Highlights of Iceland

There's so much I could write, and so many funny/interesting stories, but I'm not sure anyone has that long of attention span. If you've seen the photo set, then you've already read about some of our adventures. Here are a few more highlights of the trip:

- There was an incredible difference between the domestic terminals at JFK and the international ones. Holy cow. As soon as we entered the international terminal for Iceland, I felt immediately underdressed. Everything was just so beautiful and modern and clean.

- The Icelandair flight attendants are absolutely gorgeous. No exceptions. Seriously. Do they intentionally hire models?

A quick pic before I took the plunge. It was a dreary morning, but the water was niiiiiice.

- The Blue Lagoon was awesome. Here's a tip, though. Go first thing in the morning. We had the place to ourselves with about 4 other people. We got there at 7:30am. When we left around 11:30, there were tour buses parked outside and a line of people out the door waiting to get in. They had to open up the top level of locker rooms to accomodate everyone. I don't think I would have enjoyed it with that many people around in the water.

Svartifoss

- There are waterfalls EVERYWHERE. By the end of the trip, we'd casually look out the window and sigh, "there goes ANOTHER waterfall."

Click here to see the story behind this photo. Only me.

- All of our farmstay hosts were wonderful. Oddly enough, all of the guesthouse assistants were non-Icelanders. It's an opportunity for students from other countries to visit Iceland for the summer. We met girls from Norway, Finland, Sweden, and France.

- Icelandic is a breathy language. Our first host, Asrun, was trying to teach us to speak Icelandic. We couldn't pronounce them the right away until she told us to breathe some of the words, to say them as we were exhaling air. It makes the language sound so sexy.

- We met a few Americans there, and oddly enough we kept running into them because they were on the same path around the island as we were.

Official Icelandic food.

- We had a few problems finding things open in the evenings. We'd be hiking and not paying attention to time when we realized it was 10pm or so. It was still light out, so we didn't expect it, but everything was closed. We were able to persuade one cafe owner to let us get sandwiches before she locked up. Otherwise, we ended up having late dinners at the gas stations.

- The sun shone the entire time we were in the Eastern Fjords. I'd have loved to have stayed there longer.

- Reindeer burgers aren't that bad. Bill liked them, and I thought they were okay. They tasted like beef, but with lots of pepper.

- Make sure you fill up on gas before leaving Egillstadir and heading to Lake Myvatn. Just saying. There's nothing in between.

Hold your nose.

- Bring a head net to Lake Myvatn. Also, don't inhale too much of the sulfur gas. You'll regret it for days.

- It's very very difficult to find pay phones in Iceland. We needed to call in to our next farmhouse each morning, and we always had so much trouble finding a phone to use.

"Twinke twinkle little star..."

- Singing really does draw seals to you. We saw some pretty far out from the bay one night, but Bill sang "Twinkle Twinkle" and they actually came close to check us out. Not that close, but enough for us to make out their little faces.

Specials of the day at Prikid.

- I'd heard great reviews beforehand about Cafe Prikid in Reykjavik, and everyone was right. The food was awesome and relatively cheap.

- As is the case whenever we hike, we'd take a long hike down to a site, only to realize there was a road that led directly there. Oh well. We worked for our scenery!

- Nightlife really does begin at 1am in Reykjavik at the earliest, and no sooner. We finally went out at 12:30am on Friday night (Saturday morning), and the streets were completely empty. Things picked up around 1am and took off by 3am. All of the clubs were awesome, and the people are cool and beautiful. Bill and I danced a little at Kaffi Barinn, but mostly sat back and watched everyone. None of the clubs had a cover charge. I got hit on by a guy in a chicken suit, so that was my highlight of the night. Oh, and again, we were underdressed. We had packed mostly hiking clothes, so we weren't prepared enough for nightlife fashion. Everyone was drunk before they even hit the bars. Alcohol is expensive, so we'd read that people drink before they go out. It was so true. Even when we went out early, we already saw some guys stumbling in the streets, completely drunk.

The relationship just didn't work out.

- Horses hate me and I'm not so fond of them either. My toe is still hurting, Lisa! (Lisa was my horse).

- EVERY child was completely adorable. They were all dressed so adorably. If things hadn't been so expensive, I'd have bought tons of clothes for the girls. All the little girls in Reykjavik wore patterned tights with dresses and cute little knit hats and sweaters.

- We visited a mall in Reykjavik called Kringlan. The place was awesome, and it also had a grocery store inside. We walked around the store looking at various food items. At one point, we came around a corner and saw an entire refrigerated room up ahead. Instead of having refrigerated display cases, there's a whole room devoted to milk and other items that need to be cold. Bill suddenly said, "Wow, a refrigerated room!" A man standing near us literally stopped, turned to stare at us and gave us a puzzled look, as if to say "duh!" I shrugged and smiled. He huffed and walked away. It might not be so unique to other places, but it was new to us.

- Iceland makes two kinds of wine - moss wine and berry wine. On the suggestion of the store employee, we chose the berry wine. We haven't opened it yet, but I'll definitely write a review when we try it.

I'll just have to go back to get more.

- I fell in love with not only the Icelandic landscape and people, but also the skyr. I'm still having withdrawals.