Iceland!

Greetings! We made it back safely as did Alicia’s luggage - eight days later. So now that all members of the adventure are present and accounted I think I’m ready to share the pictures and write about it some. I’m going to shoot for one leg of the trip each day, but we’ll see. So without further ado, let’s talk about Iceland!

Even after travelling to Alaska last summer and even though Alaska and Iceland are at the same latitude, Iceland is other worldly. It’s windswept, rugged, and sparse, with lava fields covered in lichen and moss, powerful waterfalls, geysers, snowcapped mountains, sheer cliffs, black pebbled beaches, and drizzle or the threat of drizzle always close by. And in June, the sun doesn’t set.

After a connecting flight to Boston, Alicia and I found our seats on the Icelandair plane and a few minutes later our rowmate arrived, a gay African American male with an 18 month old baby. The only reason I point that out was because that would be a most unusual sight for Iceland. A flight attendant saw the baby situation and realizing we probably didn’t want sit next to possibly screaming and moving baby for 4 hours, moved us to the row by the door where we had actual legroom and no babies. Plus, that guy now had the whole row to himself and the child. Another cool feature of the Icelandair flight was the “northern lights” lights above the overhead bin. It created an eerie atmosphere. Upon a  The airport was practically empty, so we were able to quickly pass through immigration, grab our packs, buy a SIM card, exchange dollars for Krona and find the rental car agent. We were soon the keys to a Volkswagen Up and headed towards Reykjavik some 45 minutes away.

The airport was in Keflavik, a town on the newest part of Iceland, which is one of the newest pieces of land on earth. Iceland was only formed 24 million years ago. The area near Keflavik was flat, with lava fields dominating the area. The lichen and moss were working to erode the lava into dirt so that other plants could grow. Even at one in the morning, it was barely dark and only as dark as it was because of the cloud cover. It gets as dark there as it is in NC around 8:30pm in the summer. Alicia was a little worried about driving in Iceland, but with a population of 330,000 and constant light, driving was easy. I can’t drive stick, which is all they drive in Europe. Apparently, my older sister was so horrible at it that after only one lesson my dad sold his Volkswagen Jetta for an automatic, so I never had access to a stick.

We arrived at the Hotel Gardur, which is a dorm at the University of Iceland during the school year and serves as a hostel during the summer. After settling in, we went to sleep, woke up at 9am for a pretty good breakfast, then went back to sleep for another 3 hours. When we arose the second time we noticed a bunch of families crossing over to a field full of inflatables. June 17th is Iceland’s Independence or National Day. The downtown area was crowded with many Icelanders enjoying free concerts, classic car shows, marching bands, and balloons and candy pacifiers for the kids. It was pretty neat getting to celebrate another country’s independence day and noting the similarities and differences between the way we celebrate. It was a dreary day, with temperatures never really getting above 50F. Iceland is known for its sweaters and one would have felt wonderful on that day. It felt wrong that it wasn’t 95 degrees and people weren’t grilling or swimming. We dined on Reindeer burgers and Icelandic beer for lunch before walking towards Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavic’s iconic church and center point of the city’s skyline. We rode an elevator to the top for some commanding views of the multicolored roofs, with the Atlantic Ocean off in the distance. Following that we walked over to the Phallological Museum, which has collected and placed in jars, the penises of the native species to Iceland, as well as some other penis art. It was such a weird museum that you couldn’t pass it up. For dinner we dined at an Icelandic/French bistro before shivering back to the hotel.

This was a difficult trip to pack for because of the temperature and weather changes. Each stop on the trip was a little warmer than the last. In Iceland the average temperature, even when sunny, never got above 55F. Scotland averaged about 60F or so, Amsterdam was probably in the low 80s, with Paris being in the 90s - it even hit over 100 one day with the locals even openly complaining about the heat. Barcelona and the coast were a little more comfortable than Paris because of the ocean breeze while Madrid baked at over 100 degrees. We laughed at everyone complaining about the heat in NC while we were in Iceland, but we got our comeuppance by the end of the trip.

Day  2 in Iceland was a ride along the Golden Circle, one the “must dos” on everyone’s list. First up was Thingvellir National Park, a site of historical and geological significance. Historically, this area was the site of the world’s first Parliament, which first met in the 900s AD. Vikings would meet in this area once a year while the Rule Makers made rules. This site is also where the North American tectonic plate is separating from the European plate. You walk through split, which is a 20 foot deep, twenty feet wide “canyon” for lack of better words that gets slightly bigger each year. The landscape offered sweeping views of Iceland’s largest lake, marshland and the open space in between.

Next up was the Geyser Basin, which is very reminiscent of Yellowstone, just not quite as big or mindblowing. The highlight is Strokkur, which erupts every 8 minutes. It initially forms a bubble of water that then explodes skyward about 30 feet in the air. Then you wait another 8 minutes and it does it all over again. The original Geyser, the one in which other geyers get their name was supposedly bigger that Strokkur, but after an earthquake in the 1970s, no longer erupts.

The final stop on the Golden Circle tour was Gulfoss, an incredibly powerful waterfall. Foss means waterfall. Mist rose from the falls and on sunny days, creates numerous rainbows over the falls. It was still mostly cloudy by the time we arrived but would eventually clear up after we left and headed towards Hella.

Hella is a small town and home to Nonni, a man in his 60s who ran a guesthouse. It seems like his children became adults and moved out and his wife passed away, so instead of living alone in a 5 bedroom house, he converted into a guesthouse. For dinner we went to the local restaurant and passed up the chance to eat horse. We walked along the river before settling in for the night. Nonni cooked an amazing breakfast (Iceland definitely had the best free breakfasts on the trip) and helped create an itinerary for the day after hearing of our original plans (which would have been an insane amount of driving to try to accomplish in one day). We chatted with a family from Finland who were just about done with their journey around the Ring Road and then set out to see some waterfalls. We saw three amazing waterfalls. The second you could walk behind, but it was way too cold for that and the final one you could climb stairs to the top and watch the water pour over the cliff, which we did. We then headed towards the town of Vik to see the black pebbled beaches, sea cliffs, sea arches, and sea rocks. At Vik we ate an Icelandic hotdog, which was another “must do” before heading back west towards Keflavic.

On the way back the brake light came on and we came close to running out of gas, but we made it to Grindavik just in time. In Keflavik we checked into our cabin, changed a flat tire, and ate some pretty good Thai food. The next day we exchanged our rental car because the brakes were making an awful screeching noise and headed to the Blue Lagoon (probably the “must do” of Iceland). The Blue Lagoon is a spa and hot water relaxing area, nestled amongst the lava. The water is runoff from the nearby Geothermal Plant and is bright blue in color. In the lagoon there is silica which helps clean your skin. We relaxed in the water for a few hours before taking an amazing nap in the crazy beach chair that leans really far, almost like a dentist’s chair, but you were still in a seated position. We swam a little more before showering off and moving on. The Blue Lagoon is a little pricy for what it is, but since all the pools were closed in Reykjavic the day we were there for National Day, this was our only opportunity to swim in Iceland, something that also highly recommended. We then headed towards the Viking World museum, where Alicia and I could dress like vikings and board a viking ship built in 2000 and sailed to NYC to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of Leif Erikson sailing to North America. For dinner we found a great seafood restaurant right on the water. We ate Minke Whale, which was cooked and tasted like a rare steak. It was probably the most delicious thing I ate on the entire trip. Whaling is banned worldwide, but Iceland, Norway, and Japan choose to ignore the ban. The Minke Whale is not endangered.

The sun was shining at full force by this time and we would awaken to sunshine, something we hadn’t experienced yet. Of course this was the day we were flying to Scotland. The quiet airport we arrived in at midnight was now a madhouse at 7am on a Sunday. It seemed like every flight left around 9AM on Sunday. Two hours later, we would land in Glasgow!