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configuration from those we are familiar with. We were pretty much
fascinated by these wonderful and strange puffs floating in the heavens.

Our summer hotel this night is the Lundarskoli. An amenity this school

offered was a “pub” in the basement where soft drinks and alcoholic
beverages are sold along with sandwiches, chips, candy bars. We did get

some Cokes on the two nights we stayed at this hotel.”

We shared our classroom with a French family practitioner and a French
Swiss young person who has definitely developed a crush on Oskar!

Francoise, the doctor, speaks English and is now beginning to try it out on us

with greater confidence. She, her husband and son came to Iceland so that
her husband could participate in a boat race with their son crewing for him

and she could take this trip. The young “groupie” is okay but she has very
little time for a bunch of older “broads” like Pat, Lynn, Kay and I.

Footnotes: 1) All hot water here smells like Yellowstone National Park.

Cooler water is less smelly but often has a faint sulfur smell too. 2) We
found an Icelandic brand of ice cream today with a most unappetizing

name--Emmessis! We laughed and decided not to try it.

JÖKULSÁ Á FJÖLLUM GORGE HIKE

On the bus today at 9 as usual after our 8 AM breakfast. We then drove to

the second longest river in the country the Jökulsá á Fjöllum and started on a
hike along its scenic gorge. It was misting when we started so everyone got

into their rain suits. Within less than an hour, the spitting stopped and the
sky became that blinding blue again. The walls of this gorge are at least 200

feet above the river so it was quite dramatic as we hiked along, sometimes
dipping into little pockets of shrubs and bushes and sometimes walking right

along the canyon itself.

The rock that formed the canyon showed many strange layerings, uplifts

and striations. The volcanic origin seemed pretty clear. There was a good
amount of columnar basalt with the most fascinating little tubes and