We’ve received more donations in the first half of August. Thanks to Ann D., Jennifer H., Dale B. and Charlotte H., our fundraising total now stands at $7,397! Thanks to everyone who has donated to our campaign!

I’ve been doing a lot of research about Iceland recently for our final preparations. I can’t believe we are leaving in 5 days! Some of the things I’ve been checking out are the weather we can expect (10-15°C, with rain 3 days out of 4), searching for packing lists and packing tips (best tip: “There are two kinds of luggage: carryon and lost“), but the thing that impressed me the most was the information about sunlight in Iceland.

Riding in Iceland at Midnight! (Photo by karynsig)

I knew that Iceland had lots of sunlight in summer and very little in winter, but I had no idea of how fast the days would change. Around June 20, Reykjavik receives just a little bit over 21 hours of sunlight, but it only gets a tad over 4 hours around December 20. Yikes! By comparison, the sunlight in Ottawa varies between 8 hours and 42 minutes and 15 hours and 40 minutes during a year.

Of course, such a large difference in six months means that the amount of sunlight changes greatly from day to day. While Michelle and I will be in Iceland, each day will get shorter by about six and a half minutes. We’ll arrive to 15 hours and 43 minutes of sunlight and leave with 14 hours and 37 minutes, a difference of more than one hour! At least it will still be more than in Ottawa!