Happy Halloween from Reykjavik

Happy Halloween everyone! Our time in Reykjavik is coming to an end. We have only been here for two days and yet it seems so much longer.  I think that is common in traveling, I wouldn’t know. But we have worked hard to fit in as much as we can in such a short period it seems impossible that it’s only been 52 hours. 

I had a little bit of trouble sleeping last night. I blame it on the fact that my body is utterly out of wack from all this time changing mixed with the fact that I’m in a strange bed, in a strange country. We have a nice room and a nice bed and all, but it just a little unnerving being so far from home, and I think it will take me a couple of days to get used to it.

we woke up pretty respectably early in my opinion. We were dressed and downstairs for breakfast by 9am. We are still clearly the only Americans here and I pointed out how you can tellthe difference in people’s nationalities by what they grab for breakfast. We went right for toast, cereal and coffee.  Others are grabbing cold cuts or exotic cheeses and just fruit and vegetables.  But one thing links us all, the need for coffee.

afterward we set out to explore the city by daylight. It could not have been a more beautiful day. I know I talked a lot about how Indy Iceland is yesterday, but I don’t know what happened today. Maybe she blew herself out. It was a pristine blue sky with a nip in the air. We wandered around and gaga’ed at how beautiful this city is.  My husband has a much greater appreciation for Scandinavian archetecture then I do, but I still thought this city was beautiful. The colors, the quaintness. All of it.

we went down to the harbor that we ate at last night to see it. Lit up and it was one of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. The water was like glass it was so still and icy blue, and across the water are these huge snow capped mountains. For those who have seen some of the pictures we have been taking it is not a green screen, it is not a photographic filter, it is Iceland in all it’s glory.

from there we went up the hill to the cathedral we briefly passed on our first day. It is gorgeous.  The mix of Scandinavian simplicity mixed with catholic gothic architecture is stunning.  I have no idea how old the church is, it looks brand new it’s been kept so well.

we wandered the shopping district pretty quickly to get home in time to catch ur bus out to the blue lagoon.  Now the blue lagoon is probably the most touristy thing to do in Iceland. In all fairness everything we have done since we’ve been here has been really touristy, but that can not take away from how beautiful it is.  The lagoon is about halfway between the airport and Reykjavik, so many stop off at the hot springs before they even make it to the city (there’s suitcase storage and everything)

the drive out was fascinating, it is a thousand year old lava field you drive through with nothing around you for miles. It feels like a vast, blacked desert which I find odd because I knew just how cold it was out there. You show up and the place is like a well oiled machine. You get electronic bracelets to wear that serve as the electronic key to your locker as well as charge card for while you’re there. 

you have full rein of this enormous natural pool. I’d love to tell you how hot the water was but everything was in Celsius so I paid practically no attention. I do know that there were spots where we had to pass real quick because it was so hot, but for the most part it was just utterly relaxing. There are these pots all around that are filled witht he must from the surrounding areas to do jus masks as we’ll (which we obviously did) and otherwise we just let ourselves cook for a bit as we were able to cool off simply by standing up from time to time. 

Super worth it. We would have felt pretty silly if we had come to Iceland and not hit the springs. 

We got back with enough time to rest a bit before heading off to dinner. We went down to a lively area near the harbor and ate at a place called the laundromat. Observation for the day. We have no idea what identifies Icelandic culture. That is probably an overstatement, but we wanted to find some real Icelandic food while we were here, and I think we kind of achieved that, but at the same time everything looks like an English pub, or a French bistro, italian restaurant, or American bad and grill. 

I think this is mostly because in two days we have gotten a real taste of the tourist epicenter of a country that has tourism account for 26% of it GDP. It’s felt more like a cultural melting pot than anything else. I like it because it is reeeeally not American, but I have much more to experience here I can tell.  The husband and I have been taliking about how much our families would LOVE is here if we came in the summer rented a car and a house. Mmmm. The future

We are back to our room pretty early tonight. We have a flight at 8am and the bus to the airport picks us up at 5. So I don’t think my body clock is going to feel much better tomorrow. But I will update later from our next location…..

The start of a great adventure

I haven’t been updating much I realize, and I certainly have plenty to catch up on.  For starters I just got married. yes ladies and gentlemen you will never more hear me talk about the bf or the fiancé. From now on he shall be known as the husband.

i could go on for days about marrying him, what the wedding planning experience was like, what the wedding was like (perfect) but I’m not going to yet because I am on a grand and glorious adventure.  My honeymoon.

the husband and I have always wanted to travel.  We bother consider ourselves to be pretty open minded individuals with a fairly good grasp on the world and it’s cultures (I married a man obsessed with house hunter international) but the fact remains that we have never really had and opportunity to travel. Usually when we have time off ortehe money to go anywhere we spend that time traveling home and to our families. Not complaining, we love our families and want to spend as much time with them as we possibly can. But by consequence have never had a chance to venture off on our own.

all that changed just over 24 hours ago when we embarked on our honeymoon.  Now we are not just doing a regular honeymoon, we are going on a 3 week long tour of europe! 

as part of our adventure we both wanted to journal our adventure. The husband bought a brand new journal to write in and I thought this would be a perfect chance to recommit to a little online wordpress I had abandoned. 

So our first stop? Reykjavik. We decided to fly Iceland air over to Europe because it was super cost effective, especially if you had a lay over in the island nations capital. We have heard from serval people only great things about Iceland and it seemed a natural first stop on our journey.

we took off from JFK last night at about 9pm.  It’s just over 5 hours from new york lot Reykjavik. The thing though is that the airport is actually about an hour our tide of the city, but the country is perfectly set up to accommodate all the tourist flooding in.  We landed at 645 Iceland time (for anyone doing the math, that is 245 New York time, so we were out of it) caught our fly bus and headed into the city. 

This is the northern most point that I have ever been, and as we are approaching the winter months that means that there is not the most sunlight here.  It rises around 9am and sets soon after 5. So our bus into town was through pitch darkness.  A little sad all things considered as we were so excited to see this new world we had landed in.  

We came into the Reykjavik bus terminal, which we knew was not far from the guesthouse we were going to be staying in, but at 8 am (4am) in the pitch darkness of a new country with signs that have words with far too many letters in them we we’re not feeling the most confident. 

Fun fact: my husband has impeccable navigation skills.  He seems to be able to tell which direction he is going even if he has never been to that place/country before. And once he’s walked around a bit, can remember places so quickly! So with his strong skills got us to our guest house without any real effort. 

The house is quite lovely. W have never stayed in such a place before so it’s a fun little adventure for us.  Not entirely sure how many people are staying here, but we have at least run into 8 in addition to ourselves.  We appear to be the only Americans.  W ate a quick breakfast and then headed upstairs to our room to get a few hours of sleep. 

We got up around 11 (which was one of the hardest things I have ever done, I don’t recall ever feeling that tired) and went outside. Here’s a quick spoiler alert ladies and gentlemen, Iceland is really cold! And it’s not just that it’s cold, it is windy! We learned today that it is a volcanic island so has never been in contact with any mainland. By consequence there are practically no native wild animals and almost no trees on the island. This amounts to so much wind!

we came back to wait for our bus to take us on the Golden Circle tour. One of the other residents from our house was going to join us so we had a good chance to chat real quickly about backgrounds and what had brought us to Iceland. It appears to be a great retreat for citizens of the UK (like our new friend) as it is only a two hour flight from most of their major airports.  This chap had just last minute decided he needed to get out of the UK and Iceland was the place he decided to go.

our tour was fantastic. The driver conducted the whole thing and it wads filled with fun history and stories relating to the history of the country, traditions of the people, and the geologic significance of all the cites we were going to.

we first stopped at the fault that marks the separation between the European and American tetonic plates. As a volcanic island Iceland grew between the two and has a fault down its center that marks where the plates are pulling it slowly apart.  Our driver liked to say that we were therefore going to drive from America to europe.

the scenery of the countryside was absolutely breath taking.  Don’t call me a nerd but it was so like lord of the rings (as in the New Zealand settings) the mountains are gorgeous, the hills and terrain look completely untouched.  It feels like stepping back in time.  Our tour guide pointed out the areas that served as the farms for the original Viking settlers and the farm land remains untouched as is was when they inhabited it.

from there we went to some natural hot springs that feature a particularly frisky geyser. I’m not gonna lie we were a tad in appropriately dressed for the setting.  As I said, Iceland is cold.  We tried to snap as many pictures and make as many memories as we could in a very short time, then had to get some soup and coffee to warm ourselves up (and wake up).

the final stop was a waterfall deep in the wilderness that was one of the most breathtaking things I have ever seen.  And no words can convey how windy and cold it was.  There was a path as well as stairs we had to descend to get to the most picturesque spots and we were joking that we could barely walk forward it was blowing so hard, but we also kept yelling “totally worth it!” Cause it was. I can’t say much more than it was just gorgeous, out pictures might lead a bit to be desired because we were shaking from wind and chill so violently.

the trip back to Reykjavik took place during the twilight hours, and we passed through some of the mountain plateaus where it was snowing pretty violently. The hubs and I were both a little nervous but our tour guide honestly seemed unfazed and continued to tell us about Icelandic trolls as he trudged forward.

we did a mini venture into town tonight, but are really leaving a bit more of that for tomorrow when the sun comes up.  For now, we need a good nights sleep to get us in the right time zone!

day 2 of the adventure comes tomorrow 🙂