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I'm opening up my travel blog again as I plan to spend the next ten days in Iceland. It's a vacation of volcanic proportions. I'll update this space with more posts and pictures when I can.

I'll be spending most of my time in the capital and largest city, Reykjavik. I'll be there visiting Monica, who has a blog on her time spent abroad already. She's in Iceland because the University of Michigan has a really cool program for its architects to do international study. And if you hadn't heard, it's architecture graduate program was ranked number one this year, maybe in part because they help their students travel to awesome places.

As for what's happening in country, there are already some planned excursions into the wilderness, including a camping trip that leaves just a few hours after I touch down from a two-layover, eighteen-hour trip to get there. No rest for the weary.

That first venture is out to the Þórsmörk volcano. I'm choosing to interpret the name as Icelandic for "Thor's Smoke" - they're certainly close enough when pronounced out loud. And how epic is that? Iceland is full of references to Scandinavia and Norse mythology, because despite their island nature, that's where their cultural heritage is ultimately from.

There's going to be lots of fish. Penguins. People wearing nothing but wool. Thousand year-old caves. Hot rivers and even a gap between continents.

I can't wait.