"Are you 'Premium People'?"

A rare happy moment at work...

Our morning started out the same with breakfast.  Now a certain person, “A” we will call her, asked for info on vegetarian food here.  So, at breakfast, I considered taking a picture of the assorted vegetables, and even got a slide of “chicken ham” (because honestly, who knows what “chicken ham” is, so it probably isn’t real).  But Theresa assured me that was NOT what A probably had in mind, so A will need to take that up with T later!  😊  But our fun plans were in the afternoon, so we powered through lunch (with ramen and assorted snacks).  Bill’s last call ended about 2, getting us out the door about 2:20.  We took the bus to our show.  Also, it is the first day that wasn’t clear and sunny…but cloudy and rainy.  And cold.  And windy!

I think this counts as "vegetarian".  Right?

Our friends for the trip, Mike and MaryAnne (M&MA), were to join us for a show, and they arrived this morning.  We think they brought the bad weather on Delta, coming from Detroit.  Anyway, we got to the place early, and wandered about.  There was a fuel storage depot, so we kind of looked at that.  Then we saw some shop with a weird name.  We had time, so meandered over.  They had ice cream.  Ice cream in Ice land?  Why YES, of course!!

Ice cream.  Ice Land. 

Step 4 sounds like the Cookie Monster!

After the ice cream, everything just seemed...
HOT!!!

M&MA joined us at the “Lava Show”.  We splurged on the premium tickets which were on the upper balcony (all front row), included a free drink, and a “back stage tour” plus a lava souvenir. Once we were all there, the woman showed us upstairs, and another woman came out to man the bar.  She asked “Are you ‘Premium People’?”  Why yes of COURSE we are premium people!!  And we selected our free drink choices.  There was a thermal suit which is used by volcanologists...and the person who mans the furnace here, and the ‘Premium People’ got to try it on and get pictures.  We were first and no one there, so waiting = 0.  We managed AWESOME seats, and settled in for the show.

The show started with a video about the history of the people as it related to the Iceland volcanos.  The video was pretty good.  Then they poured the lava down this steel half pipe where it pooled at the bottom.  Most of the way down, they had placed a piece of ice under it, so the lava sublimed the ice into steam, popping and crackling the lava.  The host played with the lava and showed us assorted things.  It was really neat and we all had fun!! (that's my official position!)

Mike and MaryAnne

Theresa got the Signature Lava Cocktail

I got the Viking beer.

The set up for the show.

The set up for the peanut gallery!

Bubbling molten rock!

Playing with lava...

The full scene.

She shoved a chunk of ice into the lava and it steamed up bubbles in the lava.

Lifting the cap showed the still molten under side.

It cooled so fast it was shiny.

Except for the angry mess at the bottom!

After the show, we went to the back stage where they showed us the furnace used to melt the lava.  The furnace was…nothing special.  But still happy to see a hot furnace melting rocks into lava.  After that, we each got a little felt bag with a piece of lava glass in it.  You couldn’t see it but we quickly realized Theresa got the biggest one, almost bigger than two of our put together.  I assured her it would look fantastic on my desk at work where my coworkers could ooh and ahh over it, but I think they will get to see my smaller one.

The furnace.  It jacks from one side to tip and pour.

Theresa's giant ROCK!

The Super Yacht "Octopus" is in the way of my 
fuel depot!

We all caught the bus back to the Hilton, and went to the lounge for free dinner!!  It’s going to be expensive from here, but this is an enjoyable freebie for one last time!  Also, we're "Premium People"!!  Theresa enjoyed the sun setting on the face of the hill to the East of us.