After ten hours of sleep last night I woke up feeling much more like myself. I also went downstairs in my pajamas for breakfast with my bed hair sticking out everywhere and got some weird looks. Apparently, hostelers are not supposed to hang out in common areas unless wearing normal people clothes? Whatever, this hostel is right next to a geothermal pool, I will be running around shamelessly in a swimsuit at some point, and they can get over it. With that said, here are my journal entries for the day:

30 May
07:00
So it never really got dark last night…yay land of the midnight sun! In other news, I woke up to it being much lighter outside than when I went to sleep…great balls of fire it’s sunny outside! (today was a beautiful day. The sun was out all day, which means the locals run around in shorts and t-shirts. I would wear more substantial clothing since the temperature was only about 48 degrees Fahrenheit, but hey, you do you boo.)
08:30
I just learned that there is a giant 500 square meter banana greenhouse here in Iceland. Much excitement, yes. (it sucks at producing bananas in sufficient enough quantities to be economically feasible, but hell, it would be super awesome to claim that you ate an Icelandic banana. The only way that statement could be more awesome is if you consumed said banana while riding in a Viking ship or dangling above one of the volcanoes.)
10:30
I met a kitty and made it my friend in the Botanical Gardens! Her name is Bronzy. Time to check that off my list. (Such a cute kitty floof. I’ll include a picture of her looking all majestic. I guess she’s not *technically* a stray since she was wearing a collar, but since I doubt she lives in the gardens, I am counting her as a met goal.
11:45
Holy cow there is a zoo thing in the open space behind the hostel, and they have lambs and seals and ponies…I can’t handle the cuteness right now. Also, does reindeer (or even the seals) living in a random zoo in the middle of Reykjavik count as finding wildlife in a random place? If so, I can also check that off my list. Apparently farm animals are a novelty here as they had them in the zoo. I felt sorry for the pigs, the barn had no heat, and one of the sows was shivering something terrible. I got to tell Madre about the thermal “window” that seals possess that so that they don’t overheat. It would be travel time with Miranda if there weren’t a Fun Fact Friday session on some other day of the week hosted by yours truly.

Hello, Lovelies!
I decided to chronicle day one and a half since I was traveling yesterday, but I think it should still count in all the fun. It is currently 19:30 or so (I think I am six hours ahead of Denver time) here. I am operating on approximately four hours of sleep, several shots of espresso, and pure willpower. The flights to get here were mostly uneventful, although the staff of Keflavik was on strike when we were trying to approach the airport, so landing took a little while. Then it was grabbing bags and hopping on a bus for the 45-minute ride into Reykjavik. Which I can finally spell correctly without looking it up or asking my mother. Little victories!
I am keeping a travel journal that is (mostly) appropriate for all audiences to share my thoughts throughout the day with you all. The first entries are as follows, with no corrections to account for my lack of sleep or caffeine highs. I will include my current thoughts on said entries in parentheses. You have been warned:

Iceland 2016 Trip Goals
1) Random dance party
2) pronounce a place name correctly without help (not likely to happen, I can barely spell half the words here, and my spelling is a lot better than my pronunciation)
3) Find a stray cat. Make it love me (I thought I found a kitty friend earlier, but it was just a statue…)
4) Ponies! (I have an eight-hour riding adventure scheduled for Wednesday, which will be super exciting!)
5) Get lost but end up somewhere awesome
6) Find the phallus museum (did that today, was entirely underwhelmed. Some of the “specimens” were labeled as belonging to fictitious animals. Hardly scientific at all… Talk about false advertising.)
7) Find someone named Sven (is that racist against Nordic people? No idea, Sven might not even be a popular name around here for all I know. I think I deserve bonus points if I find a Sven that is also a big burly masseur)
8) Eat something weird
9) Drink something weird
10) Make a stranger laugh
11) See something beautiful (this whole place is gorgeous)
12) Find wildlife in a random place
13) Cover myself in volcanic mud (apparently, that’s a thing around here)
14) Pet a random dog (every dog I have seen so far doesn’t weigh more than 10 pounds…)

Trip journal! 5-28
20:00 NY time
So we flew into JFK, and I went on the hunt for an “I Love NY” stereotypical sweatshirt to rock with my fanny pack. THERE ARE NO REGULAR SWEATSHIRTS! I don’t want a dang hoodie! What is this crap?? (Yes I am still way more upset about this than I have any reason to be)
Now to bask in more cosmic rays and dump more gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Sometimes knowledge ruins all the fun…