the grain by stressing the journey experience, and I think being innovative by including what I’d have liked to have done or seen but missed; partly as consolation to the good people who think I do and have done too much, and have it too easy. Stating I thought I was mostly lucky counters those who think and hope the opposite for me. Here’s some more photos from my time in Reykjavik:

Laugarnes Park (first afternoon/evening)

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Tjornin (the Pond) (next morning)

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Viking Statues (and Hallsgrimskirkja church) (afternoon)

new non-human friend reminded me of a special old one

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Loki the Pearl (Loki café and Perlan)

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http://www.travelthruhistory.com/html/exotic120.html

Reykjavik Arrival Sunrise Photos

I saw the hotel I’d booked, the Capital Inn, from the Straeto local bus I took from the airport, after buying four tickets for the four zones of travel (same system throughout Iceland, with Straeto running city and national bus routes) from the airport arrivals shop/café.

I think that’s a good example of why you should continue looking around, observing and analysing everything like an intelligent wild animal instead of a brainwashed docile prey, and not be cowered or shamed into looking away, down or into social media all the time.

Techno Society

I saw that the powerful were trying to make citizens look through the world through their media appliances instead of using their natural senses in a David Icke presentation, but had thought it myself. I don’t know if it is intentional or conspiracy; just the way technology and society are going, but it does seem to be happening.

I’m using it now, so I am not totally rebelling against it, and rely on it a lot, and think it’s often better to find your information than have a conversation, but I do try to get away from it, and balance it with nature. As I did in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Morning Beauty

Travelling on a night flight in mid-January I didn’t book a hotel for the first night. There was a storm off Scotland we flew into, and quite heavy snow in Kevlavik airport, Iceland’s international airport just south of Reykjavik. However, we landed on time. There was no sign of the Straeto bus, so I ended up staying the night in the airport.

Finding the bus over by where the courtesy buses for car hire and hotels are, and are signposted, at about 09.30 in the morning had a nice bonus, as it was just getting light, and the trip to Reykjavik was a like a winter wonderland, full of thick snow.

Moreover, when I saw the Capital Inn and got off the bus, I spotted the telltale twilight colours of pinky, and took a few photos of the sun rising on the eastern horizon, despite being quite disorientated from a lack of proper sleep and the early morning cold, as well as arriving in a new city and only luckily finding my hotel. I walked up onto another road and had to walk back down through thick snow to get back on the right road; well, I don’t know if I had to, but that’s what I did anyway!

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Dream Wife Iceland Music Video Fire Light Evidence

I’ve previously blogged about how a golden circle appearing in an Icelandic selfie of mind reminded me of Bjork’s Utopia and The Gate videos, and I just found new evidence of that Icelandic belief in Dream Wife’s great greenYgrey Fire music video:

I was first alerted to Dream Wife in a Classic Rock review of their debut album.

My photo:

I’ve blogged a bit more about Bjork, pronounced Be-yerk, and wrote a little poem about how to pronounce her name based on how I’ve always heard it, before learning it was wrong, on the fmpoetry website.

Selling Snow to Norway, Iceland Fjord POP

Selling snow to Norway isn’t as easy as I thought. It’s like selling greenYgrey to Blighty! It might be easier now Team GB is in most places under the snow King Harald and Queen Sonja sent back, saying ‘If you’d read the article properly, you’d have seen that we want more Winter Sport competition, so we want you to have more snow, and practise your slippery surface movements!’

Return to Reykjavik: Iceland Football’s Debt to Me (83 meter rhyme parody)

Yes, that opening paragraph scored 98% on the all new for 2018 parodymeter. So with no offers for outsourcing Norway Winter Olympics victory celebrations it’s back to Reykjavik, and my detour after getting a little lost walking back from the Mjodd bus station.

After Iceland football success went through the stratosphere during and after the writing of XaW Files: Beyond Humanity I was interested to walk past a football stadium. I just found out it’s a multi-purpose venue, including hosting Breidablik men’s football team, who finished sixth in the Icelandic league last season.

Finding Huldufolk and Fjord POP

With time and relative safety it was a joy to walk in Reykjavik, and that’s how I’d like Blighty to be. It’s the same for being online, just rambling while wandering wondering. whY, just now while searching the Kopavogsvuller stadium I found out the area is a hotbed for huldufolk elves, which has relevance for XaW Files, which ended in Iceland of course.

Funnily enough I reached the west coast at a fjord inlet. I thought it was the one below my hotel at first, until working out it wasn’t by the planes taking off from the local airport; I’d walked along that fjord inlet to the airport the second day in Reykjavik.

I was glad I’d gotten a bit lost when the sunset made the horizon PinkyOrangePurple (POP):

Moreover, I got into a little hot water… in a good way, finding some of Iceland’s famous hot water from geothermal activity:

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As I headed north, feeling chuffed with myself for finding the way, with the help of a city map information board I should add, I was thrilled to find myself in a Christmassy scene at the top of Kopavogur, near the art museum, and with a church beyond the fairy lights.

Iceland keeps their winter celebration decorations up until the end of Thorrablot in mid-February… nearly as long a winter celebration (survival) as my mistYmuse, which lasts until the spring equinoxY time March 21st.

 

East Reykjavik Trek, Iceland Panorama, Northern Lights Drama

The bus to Borgarnes went from the Mjodd bus station in east Reykjavik. Having spent a couple of days in the centre and with one more full day before departing for Borgarnes I thought I’d recce the bus station, which was a few miles away, rather than doing it the next day with rucksack on. In the end it worked out quite good, as it was a nice clear day, and the day after wasn’t. I could see the eastern panorama, and couldn’t the day after.

I found the route from the hotel to the road out to the bus station straightaway, but then continued on past the left turn I should’ve taken after this church.

I realised my mistake from bus stops, and worked my way back using them. I was enjoying the invigorating clear sunny day, so the diversion wasn’t that bad. I also took a few extra photos.

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I also found there was a post office in the Mjodd complex, as well as a supermarket, so I could efficiently send beautiful postcards that arrived at their destinations quickly, and plan my food shopping for the next day.

Moreover, on the return journey, I saw a rainbow, and more importantly, for novelty rather than beauty, what looks like ribbon Northern Lights, as I’d heard about on the Sky at Night programme the previous month. These photos were taken a while between each other, about a minute, with the rainbow having nearly faded in the second, showing the white ribbon facing the rainbow is static, rather than a travelling snow storm.

 

I got lost and ended up in Kopavogur for the first time walking back, but had time, and kind of knew where I was, so wasn’t that bothered. I think I followed a path after the church, instead of hugging the big road to the east and south looking back on it. I did find it straightaway walking out to it the next day.

When I returned from Borgarnes I knew I was heading in the wrong direction by the Deloitte skyscraper I remembered, so started back to the north quicker. This first time I ended up heading south, but Reykjavik is quite easy to navigate, with the sea on its west. Moreover, I got a few nice photos as the sun set, which I’ll post next time…

 

Cosmic Rey-kjavik – Sun Return

Leaving Borgarnes on the Sunday 09.50 bus to Reykjavik, which was excellent both ways, the eastern horizon glowed a deep POP (which I remember as originally a Deep Orange [not Purple!] rather than the PinkyPurple it looks in the photo) beyond the buildings hiding the dividing line between land and sky. Was it the Northern Lights? It looked vivid and vibrant enough. However, it was the sunrise time too, so I think it was more or all that. I took a photo, but it doesn’t do the deep rich colours justice, appearing lighter than it was (I know the back of the building looks yellowy orange, but it wasn’t that!).

Cosmic Ray Vik

I’d seen online that the Northern Lights had made a big appearance near Vik, 150 miles / 225 kilometres east of Reykjavik, so walking to the centre from the Mjodd bus station I kept observing the sun and eastern sky, with our solar system centre keeping me company through thick cloud the whole way. It seemed to be creating shapes again, kind of a pillar effect.

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Getting a little lost, I ended up south of the centre in Kopavogur, but that resulted in me seeing the southern horizon of Reykjavik for the first time, and I was impressed by its peaks there, already loving the northern and eastern ones.

As I approached the excellent bargain Capital Inn, where I was staying, the sky under the sun seemed to be moving. Was it the Northern Lights I could see, as they happen all the time, but are largely invisible in the day. Or was it snow high in the sky? Or wishful thinking? I don’t know, but there did seem to be some activity up there, under the sun.

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The sun continued shining into the evening, when I walked down to the city for a few pints of Gull.