It’s Friday, June 20^th at 5:30pm Iceland time. I’m sitting in my seat on Icelandair after an amazing, nonstop four day adventure. We just took off moments ago and while my body is screaming for sleep, I know that for me to accurately convey the experience of being in Iceland…I have to write a few words right now while everything is fresh in my head.

So you’re all probably wondering why I went to Iceland. The reason I was lucky enough to go is the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth. In case you aren’t familiar with the film…it’s the upcoming Brendan Frasier flick that’s based on the book by Jules Verne. And to make the famous adventure story even better, they filmed it in 3D with the cameras that James Cameron invented for Avatar.

Anyway, with the movie taking place partly in Iceland, the country sponsored a group of journalists to come over and see the sights. So along with some television journalists, other online folks, and some print writers…I arrived in Iceland on Tuesday morning after an all night flight and have been going pretty much nonstop since I arrived.

And when I say nonstop…I mean nonstop.

I’ve been very fortunate to have traveled outside of the USA. It’s something that I absolutely love to do. But while I’ve been to many places and seen many amazing sights…Iceland was an adventure like nothing I’ve ever done. Thanks to the good folks at Iceland Travel, they had us going every morning at 8am and we usually didn’t get back till midnight or later. I think the most sleep I got on any night was almost 6 hours, but 2 of the nights I got about 3.

One of the reasons for my lack of sleep was sunlight. The thing about Iceland at this time of the year is…it doesn’t get dark. At about midnight, the sun creeps below the skyline so it always looks like sunrise. Therefore, while you’re body is screaming about how tired it is, your brain is thinking it’s time to wake up.

Take last night.

We all got back from this amazing dinner at about 1am. Since it was the last night, most of the journalists decided to go to someone’s room and hang out and drink. We sat there talking about how amazing the trip was…and before I knew it, the clock said 3am and I forced myself to go to bed. But…the sun was still up. And even though we’d been going for almost 20 hours with no break, I felt like it was 7:30 in the morning and we had to get up soon. I finally understood what Al Pacino’s character felt like in Insomnia.

While I’ll be writing a lot about what Iceland was like and what I saw and did…a brief tease would be to say I feel like I’ve been to Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. The reason is the amazing landscapes that Iceland has. While the country has cities, the majority of the land is open and unsettled. So while driving around from location to location, I saw the majesty of a country that hasn’t been overrun with development and people. In fact, the biggest city is Reykjavík and it only has 180,000 people. Let’s just say it’s a bit smaller than Los Angeles.

The thing is…all over the country are areas where lava has settled and it almost looks like another planet. It’s like a sci-fi novel come to life. Or, a perfect place to film part of a big budget Hollywood movie like Journey to the Center of the Earth. In the film, the main characters go to Snaefellsjokull Glacier - as that’s the entrance to the center of the Earth. And since they went…we did too. You cannot believe the videos I shot from that location. Seriously, my words and the pictures will not accurately convey the beauty of standing on top of the Glacier. It was one of those moments you know you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Anyway, over the next few weeks I’m going to be posting a few articles from this trip. Right now I’m planning on posting a huge article of pictures, and another article with a ton of videos. Over the 4 days of being on the road, I took hundreds of pictures and over an hour of video. What I’m aiming to do is chose the best pictures for a recap article and write a brief description of what you’re looking at and what the experience was like. The other article will be a bit more in depth and it’ll have videos of each spot we went to. So when I say I went to the top of a glacier…I’ll post a video for you to see what the experience was like and I’ll be able to show you the huge snowmobile we all road up on. You won’t believe it.

By now I hope you’re excited to read and see what’s coming. It was an adventure of a lifetime that I’ll cherish forever. Of course…a big thank you to everyone that made this possible…from Anne at Warner Bros. to the country of Iceland and the two Thor’s at Iceland Travel (I’ll explain later)… I’ll never forget this trip.

And one last thing…in the upcoming week I’ve got 4 preview pieces to write up for set visits I’ve been on in the past few months and a lot more. While I’ve been very quiet for the past week due to this trip, I’m about to play major catch up. Get ready.

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