deliriouslove1970. The life & times of Gary and Denise Flanders. (Free and worth every penny. If you would like to compliment the editor, send to garytheflan@deliriouslove1970.com. If you would like to complain, call your mother.)

The morning hours were spent in the geothermal mineral hot springs outside of Reykjavik. The strange feeling of being in a gigantic outdoor swimming pool in Iceland.

After sitting/squatting in the very warm geothermal broth, doing an impression of a potato in sulphuric soup you are supposed to ‘plunge’ into the real very cold sea water pool. Some of ‘us’, Denise, were more enthusiastic than ‘others’, Gary.

Some of us did in fact plunge right in. Others were more sensible and tested the water first.

Oklee Doklee, enough of that then.

But wait…upon further close up inspection notice the staff member in the background. He is laughing at one of the travelers who was screaming like a seven year old girl…I will leave it up to you to guess which one it was.

Next we sat in a very lovely extremely hot sauna with a huge window over looking the ocean.

After roasting like a dry roasted Virginia Peanut you walk through a cold mist. That same seven year old girl scream could be heard again.

After a smearing of coarse sea salt all over our bodies and a warm desalination shower it was back to the hot pool.

And, we picked up our hobby of meeting new friends. We had a long conversation with a lovely couple from Leeds, right outside of London. We talked with a nice couple from Mississippi. She was a former professional soccer player he worked at large colleges managing NIL college athletes.

There is always someone special. We kept running into and goofing around with a ‘Gen Z’ couple from Manchester England, Joseph and Amina.

We had a close call and were almost kicked out of the pool when he and I sang a rousing chorus of the Manchester United Football Club song. (We were quite good…)

Leaving the Sky Lagoon we walked like wet noodles back to our hotel for a well deserved nap and deciding where we should have dinner.

In search of Icelandic Street Food we had to pay another visit to the Yule Cat.

The Yule cat is ‘owned’ by the Yule Lads. They are a family of trolls who live in the mountains and come down to wander the city at Christmas time. In a part marketing, part traditional and all fun activity you try to find the Yule Lads.

We did locate 7 of the 13 Yule Lads.

A quick word about the water. Iceland has, hands down, the best cold tap water in the world. It is all pure glacier water. No treatment and the freshest taste. Since the whole island is heated by geothermal water the warm water from the tap comes out very hot immediately with a slight sulfur odor. Not overwhelming sulfur but you need to be careful of the temperature.