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Day Five: Takk

Day Five
Grindavík, The Blue Lagoon
November 27, 2008 - Thanksgiving Day

The Blue Lagoon is without a doubt the most touristy spot in all of Iceland. Bus loads of tourists pile out of excursion shuttles hourly and even on a cold November Thursday the place was busy. Busy, but not crowded. But not going to the Blue Lagoon while in Iceland would be like not going into a casino when in Vegas. It might be touristy, but it is amazingly beautiful, warm, relaxing and very different then any other place I'd been to in life.

The Showers
When we first entered the Blue Lagoon we paid the entrance fee and had to decide if we wanted to rent a robe or not. The Northern Light Inn had towels available for us to take to the Lagoon so we didn't need to rent a towel but we did rent a robe. Which was a smart decision. It is quite a bit more but well worth it. This is Iceland, it is freaking cold and just a towel isn't enough and a gigantic soft robe is very inviting in the freezing cold. So after paying the fees we were handed an electronic bracelet that operates the lockers and can be used at the snack bar to buy food and drinks which meant we didn't have to carry around money in our robes...quite handy, especially since every robe is exactly the same.

Then comes the locker rooms, showers, and changing area. Oh the rumors I'd heard about the showers. Because, unlike the US, the sign saying to take a shower before entering the pool actually means to take a shower before entering the pool. But this wasn't quite as traumatizing as blogs and rumors would lead one to believe. It is true that everyone is required to take this shower nude, no swimsuit. And it is also true that the showers are open but they aren't communal and each shower head is in its own door-less stall. And contrary to popular belief, a woman (a shower Nazi of sorts) does not walk around the stalls checking and verifying that people scrubbed their privates and it wasn't as bad as the horror stories I'd read. It was really no big deal. Each stall comes supplied with both body soap and conditioner. (I should have put the conditioner on my hair before even entering the Blue Lagoon and left it on for the day. But I didn't and consequently had straw hair for a few days). I brought my swimsuit into the shower with me so I could put it on afterward without having to do the nude walk to the towel racks, especially nice if you have a stall at the end, far from the racks. Being the only modest American in the area, I was the only one who seemed worried about getting a swimsuit on quickly... most others preferred to air dry as they casually walked to their clothes and towels.

Freezing Cold. Nice and Warm
After the shower I met up with TL. The men and women's locker rooms both ended in a small lounge and snack area. Off to the side was the enclosed entrance to the Lagoon but it only seemed right for us to go for it the hard way -- off with the robe and a careful run a few feet in the freezing cold before entering the water. And it was freezing outside -- literally freezing. Cold, windy and freezing. Twenty seconds in only a swimsuit outside in the cold was brutal. But oh so worth it once my feet stepped into the hot geothermal waters of about 102°F. Very similar to a hot tub, but a huge hot tub. A 53,850 square foot hot tub. And the water was the most beautiful blue. A sort of milky, light aqua blue. We couldn’t see more the a few inches below the surface because it was so milky but it was such a beautiful color. It looked like a blue sports drink mixed with part milk.

Much to our surprise, the water isn't deep at all. Around the edges of the lava rocks it is very shallow but for the most part is is about four or so feet deep throughout the entire pool. Perfect for me. TL had to bend his knees to walk around on his knees so he didn't expose more then just his face out of the water. and with the cold wind blowing - our hair, eyebrows and eyelashes would freeze if you didn't go under every few minutes or at least splash water on our faces. We could feel your face freezing and I think my sinuses actually froze a time or two.

So imagine doing in an hour long in-water massage on this cold day... annnh, it wasn't so bad. The massage therapist laid a huge towel over us that covered our entire bodies so the only thing not warm was our face and he would dunk our bodies in the water every five minutes to warm up the wet towel and the massage was relaxing and nice. I would however recommend doing an indoor massage if it is freezing outside but since we had made our appointment weeks in advanced we couldn't change it. Oh, and I didn't laugh as she massaged my toes, which is huge for me.

After the massages we spent a few more hours hanging out in the water and saunas. As recommended by everyone at the Blue Lagoon, we put handfuls of silica on our face and lounged in water looking like freaks with white masks all over our faces, but everyone else looked like too. When we finally got out of the water, we were pruned, sleepy and hungry.

The Free Show
Too bad TL couldn't use the girls changing area... he could have seen quite a show. I will explain...
The changing areas in the locker rooms are very accommodating with plenty of hair dryers and mirrors so basically everyone visiting the Lagoon is using the changing area and getting ready before leaving. Which is great, it is too cold to go outside with wet hair. But, what I didn't understand was why, why in the hell did the 10 or so women changing in my area feel the need to blow dry their hair and put on their make-up with only their pants on? Seriously, why couldn't they at least put on their bra before prancing around the changing area getting ready? So annoying. Everywhere you turned you had someone's boobs all up in your face. I'm just saying, put on the bra before fixing the hair. Please!

Thanksgiving Dinner
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Lance and I had a special dinner at the Blue Lagoon restaurant, Lava, and we couldn't have picked a better place to eat and celebrate Thanksgiving as a family. First off, we lucked out with a table right by the water with an amazing view that overlooked the Blue Lagoon. And since I'm obsessed now with Icelandic lobster, we ordered an appetizer of lobsters. They are smaller then that of a Maine lobster and they are oh so good. I think they just might be my absolute favorite of seafood. For dinner I had more Icelandic lobster, beef fillet, portabella mushrooms and potatoes all covered in a pepper sauce. Lance ordered the fillet of lamb with potatoes and both dinners were better then average and the best meal we ate in Iceland.

This was a photo of my dinner from Lava. It might not looks so appealing because I'm not very good at taking food photos but you get an idea of just how small the lobsters are. I could eat those lobsters everyday. Seriously, everyday. But the rest of meal was just good but not outstanding. I think TL and I are slightly spoiled with all the amazing places to eat in DC and Old Town. So although the dinner didn't blow us away, they were really good. Dessert, different story. The dessert that night was typical of all Icelandic dessert we experienced, not so good. Such a bummer to not find really good dessert in Iceland. But their candy bars, especially the Nizza with the candy chocolates in the chocolate, are freaking awesome. If you ever see a Nizza candy bar, buy it. 

Night Four - Never Ever Saw the Stars So Bright In the Farmhouse Things Will be Alright

Night Four
Grindavík, the Northern Light Inn
November 26, 2008

Why Iceland?
Okay, many have asked the question, "Why Iceland?" So here is the answer:
We started thinking about a trip to Iceland about three years ago after we saw an ad in the Washington Post Express promoting cheap flights from BWI to Reykjavík. Iceland really wasn't in our radar as a future travel destination but we started doing some minimal research and discovered several appealing things about Iceland.

1. Iceland is only a five hour flight from BWI or JFK - not much different then a flight to LA or Vegas.
2. Northern lights are common in Iceland outside of the major cities between Nov - March. Iceland is directly below the strongest concentration of the Aurora Borealis annulus – The Green Belt – an oval of cosmic light that circles the earth off axis.
3. Compared to mainland Europe, Iceland is less touristy.
4. The Blue Lagoon.

And from there our obsession grew. The only problem, Iceland was also one of the most expensive countries in the world to visit. Basically the US dollar did not get you far. One beer = 10 USD. For that reason we put the Iceland trip on hold waiting to safe lots of money. But of course we spent our money on other things and the Iceland trip seemed just a passing thought. But I had this annoying, nagging obsession to see the Northern Lights. So jump forward to August 2008 and I'm sitting outside having a few drinks with a very close friend and she said, "Hey idiot, why haven't you and Lance gone to Iceland like you want.  It isn't like you have kids to worry about. Don't your really want to go to Iceland?" And you know what, she was right. I really did want to go to Iceland and why the hell didn't we go? So that week I started looking for flights, hotels and bam... we were going to Iceland.

Not surprisingly, I was pretty focused on planning a trip that allowed us the best opportunity to see the Northern Lights, which is why we chose Thanksgiving weekend. Now we needed a location away from the city lights and google searching our options I found the Northern Light Inn - a small inn located close to the middle of nowhere of Iceland and a mile from the Blue Lagoon. It was the perfect focal point for the trip and everything else just started to fall into place. We especially got a big break when the Icelandic krona took a huge hit and plummeted virtually overnight. (And I don't want to sound like we were happy for our luck based on Iceland's HUGE economic crisis. It was a break on our pocketbook but I'm sorry to the Icelandic people that they are in such devastation right now. It's real bad.) 

Right Place, Right Time
Like I said before, seeing the Northern Lights takes a little planning and a lot of luck. We placed ourselves in the right location by staying a couple of nights at the Northern Light Inn and we planned our trip in late November during a peak time for the lights. We were also not competing with a full moon and the weather report called for clear skies toward the end of that week, pretty much the perfect setting for Lights.

Luck
Wednesday night we ate dinner at the inn's panoramic restaurant where they had a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. The whole dinner we kept asking each other, "Do you think we will see anything tonight?" After dinner we walked outside a few times noticing every single clear patch or break in the clouds. Just a few minutes past nine the sky cleared and we could see our first glimpse of green squiggly, dancing light. We rushed to put on layers and layers of clothes and ran outside to see what else was in the sky.

Okay, here is the hard part, describing the lights. Because first off they are like nothing I've seen. They started off very small and then suddenly a large green rainbow like line was going over our head. That line would move and small green waves would dance far off in the north then suddenly green would stretch across the sky for a second. All this carried on for about an hour and then it stopped. Most people outside with us watching the sky packed up their cameras and tripods and went in to warm up by the fire. At that point, probably 11:15 or so, TL and I were the only ones actually outside. He didn't want to go in because he saw something "suspicious" off to the north and thought more were to come. He was right. Directly in the spot he called, light started growing and taking shape and covering the north and it looked like small green flames were emerging out of the green band of light and then suddenly the light started getting more vivid and twirling. It created an S shaped funnel until it looked like the "Hatch" (a building up on the hill and to our north - named by the UK couple we met - it is a reference from Lost) was about to get sucked up into another dimension and then, in less then a minute, and it was gone and back to a light green glowing sky of lights. No, we weren't high and we weren't tripping. It was freaking crazy, celestial. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Once the sky went back to a little more normalcy we couldn't talk ourselves into going inside. We just wanted to see more - to chase that dragon.

We had no way of getting any pictures of that nights sky. You have to have a major high dollar camera, tripod and experience - but we met a very nice couple from the UK and they were kind enough to send us a picture they captured on Friday, after we had already left Iceland. The lights that night were not as bright as what we saw on Wednesday but you can see in the picture the shade of green that was lighting up the sky and you can see the "Hatch" building in the background. Wednesday night it looked like the "Hatch" would be sucked up from Earth and the green was much more vivid then what you see in the pic.

If you hadn't guessed it, I was pretty damn happy to see the Lights, especially while wearing my awesome "Northern Lights" mittens that BFF made me. I'm pretty sure the mittens brought me the needed luck to get such a clear night in Iceland to see the lights. And you know, that night felt about as surreal as the night BFF, my dear M and I found a full living room set-up and arranged in the KD apartment parking lot. The crazy green lights in the sky reminded me of that strange night in college - a dreamlike feeling in a truly bizarre moment...I couldn't help but think how much they would both love the lights I was seeing in Iceland.

Awww, the Northern Light Inn. We love this place. Cozy, clean and new. Helpful, nice staff always ready to shuttle you where you needed or wanted to be. Great restaurant and the views were amazing. But most importantly, the view was perfect for the lights. I feel like the luckiest girl that got to see the Northern Lights on her first try. But again, I did have the mittens and that worked in my favor. And guess what... I now, no longer can say, "I never ever saw the Northern Lights."

Day Three and Day Four - I Keep Calm Admiring Your Lava I Keep Calm

Day Three and Day Four
Reykjavík - Hafnarfjörður - Grindavík
November 25, 2008

Museum Day
Tuesday was the day we were suppose to travel to Akureyri and spend an evening in the bitter cold of North Iceland but the weather wasn't going to cooperate and our 10:30 domestic flight was canceled. We were a little bummed at first but once we realized that we would get a full refund on both our plane tickets and our hotel in Akureyri we were ready to make plans for one more day in Reykjavík. The airport in itself was entertaining. Very small. It reminded me of the airport in the early 90s sitcom Wings but the building looked a lot like the Ballston Center of MU (but only a couple of stories tall).

Finding a place to stay another night in Reykjavík was easy and we got a room right in the middle of city center at Hotel Klopp. Klopp was very accommodating and even allowed us to check-in at 10 am, which we were grateful for but not surprised. That is the thing with Iceland, everyone is laid back and easy going and everything just seems like no big deal. I guess the weather keeps the Icelandic people flexible. The weather changes by the minute, no matter the season, so a plan is never a guarantee. Speaking of weather, Tuesday was definitely a cold, wet, windy Icelandic day. Brrrrrr.

Not a lot to do outside on day like that so Tuesday became a museum day. TL loved museum day, especially the Sagamuseum in the Perlan. I'm not quite into the viking scene as much as TL but the Sagamuseum was pretty impressive. It is made up of 17 exhibits that highlight sagas in Icelandic history by using plaster figures. They were very life like and one statue was moving and I really thought it was a person at first. Here are three of the scenes depicted.

After Saga we took a long, very long, walk to city center to regroup and figure out a game plan for the day. We decided to finish up touring the cities' museums and hit both the art museum and the National Museum of Iceland. Oh it was so cold that day walking along the pond with the wind whipping through my three layers of clothing. Not going to lie, I wasn't so tough and was ready to throw in the towel and forget sightseeing but some chocolate cake at the National Museum helped and the tears were short lived. 

Reykjavík Pubs
So not knowing what to do with our unplanned night in Reykjavík we decided to grab a pizza and bring it back to the hotel so we could save a little money on our dinner expenses. Reykjavík isn't known for its pizza so it was as good as to be expected. After our short food break we hit the town yet again but this time for pub fun. We started off at Cafe Oliver (where we went on day one) and watched some Icelandic Karaoke. Or at least I just watched. After several Gull's (popular Icelandic beer) TL provided some good ol' American humor as he karaoked to Tenacious D's "Tribute". Being the ham he is, TL gave the locals a laugh. But unlike the karaoke I've seen in the US, there wasn't a machine or a computer teleprompter - it was just a guy playing a guitar, two mics and a stand for the sheet music. Very cool. The guitar player looked like a blonde Christian from Project Runway. Fierce!

After TL satisfied his "I need attention needs" on stage, we headed to a quint Irish Pub where we enjoyed conservation with some locals and the bartender. Our bartender had not heard of Budweiser or Miller Lite. Crazy, but I like that fact that Iceland hasn't experienced an American invasion. Yeah, they know Coca Cola, KFC and McDonald's but that is really about it. No Walmart. Isn't that a beautiful thing? 

Day Four
Icelandic Horse Riding
We rode Icelandic horses through lava fields on Wednesday. The excursion bus picked up at our hotel before 9 am and drove us to the horse ranch outside of Reykjavík near the town of Hafnarfjörður. As soon as we got to the ranch we were picking out our safety hats and bundling up in our winter gear and loading up on our horses. Icelandic horses are different from horses in America in the fact that they are much smaller. But they are sturdy and stout and very gentle. They don't kick and you can even walk behind one with no worries of getting kicked. 

My horse, Kubbur, was a very short and stout guy and his name in Icelandic was the same as what they call the bottom fat pieces of Lego sets. He was a good horse.

 

TL on the other hand got the craziest horse in the lot. That is what you get when you tell the guides that you are an experienced horse rider. Ditta was a wild hair and had her own agenda. TL had to hold tight to her reins to keep her in line on the path. The trail took us two hours to ride and it wound around craggy old lava fields with miles of huge black lava rocks covered in lichen. The landscape was so unusual. Beautiful yet something creepy existed in its raw rustic setting.

Neither one of us had ridden a horse since we were kids. It was a ton of fun. We weren't sure if the horse ride would be worth the money, but it was well worth it. We loved it. What we didn't love was whatever TL was allergic too at the ranch. By the time we checked into the Northern Light Inn Grindavik,TL's eyeballs were swollen. Poor guy. Swollen eyeballs in a foreign country would only happen to TL.

Surprises and/or Iceland Fact
No cleaning ingredients are added to Icelandic tap water. If want, you can just grab a handful of water straight from a stream and it is safe to drink. In my opinion, you could taste the difference and the water really tasted better in Iceland.