adidav9: lobster

After the morning's fantastic glacial lagoon experience, we broke for lunch (simple soups and sandwiches) and romped around on the beach, posing with the colossal ice structures that had washed up on shore.

Our gracious friend Jerry was throwing pebbles at us while we were trying to get a photo.

Sketchy dealings in the mean streets of Eyjafjallajökull

I did a very undignified army crawl to get this picture

Pretty sure this is how Icelandic people are born.

Then it was time for our afternoon tour, this time of the glacier itself.

We wrestled on our crampons and took childish delight in wielding our ice axes.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Our tour guide's name was pronounced like Aileen but I'm sure it was spelled differently. She was a fantastic guide and taught us all about the features of the glacier.

Measuring the depth of the stream with her ice axe. Some of them were surprisingly deep. Eep.

A small glacial kame. Kames form when glaciers melt and streams carry sediment that pile up as a delta.

A deeeeeep crevasse. We had to tread very carefully to get photographs of this!

At one our guide asked if we were thirsty and suggested taking a sip of pure Icelandic glacial water from one of the many streams we encountered. Of course, the proper Icelandic way was to lower oneself over the ice axe, sip the water, and do a pushup to get back up.

Phil takes a gander

The boy showing off with his raised leg

My form needs some work...I blame all the hot dogs.

If the background looks familiar, it's because this glacier is a popular backdrop for film and television. Game of Thrones (the wall scenes) and Interstellar (Matt Damon planet) are among two of the more famous productions that have stopped by.

I was pleasantly surprised by how different the glacier appeared depending on the angle and light. It wasn't just one massive ice formation; there were different textures and colors everywhere. It was a visual smorgasbord of ice.

We even practiced using our ice axes on some of the walls and pretending to ice climb.

Our tour came to an end all too soon. We packed into the van, dozed off on the drive back to our cars, bid farewell to our guides, and headed to the town of Hofn for dinner, as we'd heard it to be described as "lobster capital of Iceland".

Well, lobster was a bit of an overstatement - Icelandic lobster is actually langoustine, which are smaller and lighter than their coveted cousins. They were still very delicious, but our ravenous appetites weren't quelled with light seafood so we found a convenience store and ate more hotdogs and soft-serve ice cream. I felt like a five year old kid. It was awesome!

It was yet another fantastic day in Iceland filled with good food, great friends, and jaw-dropping views.

I spent my Thanksgiving in Maryland this year. It was a peaceful four days filled with family, friends, and food - the three things I am always most thankful for this time of year.

Thanksgiving day began with a turkey trot 5k in Frederick, Maryland. This was my first ever race in Maryland! I loved the home-baked cookies, pretty fall scenery, and small-town feel of this one. It was uplifting to see thousands of people, young and old, gather together to run a 5k...at 8 in the morning...in 20 degree weather.

We clocked in at around 24:30; not my best time ever but not too shabby either. I was really impressed by the variety of runners, from the little kids who ran alongside their parents to the four young men who finished in just over 15 minutes to the 79 year old man BAMF was just doing his thing on this sunny morning. Thanks to Mom and Dad for getting up so early and cheering us on in the cold - you guys were real troopers. And thanks to the owners of a dog named Berkeley for letting me and the boy pet their devastatingly adorable 13-week old half lab half golden retriever puppy. Getting to eat cookies, run a 5k, and pet a puppy made for a pretty kickass morning.

With all this exercise nonsense out of the way, we focused on the real task of the day - cooking! I was responsible for making the stuffing, salad, cranberry-applesauce, and gravy.

Thanksgiving was extra special this year because we spent it with my aunt from China, my cousin, my cousin's cousin, and my grandparents on my dad's side. In total there were 10 people. And it felt like there was enough food to feed maybe 20 more.

What's Thanksgiving like in the Fan family? Fairly normal, I think. We make most of the traditional food, like turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes. Some Chinese dishes always end up on the table too - this year we had Asian versions of salad, meatballs and ribs. (And Tsingtao beer, of course.) What was more interesting than the cuisine were the languages, if you ask me. We had my grandparents and aunt who only speak Chinese and the boy who only speaks English and everyone else fluent in both languages, so there was always a lot of side translating going on. But some of the stories told around the dinner table - in particular, one my aunt told in which she re-enacted me as a youth tugging a toy away from another kid - needed no translation :)

After dinner we relaxed with a few rounds of Carcassonne before hitting the hay. The next morning, the boy, my sister and my mom met up with my best friend and her sister to watch Catching Fire. We had all patiently waited to watch this film with each other so it was a treat to finally walk into the theater together to see what Katniss was up to. Skip the next paragraph if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to read any spoilers.

I thoroughly enjoyed Catching Fire. Just like with the last Hunger Games, it felt like forever until Katniss actually entered the arena, and that by then much of the out-of-games plot was so ripe and thick that I was left feeling "no wait, I'm not ready for her to leave yet and start killing children, stay in District 12/on the train!" I hadn't read the book prior to seeing this installment so I was completely clueless as to the motives of the other victors. I think they did a good job building tension and suspicion around the others - especially Finnick Odair, who kept me guessing until the very end. Complaints as follows: the marriage and baby thing was kinda weird and had no follow-up, Peeta bread and Katniss only knew each other's favorite colors before she sorta maybe fell in love with him (???), and the end was hella confusing (though perhaps it was meant to be.) Highlights include the stellar cinematography, Liam Hemsworth's cheekbones, and J-Law's badass performance. I, along the rest of the internet, proclaim my undying love for her.

We didn't do much shopping on Black Friday, just a quick trip to Nordstrom Rack before saying goodbye to friends and heading home for dinner, where big a treat was in store for us...

The proximity to fresh seafood is one of the strongest pros of living on the east coast. Once the lobsters were steamed and ready for consumption, chatter died down and sleeves were rolled up round the table as we each confronted the crustacean deliciousness on our plates.

The rest of break was pretty low-key; we met up with more friends, watched the Michigan-Ohio State game (and subsequently died a little on the inside), shopped, and spent some quality time relaxing and hanging out with the fam. I also ran every day, which assuaged my guilt from all that eating out and home-cooked goodness.