Iceland Day 1

Not in a million years that I would be vacationing to Iceland. I heard about Iceland when I went to Windsor with Lauren and her neighbor in September, Anne, who told us that Iceland was the greatest place that she went. She was lucky enough to see the Northern Light. When Lauren told me that she wanted to go to Iceland for the last hurray trip before heading back to the US, I jumped on it. Why not? It would be cool to go and while I had somebody to go with.

We flew to Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland on Wednesday night and landed just before midnight. It was a 3 hour flight from London. We took an elevator down to pick up our luggage and saw the biggest duty free area, complete with shopping carts just like a supermarket. Since alcohol was so expensive, people loaded up at the airport before going to the city. Funny. I had never seen shopping carts at the airport. We took Flybus to go to the hotel, and we were the last few people that were dropped off at our hotel. By the time we got to our room, it was 1.30AM. The room was much smaller than a dorm room. It pretty much fit two twin size beds, a small dresser and a night stand in between the beds.

I slept really well that night, and woke up a few minutes before the alarm went off. We had to be ready by 8.30AM. Breakfast was included with the stay. I love getting free hot drinks in the morning. The food selection was also decent, cereal, yogurt, peanut butter, different kinds of bread, lunch meat (very common for breakfast in Europe) and cheese. I made a reservation with Iceland Horizon for the Golden Circle Tour. Every tour company in Iceland had Golden Circle route. The reason I went with Iceland Horizon because of the great reviews in Trip Advisor and they were a small tour. We rode on a mini van instead of a coach or big bus. That means less time loading and unloading people, less time queuing for rest rooms, a bit more flexible. This decision definitely paid off, which I will explain later.

I was a bit nervous because I didn't confirm with them again a day before the tour. I really hoped they remembered and didn't miss picking us up. After 10 minutes of waiting, a maroon van pulled over and I saw Iceland Horizon sign on the side. David was our tour guide and driver. We were the last pick up and there were already 4 other people in the van. Small group. Lauren and I got to know these guys. Mish, Mike, Denise and Anne, the last two are Aussies that live and work near London .

The first destination was Faxafoss waterfall. I don't remember how long was the drive from Reykjavik to this place, probably a couple of hours. By the way, around this time the sunrise was around 10AM and the sunset was around 5.30PM. It was weird to see '9AM rush hours' when it was still in a complete dark.

 We didn't stay long here. There was one look out area that had a picnic table. after taking some pictures, we got back on the van and drove away. David was really great. He was a Brit that moved to Iceland a long time ago. While driving, he told us the culture, history, economy, politics of Iceland. I had no idea that Iceland only had 325K people. Before getting to the next destination, he pulled over on the side of the road to pet some horses. They were not wild. Actually none of the Iceland horses were wild. They were owned by farmers. They were not riding horses because when we came to pet them, we came to us and were so curious. Riding horses were so used to people and they wouldn't approach you. David warned us that they would try to eat our clothes. They sure did. I asked him why, he said to see if we were organic.

They're a bit like ponies, but bigger. They were so pretty and tame. This is the advantage of being in a small tour. If we were on a bus, there was no way the driver could pull over.

The next stop was Gullfoss waterfall. I took tons of pictures. It was very cool because half of it was frozen. If you google this waterfall and see the pictures that are taken in the summer, it looks like a complete different waterfall because of the lush vegetation surrounding the waterfall. To me, it just looked like a regular waterfall. The winter version is different. You don't see this anywhere else in the world.

I loved how blue the water was. The weather was pretty cold and windy. This place also served as our lunch stop. I had Iceland soup, which was lamb, carrots, cabbage and potatoes. It really reminds me of home because the carrot, cabbage and potato soup was like what we ate in Indonesia. The only difference was it was made with chicken, not lamb. If you go to KFC, they have this soup too, Indonesian staple.

The next stop is Geyser.  I don't think it has a name, just the Great Geyser. There are only 100 geysers in the world. Old Faithful in Yellow Stone is one of them.

It popped every 5 minutes. You can get wet if you stand too close. The surrounding areas were pretty also. I found tiny pools with different colors.

Icelandic is very difficult to learn, by the way. It took David 5 years to become fluent. They had more sounds and letters than English. The language was one of the oldest Europe language along with Gaelic and had some Latin influence. The volcano that erupted in 2010 named Eyjafjallajökul. US Military called it E15 for short because it starts with E and there are 15 letters in the word. Genious. One of the locals said it sounds like "I forget my yogurt" with Icelandic accent of course.

We also went to Thingvellir National Park, this place was not huge but pretty historic. It was the home of the Viking Parliament back in the days. There was an earth crack, not sure what the geology term is, that was basically where the Eurasia and America continents split. The pictures didn't do justice. It was a lot prettier with bare eyes.

The surrounding areas and the stone wall were pretty cool too.

Lauren, Anne and Denise

We got back to the hotel around 5PM. It was a long but awesome day. Unfortunately, our Northern Light tour was canceled because of the weather. It started snowing hard after we left the National park. Reykjavik was covered by thick snow when we got back. we went to dinner at  Hamborgarafabrikkan aka Hamburger Factory. Icelandic is very protective of their language, so when there is a new word, the scholars come up with an Icelandic word for it. It was pretty good. I just had a burger with a side salad. surprisingly unlike US or UK, you can substitute the fries for salad at no charge. Iceland has a lot of green houses, so they don't need to import all veggies and fruit. Since the country has a lot of volcanoes, this translates to cheap energy.

If you're a history buff, you may know that in 1986, Iceland hosted a summit in Reykjavik between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. This meeting basically ended the cold war. After the meeting, they wined and dined Icelandic Style. The dish that they ate now became popular and is on many restaurants in Iceland.