Exploring Reykjavik and The Blue Lagoon | Iceland Nov. 22-26, 2017

On Saturday, we had no scheduled plans, so we all took the day to sleep in.  And we did.  When you wake up in Iceland this time of year and the sun is already up you know the day is half over.  We didn't get out of bed until around 11am, and we didn't get out of the house until after 1pm.

The first thing we did was head to the Viking Museum.  Iceland was founded by Vikings, and we thought it was important to learn more about how they managed to survive.  The museum was cool because it was a headset tour type with wax figures.  It took only a little over 30 minutes and afterward you got to dress up as a Viking.

There is a famous hot dog stand in Iceland.  I have no idea why it is famous, but we all got some hot dogs.  I personally don't like hot dogs, but I tried it, and I thought it was good.  I think someone said there was lamb or something in it, not just pig.

After that, we set a meeting spot by a Christmas tree and broke up to walk around the city.  A group of 12 is hard, so this was nice to all get to look around and go into stores without feeling like we were filling up the entire place.  I was able to buy some presents for the kids I babysit.  And we ended at a Micro Bar where we got a taster of 10 beers.  I am not a beer drinker, but my brother loves craft beers, so he was excited.

 

Reykjavik is a cool, little city and we saw murals on most of the buildings.  And this time of year it's getting ready for Christmas, so there are lights and garland everywhere.

For dinner that night some of us went and got fish while the rest of us went to a hamburger place.  Iceland is an island, which means that they mostly eat fish.  My family and I aren't huge on fish, so this was the first time I felt I had more than one choice from the menu.  It was also the first time we got portions that we were used to in America.

Sunday was our last day in Iceland, but before we went to the airport, we went to the Blue Lagoon, which is a natural hot spring and only about 15 minutes from the airport.

This was so cool!  Well, actually, it was really hot...(I'm sorry, but the joke was RIGHT there).  Once you're in the Blue Lagoon, you can swim over and get a drink at the bar and then swim over to the mud mask station.  We had a lot of fun there and did not want to leave.  It started snowing, which was also wicked cool because we were all in our bathing suits outside in a natural hot tub while it was less than 32 degrees.

Iceland was a fantastic trip.  Honestly, this was the first since I was little that I've been on a family vacation, even though two of my brothers opted to stay home.  It was a lot different from home but exciting.  Before we even left we were all talking about how fun it would be to go back in the summer.

The Golden Circle Tour | Iceland Nov. 22-26, 2017

Day Two of our Iceland adventure involved waking up at 7am to have 12 people ready to leave the house before 9am.  We were picked up from our Airbnb by our The Golden Circle tour guide, Ian, who was fantastic.

Before I get into telling you everything we saw on our tour I just want to say that if you are planning to visit Iceland, I highly recommend this tour.  We saw so many things (as will you through my photos), and we didn't have to drive.  The weather in Iceland is a little unpredictable so having someone who actually knew the roads driving was fantastic.  At one point we couldn't even see out the front windshield because the snow was blowing so thick.

The first stop on our tour was to a small village with a population of about 2,000 people.  There we stopped at a small mall type place.  The reason we did this was that part of the floor of this building is clear, and when you look down, you can see both the European and North American tectonic plates.  Even if you're like me and science was never really your thing, this is cool.  You're standing on two continents at once!  Because this is the location of two tectonic plates scraping up against each other, the village it's in experiences earthquakes all the time.  Our tour guide said the recond is like 400 in one day, but they haven't had one that caused a whole lot of damage for a little while.  We didn't feel any during our time there, but I think it would have been pretty cool if we had.  Just a small one, of course.

Something fun I learned: In Iceland, it is commonly believed that fairies live in the rocks so as you're driving you can see fairy doors attached to them.  Also, because of this belief, when the roads were being built they were curved so that no rocks had to be moved and fairy homes disrupted.

You cannot go to Iceland and not see a waterfall.  This was Faxi, which was absolutely stunning.

From there, we went to Geysir and watched Strukkor do it's thing a couple times.  Watching a geyser erupt(?)...explode(?)...I don't know, but whatever the word, it's amazing to witness.  It's also so funny to stand huddled with a bunch of tourists, all of us with our phones up recording and waiting for the event to happen.

This second waterfall we saw, Gullfoss, was my favorite thing on the tour and possibly my favorite thing from the whole trip.  It's just a waterfall, all you do is look at it and maybe take a picture, but it is so pretty and just so prevalent.  For me, it really showed how powerful nature is.  And all the frozen parts of it were gorgeous, but it also confuses me in a way that I also have a lot of respect for as to how some moving water can freeze, but some don't.  I know I probably sound like a crazy person, but that is apparently what giant, beautiful waterfalls do to me.  

We were supposed to see a National Park on our Tour, but the weather in that area was bad, so the road was closed.  Instead, Ian let us stop to see some horses and again to get some ice cream. 

 Now, I was expecting giant horses to be in Iceland because all I could think was that the Vikings used horses to get around and whatever.  I was wrong.  Far from a Clydesdale were these guys.  But they were cute and really soft with their thick fur.  These ones were clearly very used to people and being fed by people, so they were nice, if not a little greedy.

We got homemade ice cream from a farm, so it was really good.  Mine was chocolate with candy pieces in it.  This was also a nice little stop to make before driving back to Reykjavik.

If you read my first Iceland post, you will know that we got lost trying to find the 'white house' that Raegan and Gorbachev met at to end the Cold War.  Well, trusty Ian brought us to it.  He turned a corner and said, "You may know a little something about this house..." and I just started laughing.  This house is located right at the Harbor, probably 20 minutes from where we had breakfast that first morning, not 45 minutes away, which is where we ended up.  Honestly, I was just glad my dad and his friend got to see it.

That night we went to a bar themed after the movie The Big Lebowski, so bowling memorabilia and movie quotes everywhere.

Longest Day Ever | Iceland Nov. 22-26, 2017

This year for Thanksgiving Break, instead of heading home and filling myself with Turkey and mashed potatoes, a group of 12 of us decided to go on vacation.  This included me, one brother, my sister, my parents, a cousin, an aunt, my dad's friend, his wife and two kids, and his daughter's boyfriend.  We decided to go to Reykjavik, Iceland and we'd been planning this trip for about a year now.  It was an amazing experience and I really wanted to share it with all of you!  So the next couple posts of mine are all going to be Iceland related, which will also give me a chance to read and write some more book reviews.  School is way too busy this time of year.

I also used this trip as an excuse to practice with my GoPro Hero 5, but I didn't break it out until the second day of our trip.

We flew out of Logan International Airport in Boston on Wednesday evening and arrived in Iceland at about 6am.  The first issue we faced was that a seven-passenger car does not hold seven passengers and their luggage.  So instead of having two seven-passenger vehicles, we had to get a Ford Focus as well.  This car mostly sat in the driveway during our trip but was necessary for getting from and to the airport.  The airport is 45 minutes or so away from Rejkavik so after landing and organizing ourselves we decided to head that way and find something for breakfast.

After driving around for a little with no success, my dad finally pulled into an open auto-body place and asked somewhere where a good place to eat was.  That was when we learned that most things in Iceland don't open until at least 8am and even more not until 10am.  Our first culture shock.  The man was nice enough to have our three cars follow him to a bakery that he knew opened at 8am.  We ate pastries and hung out for a couple hours, waiting for the sun to rise (around 10:30am) and things to open.

So my dad is a HUGE Ronald Reagan fan, and low and behold, the house where Reagan and Gorbachev decided to end the Cold War is in Rejkavik, Iceland.  So we decided to try and find it.  Emphasis on the 'try.'  The GPS was not working very well and we ended up driving back towards the airport.  We called it quits and headed back to the city.

    

Once back in the city, we went to Hallgrímskirkja, which is a Lutheran Parish opened in 1986.  It is the tallest church in Iceland and you can take an elevator up 8 stories to look out of the clock faces you can see in the photo.  You can then go up another flight of stairs and look out those arched windows.  Those don't have screens or glass or anything, so it was very cold and wicked windy.

After the church, we grabbed some lunch and then headed to our Airbnb early to see if we could at least drop our stuff off.  Thankfully the house was ready for us and we ended up lounging around for a couple hours before getting dinner. 

Wednesday and Thursday were combined to be probably one of the longest days of my life because I did not sleep on the plane so I was awake for about 30 hours I think.  However, the day was also so exciting that it didn't seem to matter.

And this was only day 1...