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ALEX ROY: Reykjavik, Iceland.
The objective for Day Two was not to leave JF behind us, as
people often say in comments, but to get out of the city
with JF and show him a better world, a better life.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Day Two, Iceland.
Take the number nine, subtract however many
hot dogs you ate--
in my case, it's seven-- and that's how many hours of sleep
you're going to get-- in my case, precisely two.
Exhausted, forced to get up and to get out of the city.
But first, a little tour of Reykjavik, where I hoped to
find what I didn't see last night, a city full of people.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Unbelievably, Friday rush hour does not occur at 8 o'clock
like I thought.
It occurs more about 10:30.
Reykjavik was packed--
by Icelandic standards.
What's cool about Reykjavik when there are people present
is that it looks like when you buy a 1/35-scale train set,
but the one with the moving and mechanical people, and
they're all blonde, and houses have cool colors on the roofs,
and you sit really close, and it seems almost real, that's
Reykjavik on a Friday morning.
Reykjavik is not a desolate, icy wasteland, a leftover set
of a zombie holocaust film.
It was kind of cool.
But the objective of Day Two is to get out of the city and
see the real Iceland, the wilderness, where I could see
firsthand the terror that is anything that occurs outside a
major city.
I had to prepare.
Time to go shopping.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX ROY: The JF.
JF MUSIAL: Yes.
ALEX ROY: What supplies does one need for volcano climbing?
JF MUSIAL: We're going to a waterfall.
ALEX ROY: What supplies do you need to go--
JF MUSIAL: I don't know.
ALEX ROY: --waterfall climbing?
JF MUSIAL: You tell me.
ALEX ROY: Beef jerky.
JF MUSIAL: We should be looking for supplies.
ALEX ROY: Look at this.
JF MUSIAL: No.
We should be looking for supplies.
We don't need--
what's this?
Squid.
ALEX ROY: What do you think it is?
Oh, look at this.
I'm going to get this.
JF MUSIAL: We don't need caviar.
ALEX ROY: Why not?
This is lumpfish caviar.
JF MUSIAL: We don't need it.
Let's get--
ALEX ROY: That's what I'm getting.
JF MUSIAL: Food, supplies.
We need supplies.
ALEX ROY: I have all the supplies I need.
JF MUSIAL: You're going out into the middle of a
wasteland, and that's all you're going to bring?
ALEX ROY: Yes I'm only going to bring caviar, apple cider,
and beef jerky because there's no evidence we
need anything else.
Except toothpaste.
For the beef jerky.
This is it.
What?
You don't like that I got some fruits and vegetables?
JF MUSIAL: No, I'm fine with that.
ALEX ROY: Why do you object?
JF MUSIAL: OK, all right.
[WIND BLOWING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX ROY: Leaving Reykjavik, we saw for the first time what
Iceland really looks like.
A zero-visibility road laid out straight in front of you,
with the sun fighting to get through a mass
of low, gray clouds--
for hours.
If you had to radar visibility on a scale of 1 to 10, 10
being a clear day, what we would you call this?
JF MUSIAL: Negative 2.
ALEX ROY: This is--
JF MUSIAL: We've got about 50 feet of visibility.
ALEX ROY: No visibility?
Iceland?
Come on.
Seriously.
Then the road magically got better and the
visibility got great.
And then, I couldn't stop thinking to myself how
grateful I was to the road workers of Iceland for keeping
the roads in such great condition.
And then it all ended.
JF MUSIAL: What they must spend on
road maintenance here.
ALEX ROY: The road quality is actually pretty good.
Oh, my god.
JF MUSIAL: As you say that, we then hit [BLEEP]
dirt road.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX ROY: Oh, my god.
JF MUSIAL: Perfect timing--
ALEX ROY: Oh, my god.
JF MUSIAL: --for this conversation.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX ROY: Iceland only has a couple of indigenous animals--
foxes, which we didn't see, sheep, which we saw a few of,
and a lot of horses.
I never thought horses were smart.
But let me tell you, Icelandic horses, very smart.
Because most of the ones I saw were clustered behind any
shelter they could find to get away from
the icy wind of Iceland.
JF MUSIAL: Look at those horses, all hiding together,
huddled together for warmth.
And they have to be.
Look.
Look at that.
They're hiding in like the crook at the
bottom of the hill.
ALEX ROY: Iceland truly lives up to its name.
It's freezing cold.
Eventually, after climbing an unbelievable mountain, we
crested the heights and came to a epically desolate valley,
denuded of all trees, thanks to the settlers of centuries
ago, and saw the most beautiful cliffs.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX ROY: If for any reason in New York City there was a
blackout and you were lost, if you saw steam coming out of
the ground, you know you're headed towards a major
intersection.
In Iceland, steam coming out of the ground means a major
tourist attraction, in this case, the beautiful town of
Geysir, population seven.
Science teaches us there are three kinds of eruptions.
One you never, ever want.
The second kind, you want as often as possible.
But today in the town of Geysir, Iceland, behind me,
the infamous hot geysers of Iceland.
Thankfully, in Geysir, we once again proved that anywhere I
travel, opaque mysteries that confuse so many others just
evaporate upon my arrival.
I have theorized for years that it is, in fact, dangerous
to approach a geyser, and that the temperature range is
somewhere between 80 and 100 degrees Celsius.
Let's investigate.
Oh, my god!
Exactly 80 to 100 degrees Celsius.
It's hot.
Let's keep moving deliberately-- whew--
mysterious area of mysteries.
You know, this all was very impressive, but not as
impressive as standing at the corner of 57th Street and
Second Avenue in New York City, where I could see this
without buying a $2,000 plane ticket.
Geyser--
another word for New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority
[BLEEP]
up.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX ROY: Geyser.
Let's go.
In the States, a lifted pickup, a lifted truck,
usually means a kid blew his summer work money to impress
his friends.
In Reykjavik, a lifted truck--
and I just saw a bunch of them--
looks like the business.
Toyota Hiluxes, a couple of Nissans, made our Defender,
our rental Defender, look pretty puny.
Then we got to Gullfoss, to the tourist center, to the
parking lot, where our Defender was, literally, the
smallest truck in the place.
Almost every vehicle was a Ford, four, five, six feet
higher off the ground than ours, with independent air
charging systems for each tire, packed full of people.
These were the tourist vans of Iceland, and these were the
meanest lifted trucks I've ever seen in my life.
I ran up to one of the drivers of one of these colossally
lifted, unbelievable, mega tough-guy vehicles.
What kind of truck is this?
MALE SPEAKER 1: It's a Ford Ecoline.
It's a normal Ford but specially
built for the highlands.
We put four-wheel drive and an extra gear
in it here in Iceland.
ALEX ROY: And how big are these tires?
MALE SPEAKER 1: 46 inches, this one here.
ALEX ROY: And how much power does this engine put out?
How many horsepower?
MALE SPEAKER 1: Horsepower?
350 or something like that.
It's a little different on all the cars here,
but this one is 350.
ALEX ROY: I couldn't understand a single thing he
said, except for one thing.
I asked him if he'd ever gone Formula off-roading.
ALEX ROY: And have you yourself ever
done Formula off-road?
MALE SPEAKER 1: We are doing that almost every day.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX ROY: There are two kinds of nature.
There's passive nature, the Grand Canyon.
Nothing moves, nothing happens.
The wind, animals walk by.
And then, there's active nature.
[RUSHING WATER]
ALEX ROY: This is Gullfoss, Iceland.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX ROY: One of the best things about the rest of the
world outside the US is that people here are trusted to
make decisions for themselves.
There are no fences or gates or really anything preventing
anyone from jumping in.
A waterfall pretty much is the equivalent of a tidal wave
going through a funnel, in this case, 50 feet from you.
Thousands, tens of thousands of horsepower, the equivalent
of a nuclear power plant of power, feet away from you.
And here, for one of the few times in my life--
I think the first time in my life--
I was not protected from the true force of nature.
And for all the cars I've driven and all the gazillion
horsepower of all those cars assembled, if you line them up
and rev them all at the same time, and you park them, and
the waterfall was unleashed, they would all be crushed.
They are nothing before the power of something like this.
An interesting thing to note that I didn't really know was
true until I saw the citizens of Reykjavik is that almost
every man in the country, according to deCODE Genetics,
which is based here, is descended from Vikings.
But almost every woman of the country is descended from
non-Vikings, which might explain something about the
nature of Vikings.
You understand?
You get it, right?
Do I have to spell it out for you?
JF MUSIAL: I get it, I get it, OK.
ALEX ROY: No rational woman in her right mind in the Middle
Ages would ever have wanted to come to Iceland.
But no rational Viking in the Middle Ages would want to come
to Iceland without a woman.
Need I say more?