Numbers
1:30, 7:15 and 9: We had a 1-hour 30-minute flight from Missoula to Seattle and 7-hour 15-minute flight from Seattle to Keflavík International Airport, outside of Reykjavík. The layover in Seattle was nine hours. For some reason, we couldn't get a long enough layover on the return trip to pass through customs without spending nine hours sitting in Sea-Tac on the way there.
1: Highway number of the Ring Road, which we mostly followed counterclockwise around Iceland from Keflavík, in the southwest corner.
1,833: Total number of kilometers driven on our route around the county.
90, 80 and 50: Primary speed limits in kilometers per hour - 90 on paved highways (about 55 mph), 80 on gravel roads (about 50 mph) and 50 in urban areas (about 30 mph).
262,5: Average price per liter for diesel we paid in Icelandic kronas. Equals about $8.23 per gallon in U.S. dollars. (Note that a comma is used in place of a decimal.)
4X4: Four-wheel drive, you need to rent a vehicle with it to get off the beaten path.
4: Number of stream crossings we made in our rented SUV - two branches of the same river twice in the Fjallabak Nature Reserve.
22: The number of rally cars we had to wait for to pass after discovering the mountain road we were driving out of Fjallabak Nature Reserve was being used for a race.
7 and 8: Number of stops on our planned itinerary and number of actual stops we made after being forced to take shelter from an early snowstorm. Our planned itinerary was Reykjavík, Fjallabak, Skaftafell, Seyðisfjörður, Mývatn, Akureyri and back to Reykjavík. Between Seyðisfjörður and Mývatn, we were forced to spend the night on the Grímsstaðir farm due to a storm closing the highway.
25 1/2: Number of hours we spent holed up in a farmhouse at Grímsstaðir.
15 to 20: Amount of snow in centimeters that fell during the early storm in northern Iceland, according to the English-language news service Iceland Express. Equals 5.9 to 7.9 inches.
32 and 104: Top recorded gusts in meters per second east and west of the Grímsstaðir farm during the storm, according to the Iceland Met Office. Equals 71 and 232 mph.
900 and 415: Average price in kronas per 330-milliliter bottle of beer in pubs and state Vínbúðin stores, respectively. Equals $7.46 and $3.44 U.S., respectively. Buy at state stores. (BAC limit in Iceland is 0.05; don't drink and drive.)
30: The number of letters in the Icelandic alphabet. The four extras are ð, þ, æ and ö. Which brings me to ...
Language
The following are words likely to appear in upcoming posts either on their own or as a part of place names.
Eyjafjallajökull: The volcano that caused all the air travel disruptions in 2010. According to a T-shirt for sale in many gift shops there, it's pronounced "AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh." We didn't see it, but I figure someone will ask.
Fjörður: fjord. The town Seyðisfjörður is on a fjord.
Foss: waterfall. Gullfoss is a 32-meter double cascade.
Geysir: The namesake of all geysers.
Hraun: lava field. Laugahraun is the lava field near the Landmannalaugar Hut in the Fjallabak Nature Reserve.
Jökull: glacier. There are several glaciers in Vatnajökull National Park.
Lón: lagoon. Jökulsárlón is a glacial lagoon. (See that - two!)
Sandur, sandar: glacial sand plain. Skeiðarársandur is the largest glacial sand plain in the world, at 1,000 square kilometers.
Staðir: place. Often a suffix on place names.
Vatn: lake. Mývatn translates to Midge Lake.
Vík: bay. Reykjavík translates to Smoky Bay.
