after a 45 minute delay i boarded the flight to Keflavik. An hour into the flight journey i got clicking at the setting winter sun. Somehow after having taking a tandem sky dive, every time i board a plane i have this feeling that i might get a chance to just tear the door open and dive out. Not the most positive of feeling for most, but somehow i cannot get it out of my mind every time a board a flight.
the moment i got off the flight at Keflavik, a long time wish had started - visit and tour Iceland - and how much i enjoyed the tour will come in the later posts. i spent some time around the various car rental counter just to get the rates as i was planning to go around Iceland a few days into the trip. With enough maps and tourist info brochures, i got the bus ticket to the hostel, It was 4pm and the arctic winter night had already set in. At the hostel i paid for the membership card and the room rent. then got some food from the nearest ‘1011′ food store and cooked. At about 10 met up with others staying in the hostel and after close to 2 hours of chit chatting, we headed to the main city for some partying. some part of the time was spent a proper Icelandic bar - Sirkus, then headed to a more modern icelandic bar - Kaffibarrin and later to a dance floor - solon. solon by morning is a restaurant and by night is a dance floor. But then in all these places, the small town feel was more than evident.
late next morning after some breakfast i headed to the city and roamed around the city. all though the day was clear, it was freezing cold and the fact i was outdoors for most of the time did not help matters. I got a tourist travel card and came back to the hostel. After warming myself and spent sometime with the hostelers, me, Ryan (Australian, working in England), Katharine (English, working in the hostel) and a French girl (working in the hostel part time and at the ski resort rest of the time) headed to the thermal swimming pool right next door to the hostel. Time passed on wallowing in the warm water, then the 42 degree pool, then the steam room, then the 38 degree pool, then the water slide, and then the steam room. Light headed and tired we headed back to the hostel.
After dinner i spent some time around the reception and heard that the northern lights tour was on. So as a last minute entry i joined the tour party in search of the northern lights. the van took us to the main bus terminus, while paying for the ticket, the guy at the ticket counter pointed out the clause in the tour brochure, that they cannot guarantee northern lights sighting all the time, and explained it was all because you never know in this world of suing the company offering the tour. back in the bus, the guide kept repeatedly pointing out that the northern lights is a natural phenomenon and that they cannot guarantee it, adding more to the comfort feeling given at the counter. getting out of the city lights we stopped on top of hill next to the city after 15 mins and no positive signs and some confirmation over phone. the guide decided that the next stop would be the tip of the Reykjanes peninsula, the bus parked up in between a old and new light house and i got down to taking some photos of the old lighthouse, when i previewed the first non focused and badly framed shot on the viewer i saw the unmistakable green tinge of the northern lights. Completely over joyed and aware that the northern lights don’t last for a long time, i started taking 1 minute exposed shots of the lights. In between the shots i would look at the northern lights and to the untrained eye it took some time to get used to seeing the lights. it was the 23rd and a couple days before the full moon’s day and that did not help a lot. To the naked eye, it appeared more like a strip of fast moving cloud with a light green tinge to it. the lights were transitioning from one shape to the other and the whole time i was letting the camera take the shots.
Soon they disappeared, and i got back in the bus and started previewing the rest of the shots, even though i think i might have been the only guy on that bus to have any discernible shots of the northern lights, i realized how wrongly i had framed the shots and the settings i used was were completely the perfect ones for capturing the northern lights. But then, i did realize that it was my first chance and i am still in the early phases of learn about photography. The first sightings of the Northern lights was slightly below the expectations of all in the bus including me, it was not the vibrant lights that you see in the videos and photos, it was the more dull and difficult to see lights ( agreed that most of the shots were taken by people with years of capturing experience and they were again the best from their collection of countless photos and videos). Day 1 and 2 in Iceland passed along, and it seemed most of my small little wishes were being fulfilled one at a time.
