Now, back home in Saskatchewan when people go away for the break they usually head to warmer climates. I've never been one to do things just like others though, so what did I do? Just the opposite, finding myself enjoying my ski week in none other than, much colder than Italy........Reykjavik, Iceland. Yep! Heading back to a land of snow, slush, extreme winds and needing to ensure one's suitcase wasn't over the weight limit all because of winter snow gear. I never realized how big and bulky ski pants were when trying to fit them into a suitcase.
Fun fact: While on our plane, and yes as cheesy as I found it to be considering it was Valentine's Day, a boy sweetly proposed to a girl while 30,000 ft in the air. Helga, our lovely main stewardess, was pleased as punch. For the rest of us saps, we at least got a Hershey's kiss to celebrate the day. ;)
Yep, that was above my head on the flight. Good ole WOW airlines
Hello, Iceland!
The airport is actually in Keflavik so we had to take a bus into Reykjavik. One of many great things about Iceland and it's tourism is that the companies really work to ensure that things are geared towards ensuring tourists ease of mobility and access while here. Not only that but when we had exited the airport there was no shortage of people willing to help us AND the tall, strapping polite men even took our luggage and stowed it under the bus for us. We weren't in Italy anymore Toto. Thus, a large bus took us from the airport into Reykjavik where we were dispersed onto smaller buses that could manoeuvre easily through the tiny, windy city streets to deposit us right at our hotel doorstep. Nice! So, some time later, we found ourselves in front of Loft Hostel right smack dab in the middle of old downtown Reykjavik. We really couldn't have asked for a more perfect location for our trip. (P.S. This was a GREAT hostel and I'd highly recommend it to anyone going to Reykhjavik - mobility available for ALL people.)
After getting situated in our room, we mosied down Laugervegur Street / Bankerstraeti in search of a place to have supper. Not for lack of places, we arrived at Public House, a British restaurant only to find that all the tables were reserved. Right, it's V-Day. Nevertheless, in true Icelandic spirit the server placed us at a table, with the assurance we could eat and be out by the time the table was reserved for (7pm). No problem! We were ravenous so a couple of sliders and Viking lagers later, I was full, content and ready for bed. (This restaurant was really cool as it was similar to a tapas place where you would order a couple/few different smaller dishes and all that were had at our table were delish!) This was also where, in our usual fashion of me trying to split the bill at our table to know the individual costs, we learned that in Iceland they will split the bill for you. Wow! A novelty we weren't used to anymore. But super thankful to have! At the hostel we rented our towels for the week then proceeded to climb into our ever popular bunk beds and tucked ourselves in for a good night.
On the floor of the airport
Driving to Reykjavik from Keflavik Airport
Bunk beds, once again lol
I'm really getting in tune with my childhood while travelling Europe
Ready to hit the streets
Iceland's time zone isn't the same as Italy's, they are actually behind an hour. And before bed last night, we'd made our usual shower/bathroom schedule, a necessity for 4 women with one bathroom and who are all trying to leave the hostel at the same time. Needless to say, not ALL of us had changed our clocks to reflect this time change, thus B, the first one on the shower list, was up and at it a good hour before she needed to be. LOL. Oh what a start to the day!
Once we were all ready, as per Iceland time on our departure schedule, we embarked on Reykjavik's wet, rainy streets to find breakfast. Coffeed and fed later, our crew headed to a square in the heart of Reykjavik by a statue in "Austurvollur" (Parliament building) where we planned on meeting a guide to take us on a tour of the historic, old city centre.
Our tour guide, Eric, was great! Super knowledgable and humourous, he took us on a cylindrical tour of the vicinity where we saw: the parliament building, museums, an old cemetery location (which has since been relocated), Rocky House area (where rock made houses are covered with corrugated iron to protect it from the elements of weather), statues overlooking the harbour (Ingolfur Arnarson at the Arnarholl park), a high school with the only free parking lot in the city and many unconnected buildings making up its campus, Tjornin - the frozen pond, and finally on to city hall. The tour didn't take us very long, only a couple of hours, and the best part: it was free! :) City Walk Reykjavik
Iceland fun facts learned on the tour:
*Iceland has approximately 332,000 people; 2/3 of who live in Reykjavik and the surrounding area
*Only 35/1000 people are incarcerated in prison
*Iceland's had 3 Miss Worlds
*Iceland used to belong to Denmark (I may have relatives here lol)
*29 out of 61 seats in parliament are held by females
*US Army built the Keflavik Airport when they were stationed in Iceland
*All students leave school at the same time, hence why they can park like they do (haphazard with no spaces to ensure they can fit everyone in the lot)
*Students leave their name and numbers in their cars in case someone needs to find the owner of a car to get it moved
*There was a "Nipple Rebellion" here :o
*Eating whale and puffin is very controversial here (No, we did not try either)
*Reykjavik means "Smoky Bay"
*You rarely see police around Reykjavik (we didn't see one in the city during the entire week we were there)
My breakfast staple for the week. Ah, normal coffee again. Bellissima!
Parliament building
Church
Old cemetery area
Rocky House area
Harbour
Opera House
High school parking lot
Trolln (frozen pond by city hall)
The weather was not pleasant lol Can you tell by my face?
Post tour we headed to one of the many restaurants in the area and bought ourselves munchies as well as some breakfast items, a cost cutting venture we were implementing since our hostel had a place where we could store refrigerated items.
Jonesing for some soup, S and I headed down the street and found ourselves walking into Durhem, a small little homemade soup and sandwich shop where we both indulged in a warm, savory bowl of Moroccan soup for lunch.
After returning to our hostel and drying off a bit, the four of us regrouped and meandered up and down Laugervegur Street shopping and browsing. This is a fantastic area of Reykjavik with a quaint, indie style neighbourhood look and feel to it. It was quite easy to find many beautiful things to purchase from Icelandic chocolate, tourist mementos, clothing, Icelandic wool items (sweaters, blankets), puffin based memorabilia, and more.
Just when it was time for supper, we found ourselves back at the square where we'd started our walking tour. We'd seen an English and American pub here so we'd thought we'd try one of these out. No luck! The first one only served beverages and the second only had burgers and a couple other pub fare items. No problem though as this was quite the area for restaurants so one building down we walked in Cafe Paris to enjoy a warm meal out of the rain. I have to say that it's so pleasurable to be in a country where food has flavour and spices are used. The pulled pork bun I devoured in seconds literally made me miss being back home in Canada. After enjoying our time here, and sharing meal ideas with the tables next to us, we flitted back to the hostel amid giant fluffy snowflakes. Rain one minute, clear the next, then snow. Iceland was really making us keep on our toes with our wardrobe.
Reykjavik street fun
Catching snowflakes
Window shopping ;)
The great thing about the tours here, weather they are with Reykjavik Excursions, Gray Line, et al, is that they'll pick you up from your hotel/guesthouse/hostel, etc. There is public transportation in Reykjavik, in the form of buses, but I don't believe it's that prevalent as other cities we've been to. Thus, having this service of door-to-door pick-up and drop-offs is sweet.
So after picking up my daily coffee from the nearby Dunkin' Donuts, I waited for my ride from ishestar who arrived promptly and took me and a few others out of the city to the stables for our morning of horse riding. It was fun being on the streets this early in the city as you could see the vast number of buses out and about like ants, picking up people everywhere to take them to one of many various day tours being distributed throughout the city/country.
When we got to the stables we were quickly given waiver forms to sign (at which point I started to get a little nervous as it's been A LONG time since I'd been on a horse), watched a video on safety and how to ride (handle a horse), got geared up in lovely orange rain pants and a helmet (definitely a necessity for me), then were led to the stable to await our horse pick-up. The women there wasted no time knowledgeably handing out each horse to us; some could only go with men cause they didn't like women, some were too spunky for new riders, etc. There were only a few horses left when my turn came up, the rein placed in my hand and before I knew it I was leading my new friend Corfina out of the stable and into the pen. Her slipping slightly out of the stall was only the beginning of our....interesting relationship that morning. (Note: The horses looked MUCH smaller in the stall, until the stepped UP and out of it. Yes, they were still much smaller than American horses, but my nerves weren't eased at seeing this).
In the pen we mounted our horses and waited for further instructions while the guides went around making sure our stirrups were the correct length and the saddle was secure (thankfully!). Then we were off! Off into the wild white yonder of the lava fields of Iceland. It was such a beautiful ride! The sun was just beginning to rise (it was a late riser in Iceland), there was a crisp chill in the air as the hooves crunchily beat into the ground, working hard to secure their footing on the icy bits, and the snow quietly enveloped the world around us. Ahh! Enjoyable! That is until Corfina decided she did not want to be the last one in line and tried to pass, or wanted to follow other horses in a different direction than the group. Sigh. I knew it. Like horse like rider. She definitely had a mind of her own and made sure I didn't relax too much lol.
We were out roaming the trails for about an hour and a half at which point we were led back to the stables where we dismounted and took our saddles to the barn. It was at this point that Corfina, regardless of our relationship woes along the way, decided to give me a love rub down with her head. LOL. I guess we all embrace love, amidst "Whoa Corfina" voiced numerous times throughout the ride, in different ways.
With my diploma in hand, and horse love all over, our ishestar driver took us back into the city where I happily headed upstairs in the hostel to relax with a good ole Danish Tuborg. Note: This love of Tuborg has really brought me back to my Danish roots. ;)
My "riding" pants
My friend, Corfina
Horse and rider selfie
Since the other girls were going to be gone for a few more hours, I decided to head out to find some lunch. I quickly found myself at Hresso enjoying yet another steamy bowl of soup, this time of spicy chicken flavour. I can't get enough of the homemade soups here. Probably because, other than the tortellini in brodo I had in Bologna, homemade soup is not something I come across in Italy. Nevertheless, I could definitely continue eating soups during the course of my stay here.
Back at the hostel I met up with C who'd returned from diving. We went out to grab myself an Icelandic wool blank that I'd decided I really wanted and a lamb hotdog from a street cart for her, a delicacy here. I missed my opportunity to have one of these, a recommendation by a few people, and I'm quite sorry I did. Later than evening, when we'd all gotten back together, stories of our day were shared over wings, salads, steaks and fries at the Chuck Norris Grill.
Fun Facts:
*Many restaurants are "seat yourself" and if they tables are all occupied, you just wait in a corner for a table to open up
*There are something called "Elf Rocks" in Iceland, and folktales to accompany these
*There isn't an army in Iceland
*They prefer debit card to using cash, and my Italian bank card worked like a charm here :)
*Traffic lights turn green, then yellow, then red as most places BUT when they go from red to green, they actually go red, yellow then green; smart in my mind as it gives time to clear the intersection from those who may decide to run the lights
Goodnight Reykjavik
On Wednesday we'd book a tour through Reykjavik Excursions so bright eyed and bushy tailed we boarded a bus at the main terminal (which we'd been delivered to by one of the smaller city buses than can manage the tiny windy streets in the city) for our day tour. Our tour today was going to take us to the Golden Circle and Fontana Wellness Centre. One thing I really liked about all the tours we embarked on was that our guides were very good. They didn't over talk, shared lots of information about Iceland and it's history, and amused us with little anecdotes here and there.
Ready to roll! Lookin' pretty chipper if I do say so myself ;)
The first stop was to Geysir geothermal area. Here we saw 80°C-100°C water bubbling up from the ground, watched a geysir erupt, saw how extremely hot water creates paths and crevices in the ground, and enjoyed a good snow ball fight. We ate lunch at the most beautiful visitor centre, with a diverse menu to choose from, before heading on to our next stop. It was here that we also realized B isn't so nimble on her feet ;)
Our next sight was Gullfoss waterfall. This was AMAZING! It was a right proper waterfall that we got to see from above with a variety of views. The fast moving water thunderously zigzagging between rocks and ice chunks only to slide under a sheet of snow and ice to drop metres below was breathtaking.
Then it was on to the Fontana Wellness Centre. Our first treat was seeing how rye bread is cooked in boiling sand (for 24 hrs but we saw the tv version: one go in, one come out cooked). We were given a demonstration of the process then got to sample this treat from the earth. It's neat to see how the geothermal activity is used in many ways in Iceland. No wonder everything is so green, clean and clear (air, water, etc.). Next we took a dip in a geothermal pool, with natural minerals that wasn't so nice smelling (sulphur smelling to be exact), followed by a dip in a couple other chlorinated pools. After trekking around in the cold the last few days it was really great to take a relaxing dip, frozen hair and all lol.
There is bread in there, deep down
Stewing the bread
Voila!
Yum!
It definitely needs butter
What a relaxing place
It was stinky!
Following a quick shower it was back on the bus to head to bingvellir (aka Thingvellir) National Park. It was super cool because as we were driving we left the Euro Asian tectonic plate and found ourselves on the North American plate. Wicked cool! Loved how we were literally in one continent one minute then on another continent the next. We also drove for awhile in "No Man's Land" - the space in between the plates. I'd always been under the mis impression that the tectonic plate lines were all under the oceans; but no. Interesting fact: the tectonic plates here are separating at a rate of approximately 2 cms per year. We were dropped off at a point before a gorge in "No Man's Land" and proceeded to follow a path along the North American plate that eventually led up on it. It was SO COOL to touch the sides of rock that have been around for millions of years. Surreal! Once we'd reached the top we got a spectacular view over rocky volcanic landscape and lakes.
Goodbye Euro-Asia
Welcome to No Man's Land
Hello North America
Tectonic plate
Do NOT fall in a crevice
This event concluded our day tour so our bus was now headed back to Reykjavik. At this point I had yet another moment where I was really glad I was not driving in this inclement weather that changes quickly and drastically. The roads were NOT nice in many places.
When we arrived back in Reykjavik we headed out for supper, deciding to quash our empty stomachs with some tasty Thai food. Green curry and a Singha later, my famished state was over and I was very pleased yet again at the different food I'm able to wet my whistle with while here. A full stomach, and exhausted from a day of galavanting around the Golden Circle of Iceland meant it didn't take long to fall into a deep slumber that night.
Tomorrow......some Reykjavik fun! ;)
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