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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Iceland Part Two: The Blue Lagoon of Party Town

The Blue Lagoon:



*Angelic Choir Sings*

(But don't let the tranquility fool you....)

This entire trip, I feel, was a false impression of Iceland. Reykjavik is not typically that full of people and the Blue Lagoon, I believe, is typically a nice relaxing hot springs. Which is exactly what it was when we first arrived.




Aw, see all the happy people floating around? The water was an amazing color, the temp outside was freezing but the water was warm, and there was this white mud stuff all over that you could just scoop up and put on your face that was supposedly this great facial.

Just don't get it in your eye or you will look like Dan from our trip here:




But besides the cries of anguish from Dan, it was a really peaceful morning.

And then: the music came.

As I said, we were in Iceland for Airwaves, which transformed the whole place into basically one giant, constant music venue. Full of rowdy Europeans and Americans. You can see where this is going.

Yep. It went here:



and here:


And here, here and here:





And as the day wore on, the lagoon tranformed before our eyes from a sleepy little oasis to a full-on Rager.

So now there's an enclosed area where the DJ, splashing, and craziness happens, complete with a bar people could swim up to. Which of course provided its own entertainment because we got to watch drunk people dance away obliviosly while they stood in line for beer AND you got to see them then slip and fall back into the music area, which inevitably happened because the land sloped back down into the water and it was like walking on ice -brilliant plan! After awhile, people just started swimming up to the side and begging for a waitress to come to them, neck and head out of the water like deranged golden retrievers yelping for beverages. Pretty humorous.

But not as humorous as watching: The Zombies.

As I'm surrounded by all this craziness, I'm having complete sensory overload and don't know where to look because every single scene in here is RIDONKULOUS. You have people on top of strangers playing chicken, the Golden Retrievers yelping at the side for beer, every other person has that white mask on their face, and whenever the music dies down a bit, you feel the energy about to explode and: SPLASH!!!!!!! The DJ kicks the beat up on high again and the place goes NUTS. Everyone starts jumping around, splashing each other, damaging their eyesight from white Icelandic mask -- it was spectacular!

And as I'm staring around in awe, taking it all in, I glance over under the bridge that separates this CRAZY TOWN from the rest of the still-peaceful Lagoon where people are still drifting lazily.

But the music is calling out to them.

And they start coming in....one person here, another two people there, and they are bopping to the beat of the music, headed towards us.

And all I see through the eery steam are white faces, on these slow moving bodies trudging through the water, silently bobbing their heads to techno.

That image makes me giggle to this day. It looked exactly like a zombie invasion, except the zombies really just wanted to get their party on.



And they did. One by one they ducked under the bridge into our area, causing even more craziness as the afternoon went on.

So I'm sure most people have memories of peaceful spa-like experiences at the Blue Lagoon. But me? I remember it as the frat party I never attended in college...on acid.

I'll throw up some more pics and hopefully some videos next post to finish this off.

(Most of all the photos here were informally taken by Kami who is now a professional photographer. You can find her collections at http://www.kamiswingle.com/)


2 comments:

  1. Cool. I've never been to Iceland but I love the idea of the blue lagoon.

    It looks like an interesting place to do pushups. (Which is how I judge a lot of places these days.)

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  2. LOL. I assume this is Bill, unless there is someone else in the world push-up bombing various landmarks. (i LOVE that concept, by the way. hilarious and creative.)

    I'd recommend Iceland during Airwaves. Definitely adds a whole other level!

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