Day 7
Today we got up and went back down to Pike Place Market. We
didn’t get our fill yesterday and had to spend a couple more hours exploring.
We actually ended up getting some great local smoked salmon and homemade garlic
jelly along with some dried fruit and nuts to bring with us to Iceland. We will
be going on a couple of day trips so this will make a perfect picnic. I also
found some perfect hand knitted woolen mittens to put over my gloves. Now that
I am actually using my gloves I realize that I need more warmth! (It is hard to
tell when winter clothes shopping in San Diego!)
We got to the airport in the early afternoon and parted ways
with Cheryl. If you see her, give her a big hug because she got stuck in San
Francisco for a looooong time! By long time I mean, mom and I flew all the way
to Iceland and explored Reykjavik for a few hours before she made it back to
San Diego. How horrible!!!
Well, we missed the Tardis in Portland but at least she got
a picture with Dr. Who before we left!
Our flight, on the other hand, was painless! We met a few people who purchased the same package we did so we compared notes on our plans and were just basically giddy together – going to Iceland! I tried to force myself to sleep on the plane even though it was only 3:30. I didn’t sleep much but I rested my eyes pretty well in preparation for the next day!
Day 8
We arrived to Iceland at 7:00am. Ready to hit the ground running! We checked into our hotel and took a shower and then we were out the door. The secret to getting over jet lag is not to stop moving! Before we left the hotel, we grabbed some breakfast in the communal room. We met a woman who went out on a Northern Lights tour the night before and got a spectacular show. She was raving about the breathtaking beauty of it all! I couldn’t help but start to get excited even though I have been telling myself that seeing the Northern Lights is just icing on the cake and it probably won’t happen and not to get my hopes up. I couldn’t help it though. The woman said that the night started at a 3 and ended up at a 7! (The lights are graded on a scale of 1-10 and 3 is a good show only getting better from there. I have been watching the forecast since Christmas and have only seen it hit 4-5 a handful of times) Last night was a 7?!? Tonight was forecasted to be a 3 and the skies were clear of clouds so I was sure we were going to hit the jackpot!
Completely pumped, we
headed out for our day in Reykjavik. We started with the Hallgrímskirkja, which is
a huge Lutheran church, and if you climb to the top you can see all of
Reykjavik. It was the perfect day. Clear skies and warm-ish (for Iceland)
weather. I could not stop taking pictures!
We then walked along the water front and saw the Harpa Concert Hall and the famous Reykjavik sculpture, the Solfar Sun Voyager.
We got some lunch at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which is a hotdog stand
in the middle of the city that Iceland is famous for. The hotdog has different
ground meats in it, lamb, I think, and is served with fried onions and mustard
and a special sauce. It looks pretty gross but I liked it. My mom not so much! (like the little hot dog holder?)
Our hotel is on the main
shopping street so we walked through all the shops. They sell tons of great
woolen items – hats, sweaters, mittens, etc. It’s too bad I live in San Diego
where I could never where them! Oh well, fewer things to buy. Reykjavik is a really tiny city (the
population of Iceland is about 320,000 and two-thirds live in Reykjavik) so we
walked the city pretty thoroughly in a few hours. We went back to our hotel to
grab a quick nap and try to recover a bit from our flight.
When we got up we headed out to dinner. My friend, Jen, was here three weeks ago and she sent me some restaurant recommendations so that has been great! We went to a restaurant called 3 Frakkar and decided to enjoy some of the local cuisine. Mom had whale steak and I had horse steak. The horse was really good – like really flavorful beef. The whale… not so much. Could have just been the texture. It was served very rare and I found the flavor pretty strong. We were going to try puffin as well but it is not in season right now. I normally don’t post pictures of my food but I normally don’t eat like this either so here you go:
Horse:
After dinner we boarded
the boat to go on a three hour tour to see the Northern Lights. I was already
worried because the earlier forecast of 3 dropped down to 1. Nonetheless, we had to try. We got all
bundled up in everything we brought and then put on jumpsuits over it all. Like
the look? Ha ha…
All of these clothes were great. We were on top of the boat for hours and stayed toasty warm. As the boat sailed out into the dark waters, the guide shared all about the science behind the lights and then recited Icelandic poetry and sang Icelandic songs about the lights, trying to seduce them into coming out. It was the equivalent of a rain dance and given the fact that we were all just staring into the sky waiting, it was quite entertaining… for the first hour… after that, I started to get over it. The guide kept telling us to look over there because there is a faint green shadow and if we can squint really hard we might be able to see something. He kept telling us not to lose hope, they could still show up. I’m sorry buddy, there are not dancing for us tonight. By that point, I was just ready to go to sleep. The red eye flight had caught up with me and I was tired and grumpy that we missed the best Northern Lights show by one day and was just over it. Oh well… no lights tonight.
Day 9
Today we took the Golden Circle Tour. It covers a few main attractions in Iceland - The Thingvellir National Park, Gullfoss waterfall, Geysir hot spring & Haukadalur thermal area, Hveragerdir earthquake town, and the waterfall Faxi.Our guide, Javier, picked us up. He is from Spain and moved to Iceland to study geology 16 years ago, fell in love with the country and stayed. It was great to have a geologist as a guide; we learned tons of interesting information about this crazy country. Iceland is filled with volcanos and glaciers, and sits on the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia. We went to two different waterfalls – Faxi and Gullfross.
It really isn’t that cold out right now but there is still tons of ice.
Then we went to see
Geysir, which is the oldest known geyser and is where the name came from. It
explodes every 5 minutes or so which is pretty awesome!
Tonight we went to a restaurant called Sjavargrillid,
another recommendation from Jen. Once we got seated we discovered that they had
a guest chef in for the weekend and there was only one menu option tonight: a four-course
meal. It looked pretty amazing so we decided to splurge! Again, more pictures
of food, but seriously it was great!
Course 1 – some kind of sushi
Course 2 – fried fish and lobster tails
Course 3 – lamb and lamb heart (don’t know which was which
but both were amazing!)
Course 4 – hazelnut cake, skyre, and blood oranges
Everything was delicious!
Oh, walking back to the hotel, and around the city for that
matter is crazy! I have never felt like such a tourist. I am looking at a map
and trying to pronounce the street names and sounding so ridiculous. If I need
directions I end up just point at the map and grunting. I feel like a stupid American. But seriously, Icelandic is crazy! Can you
pronounce any of these streets?
Aðalstræti
Ægisgata
Æsuborgir
Bjarnarstígur
Bókhlöðustígur
Drafnarstígur
lyðrugrandi
Skólavörðustígur
And my internet is defaulting to Icelandic now that I am
here and I have to keep translating pages back to English to read them! So crazy!
I do have to say though, that the Icelandic people are
incredibly nice! Every person I have spoken to have bent over backwards to be
helpful. It is such a friendly culture. I am really enjoying the people.
Anyway, we decided to go back to the hotel and turn in early because we were still fairly tired today from our flight. Of course, mom is sleeping and I am blogging so I don’t know how effective that plan will be. Another big day tomorrow so I will call it a night!
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