We arrived in Keflavik airport in late Sunday afternoon.  From there we drove clockwise around Iceland's main road to the town of Holar on the north coast; a five hour journey through constant daylight.  The Reykjanes peninsula, upon which both Keflavik and Iceland's capital city, Reykjavik are situated, is the most densely populated part of Iceland.  It is a striking place with a real edge of the world feel; six lane highways run across open lava fields framed by grey mountains.  Outside of metro-Reykjavik the scenery is much more “normal” looking.  The mountains and fjords of the north resembles the highlands of Scotland set to a far more dramatic scale.  However, rural Iceland does not feel as remote as the north of Scotland; all along the road we passed brightly painted jeeps and modern guest houses and farm steads.
Holar, the town we are staying in, lies at the bottom of a beautiful valley.  Though it is not cold here there is still snow on the mountains which run to our east and west.  The view from my room is spectacular which is fortunate since it is never fucking dark here.  The people here are friendly and English is spoken to a higher standard than in Northumbria or the city of Birmingham.  Iceland is small enough that everybody knows each other and everybody knows somebody who knows Bjork.
On Monday we were taken on a tour of Holar.  Holar is only a small town and we are being careful to ration out the excitement; in two weeks we will visit the cathedral.  However, we went to a beautiful, traditional Icelandic house which was warm inside and felt very cozy.  There is very little wood available in Iceland.  In fact, almost everybody here's favourite joke is; “What do you do if you are lost in an Icelandic forest? – Stand up.”  For this reason peat is the most common building material in traditional housing.  The peat used in this house incorporated tephra strata caused by volcanic eruptions.  Drift wood and trees imported from Norway were used only for supports and ceiling beams.