Iceland - Day 1 - June 24-25, 2011

Crazy day to be at Logan.  Since many schools got out this week, tons of people were flying to international destinations tonight making Terminal E a zoo.  By the time we made it through check-in and security, we had only 10 minutes to spare to grab Sbarro pizza to go before boarding.  Despite the rainy and foggy weather in Boston all day, we had a smooth night flight on Icelandair.  We were greeted with a complimentary bottle of Glacial Water, and the friendly flight attendants came around with more water nearly every hour to keep everyone hydrated on the 4hr 50 min flight.  Overall we rate customer service high on Icelandair, but we do have to a few complaints.  The 757 was not nearly as comfortable as the A330 Aer Lingus flight.  Joe was all in my space width wise, our bags wouldn’t fit under the seat, and it was unbelievably hot in the cabin.  The seat-back screens also didn’t work a good part of the way and food was only available for purchase.  Think we’ll stick to Aer Lingus for any place besides Iceland....

  Although I have to say, seeing all the purple lupine flowers along the runway when we landed at KEF was much cooler than the runway in Dublin!

Laur & Chris picked us up at the airport and then we set off for a long day of driving and sightseeing in our sweet grey Kia.  First stop: their hotel at the Blue Lagoon to see the famous geothermal spa.  Crazy lava rocks on the way there.  Only thing we could compare it to was some of the landscape we saw in the Canaries.  Had a typical European breakfast at the Blue Lagoon with the standard bread, cereal, hard boiled eggs, meat, cheese, fruit and a new discovery for Joe: Skyr yogurt.  Who knew they had watermelon in Iceland?   Took a quick tour of the Lagoon facility.  Looks like we’ll have to come back on the other end of our trip.

Hit the road by 10am and started our drive north past Reykavik.  Even in just a few hours here we’re learning that the landscape is so different everywhere you go.  At a pit stop at the Alkafoss wool factory outlet, it almost looked like we were in Central Switzerland.  Apparently this place is a big deal as they had framed letters from President Reagan and President Clinton thanking them for products.

I was in and out of sleep for the rest of the day due to jetlag (even though it is only a 4hr time difference), but I still managed to see some interesting things on the ride.  Did a drive-thru of the town of Borganes where Laur & Chris spent their first night.  It was a cute harborside town that apparently had some kind of color wars festival going on where every neighborhood in the small town puts up certain colored decorations on their properties.

Further along the two-lane Ring Road we made another stop at Gradfok to climb to the top of a crater and have a look around at the hills and volcano in the distance.  Once again we were reminded of the caldera near St. Brigida and Teide in the Canaries.  Back on the road we went through areas with tall cliffs on either side, snow capped peaks, small waterfalls running down the rocks and by fields with lots of sheep and Icelandic horses.  Found a little grill for lunch (Sirop) at the seaside town of Hvammstangi.  The Texas chicken (aka BBQ chicken) and fish and chips did the trick for half awake Poles. They even had “Buffalo Wings” which we had to order to see what they were..turns out they were BBQ Wing as well. Found a supermarket and picked up some pasta and beer for dinner.

Spent at least another four hours in the car after lunch (with stops of course).  At one point I remember waking up as we were driving in a glacial valley with bigger waterfalls flowing down the rocks that reminded me of the drive to Bolzano in Northern Italy or driving in southern Switzerland.  Reached the town of Akeuryi about an hour too late for Saturday Mass.  We did manage to find hot dogs and soft serve ice cream at Emmessis, though.  This strange place is really a gas station that serves fast food, but somehow it looked a lot better than the sketchy gas station food at home.  I could have even got a blizzard here! The hot dogs were interesting as they had mayo and all sorts of crunchy items hidden underneath the dog on the bun. A few other neat things about Akeuryi…they have heart-shaped red lights as their traffic lights and their airplanes take off on what looks like a jetty in the water.  Pretty town on the water to drive through.  Once again it reminded me of Switzerland, maybe somewhere near Lake Geneva or Lugano.  Our last stop of the night was Godafoss, our first of many waterfalls we will see here. 

It was easily 9:30-10pm and light out when we finally arrived at Kaldbakur Cottages just on the outskirts of Husavik.  Talk about a beautiful location!  We have a cute cottage in a field of purple lupines with a view of the snow-capped mountains in the distance.  Almost looks like Snow White’s cottage inside: knotty pine panels all around, one bedroom and bath, a small living room with a couch, kitchen table and kitchenette, and a loft that is harder to get to than in NH!  This place is adorable!  Laur, Chris & Joe went to explore the area while I cooked spaghetti and sauce.  Came out okay, but the sauce just wasn’t Aiello’s!  It was so strange eating dinner at 10:30-11pm with light streaming in the windows!  Didn’t have too much trouble sleeping in the daylight though.  It’s pretty safe to say we were exhausted after Day 1!

 Its 11:33PM - and still light outside