Preparations

7-02-10 Just doing preparations for our birding trip. We bought plane tickets and have rented a car with 4-wheel drive. In Iceland there is a "ring-road", more or less paved, around the entire island, so we plan to start at the capital, Reykjavik, in the southwest, and go slowly ( for two weeks ) clockwise around the island. In addition to birds, we look forward to seeing the ocean, volcanos and geysers, along with massive seaside cliffs and lava fields.

We will take bird guides, "Birds of Europe" by Mullarney et al. and Sibley's "Field Guide to Birds of North American" along with my personal bird database. We will take our binoculars and my Nikon spotting scope. And a spare pair of glasses. I broke my glasses in Florida one time and squinted for most of a week looking at birds after that.

I have a list of Free Wifi places in Iceland. Coffee houses and hotels all seem to have internetic connectivity. We will take this laptop and a digital camera, so I can share photos of landmarks and such, on this blog, during the trip.

Most Icelanders learn to speak English in grade school. Some Icelandic words I have learned are :

Talar thu ensku ? - Do you speak English ?
Taak fyrir - Thank you.
Hvar er snyrtingin - Where is the loo ?

And, in case you are serious, Natalia will teach you Icelandic words on Youtube. There is a whole series of videos.

I cannot form complete sentences, much less converse intelligently in Icelandic. If we meet someone who speaks no English, it will be sign language to get where we're going. At least, when I got into trouble in Mexico, a gentle fender-bender with a local mayan kid on his motorscooter ( ... he bumped into me... ), I spoke a little Spanish.

Going near the Arctic Circle, we will take sweatshirts and long-johns. I got chilled in Nebraska when we went to observe the Sandhill Cranes and I came down with an unpleasant cold during that trip. Iceland will be further north than that, so I plan to bundle up.

- Robert