The Land of Ice

In May we went to Iceland. It was such an incredible experience and I would urge everyone, EVERYONE, to go to Iceland. While I was cold 99% of the time, I loved every minute of it. We had so much fun would go back in a heartbeat. We flew into Keflavik and landed about 12:30am. It was still so light outside that it did not feel late at all. We rented our Kia Sportage and drove to Reykjavik where we stayed at a great apartment we got off of www.airbnb.com.

Our First morning we just explored and walked around Reykjavik. We saw the Hallgrimskirkja church, ate at the Vitabar, and then went to the Blue Lagoon.

We then went to see the continental divide between the North American and the Eurasian Continents. These tectonic plates are drifting apart at about an inch per year.

After this we ate at the "Noodle Station", but we were all still hungry so we decided to track down the famous Hot Dog stand "Baejarins Beztu". This proved harder than anticipated. After asking 6 people for directions we finally found it... hidden behind a construction wall. Now, these hot dogs were no ordinary hot dogs. They are an Icelandic novelty, the most famous "restaurant" in Reykjavik, actually. I don't quite know how to explain them, but they were delicious! We still were hungry, however, so we decided to buy a dessert waffle from a stand, then some gelato from an ice cream shop, and then.... some apple crisp and New York cheesecake from the "Babalu" restaurant. Yes, that's right. We ate 2 dinners and 4 desserts. But they were all wonderful.

We also ended the night looking at this beautiful scene, which was taken at 10:00 pm.

On the second day we took a walking tour of Reykjavik. Audur was our guide and she has a great website, www.iheartreykjavik.net that provides really great tourist information for Iceland. Our first stop was the Hallgrimskirkja church followed by the home of the famous Icelandic sculptor Einar Jonsson. Behind his home is a sculpture garden with replicas of his work. It was really interesting!

Reykjavik is famous for their "wall art". Homeowners commission artists to paint on the sides of their houses!

and their colorful houses

Below is the Harpa, or the opera house

Below is the Prime Ministers house. There is no security in front! Isn't that crazy. Iceland is known for their low crime rates.

This jail, on one of the main streets, sees mostly drug use. Audur told us a story of when she witnessed the police car pull up and let the man out without handcuffs. The warden then proceeded to call the man by his first name and welcomed him in as he shook his hand.

Afterwards we went to Thingvellir National Park. The weather was frigid! But it was still beautiful and we saw some amazing waterfalls.

Below is the Gulfoss waterfall. It is AMAZING!

The next day we took our excursions down south. We started off by stopping at the Keldur Houses, or the grass houses of Keldur.

Iceland is SO green in the south and there are waterfalls everywhere. We were driving down the freeway on our way to Vik when we passed right by this beauty.

We then stopped at the base of a volcano to find a hidden hot water spring. It was man made but the water flows naturally from a hot spring. It was really beautiful but... the water was NOT hot. In fact, it was cold. It was also cold outside so I stayed in for about 5 minutes then hopped right back out.

This next waterfall was one of my favorites because it was so majestic. You could hear it from the free way and you had to hike a bizillion stairs to get to the top. It was incredible.

This beauty's name is Skogafoss

Our last stop before landing in Vik was finding the WWII American plane that crashed on the black sand beach. The pilot survived and the plane has stayed there every since.

The next day we drove to the Vatnajoekull glacier, which takes up the majority of southeast Iceland. More specifically we went to the Jokulsarlon bay which has amazing floating icebergs.