Iceland: The Rest of the Story

Initially I was going to blog our adventure chronologically, explaining each day's exploits as they happened--one day per blog post.  After publishing Day 1, I started working on Day 2 when I realized: BORING.  I decided I didn't want to methodically list each little thing we did in order of the way we did it. Instead, I'm going to switch gears.  I'm going to blog my perceptions of our trip to Iceland.  Here we go.

When you go to a foreign country for the first time you don't really know what to expect.  While I have been in several foreign countries during my 6 years in the Air Force, Suzie has never been anywhere international except for the two countries we share borders with: Mexico and Canada.  To we local folks, British Columbia, Canada is almost part of Washington so it doesn't really count.  While I have traveled a lot internationally, I have always done it solo.  I never had a partner during any of my travels back in those days, and let me say that Suzie is the best travel partner one could hope for.  She does her homework beforehand--researching, studying, planning, and organizing.  By the time we finally found ourselves in Iceland, we had our 4-day whirlwind of a trip pretty much all mapped out.  Looking back on it, there is no possible way we could have "stumbled" across even half of the interesting sights we found during the day we had our rental car.

The people of Iceland seemed very nice.  Every time we interacted with them they were smiling, helpful, and friendly.  When we were on our tour bus on Saturday they dropped us off right at the door of our hotel. We ended up getting off and forgetting a zip-up nylon lunch bag that we carried around with us.  On Monday we were in the area of their office and I stopped in.  They made a phone call, located the bag and I picked it up a couple hours later.  The night we took a city bus back to the hotel, he didn't drop us at the bus stop nearby, he took us to the hotel door.  The hotel people were nice as well, and were eager to remedy any little problem I brought up.  During our visit to the Blue Lagoon, we somehow ended up with only one ticket when we tried to check in.  No problem, the gal at the desk just grabbed the phone, talked to the ticket person that we bought them from and let us in.  If memory serves me, everybody we interacted with during our whole trip was nice and went out of their way to be helpful.

The weather during our stay was pretty varied.  I'm not going to lie and say it wasn't cold--It most definitely was.  After all, we were in the country of Iceland, and it's right on the arctic circle.  Add to that the fact that it's only mid-March and you realize there is no chance of it ever being warm, whether the sun comes out or not.  It also depended a lot on where we were.  For instance, the city of Keflavik and the airport are both in a very, very windy area.  We were there twice--once upon our arrival, and once during our last day in Iceland.  As I blogged earlier, the first day in that wind we had no rental car, which meant we were captive in the airport.  The final day we were there we spent some time driving around the city of Keflavik itself.  As we left Reykjavik and headed toward Keflavik (about a 20-mile drive) it got more and more windy.  It was wreaking havoc with our little rental car.  We found ourselves buffeted around quite a bit.  Our objective in Keflavik was to go to the end of the road where a lighthouse was, and by the time we got there the strong wind also had heavy rain mixed with it, creating a huge problem for photography.

Wandering around downtown Reykjavik was very interesting.  It had the same "feel" to it as most European cities I had been in.  The streets were small, the cars were small, and there was a lot of activity.  The buildings were painted in many colors, and because the majority of the rooftops were either tile or metal, they were also in many colors.  Viewed from above, the city took on a kind of kaleidoscope of colors and shades.

We found one aspect of shopping kind of frustrating.  Many times we tried to shop at a store called Bonus, known for its lower prices.  Every time without fail they were closed when we drove up to one.  No matter what time it was, or which location it was:  Closed.  One store we stopped at (at about 10 or so) said they opened at 11.  No problem, we just continued on our way.  We were driving in a different location a little later on--Maybe 11:30--We drove up to that one and it said it opened at 12:00.  What?  No consistency.  Several other times when we were walking downtown we found doors locked.  It's hard to figure things out when they don't have info on the door either.  It's a different country and on a weekend, so who knows what kind of schedules they had.

We didn't try any of the food items that Iceland is known for.  No whale steaks, pickled shark, or Puffin.  I would have loved to try a whale steak, but we didn't make any effort to even try.  Why?  Well, I'm against anything that is romanticized from a tourist standpoint to give them an excuse to jack the prices of those particular "delicacies" through the roof.  Those are the kind of items that would cost us (the tourist) far more than they were worth just based on things like demand, exclusivity, and the allure of trying something native.  Sue wasn't keen on trying any of them no matter what they cost--Especially the rotten shark or the cute Puffins. Our best meal was a great cheeseburger and fries platter we had downtown with a good-sized glass of Viking beer alongside.

Saturday was the day of the prearranged tour I mentioned in my previous post.  Neither of us really care for tours.  Sure, we were both looking forward to the "sit and do nothing" aspect of the tour, but that was about it.  Why don't I like tours?  Well, I don't like: (1) being herded like sheep, (2) only being able to take pictures out of the one side of the bus that we are sitting on, (3) only stopping where they want to stop, (4) staying too long at places with nothing to offer, and too short in places that we need more time at, (5) cramped seating.  The good: (1) Informative banter from the tour guide, (2) relaxing enough you could snooze if you wanted.  The weather for our tour day was phenomenal.  Totally sunny and beautiful.  I think most of the people on the bus were Americans, and several of them were from our area here.  There was a large group of Asians that apparently all knew each other, and were continually yakking among themselves in their native language.  One couple from their group was sitting directly in front of us.  I don't remember how it came out, but he said that he was from Newcastle. "We're from Auburn," I said.  The lady next to me across the aisle piped up, "Renton here."  Kinda funny how that happens.  I was continually amused at the stereotypical picture-taking by many of the Asian group.  All had beautiful digital SLR cameras and were taking crappy, snapshot-quality pictures.  One guy obviously had his camera on full automatic because it the flash was popped up and he was shooting from the inside of the bus.  I'll bet he got some beautiful pictures of flash reflections to show his friends!  The tour taught us a lot about Iceland, and neither of us have any regrets about going on it.  In addition to other things, we saw half-frozen waterfalls & regularly-erupting geysers, all of which would have been very easy to find on our own.  We also ended up in a few places we really could have cared less about, like a coffee shop, an old church and a power plant.  I guess places like the coffee shop are one of those things where the tour company had an "arrangement" to stop at a particular place that's out in the middle of nowhere.  On the plus side, I got an interesting picture of the phone booth that was out there for whatever reason.  One of our stops is where Suzie got a little miffed when I bought some overpriced soup (it sounded good and I was cold), and rightly so.  It was good soup, sure, but still-it was just soup.  "How dare they charge that much for soup!" she exclaimed.  One of the good things about that day was the hand-warmers that Suzie packed for us.  It was nice being able to put our hands in our pockets and fondle those warm pillows in between pictures. 

As I said before, we didn't get a rental car on our first day.  In retrospect we both agree we would have gotten off on a much better first step than hanging around an airport, waiting for a shuttle bus.  We picked up our rental car in the early evening of our second day--right after our tour bus day wound to a close.  It's a good thing too, because that awesome weather we had during our tour on Saturday translated into an awesome celestial light show that evening.  We were eager and hoping to see the Northern Lights--especially after I overheard the gal at the hotel tourism kiosk tell a customer that that night was probably the best conditions ever for the Northern Lights.  In addition to other tours, she also sold people tours to see the Northern Lights.  They usually went out in small 4wd vehicles with gigantic tires (which were everywhere).  As a matter of fact, she had just sold a couple two tickets on one of those deluxe tour jeeps for that evening for about $250.  Yow!  A guy from the rental car company actually came to the hotel, picked us up, and took us downtown to pick up our car.  Because we were already downtown we got to drive around a little and familiarize ourselves with it and the town.  Mid evening was when we decided to head out and see if we could find a spot to view the Northern Lights.

It was dark of course, and the roads were somewhat snowy.  It wasn't actually snowing, but it was cold.  We headed out one highway, and after going for a ways we argued about direction (haha) and Suzie persuaded (she is very persuasive) me to turn around.  We got into what we both felt was a good area (meaning dark, and away from any lights) and turned off on a smaller side road.  We both started seeing small wisps in the sky here and there.  We were getting eager.  Suddenly, Suz hollers, "Stop somewhere!  It's happening NOW!"  Our timing and placement was perfect.  Just ahead was a farm driveway I could back into and be both jumped out with our gear.  We were treated to a full 15 minutes of the most awesome light show in the sky I have (and probably ever will have) seen.  The colors were predominantly green, but there were some pinkish, orangeish, and whitish too.  What you don't really expect is how the lights behave.  When you see them all the way across the sky, your mind expects them to move like the wind might move them.  Instead, they move so much more differently and fluidly because they are light.  It was awesome.  Both of us got less-than-great pictures, but we did get them at least.  I had the lens capability to pull off some great, great low-light shots like the Northern Lights, but had one measly setting wrong.  Oh well.  We only got a few pictures, but we got a lot of indelible memories from that short visit to the heavens.  It was truly an amazing experience.  It's hard to fathom, although we all know it's true, that people that live somewhere where they can experience something on a regular basis can grow jaded about something like that.  I'll bet nobody that lives there goes out of their way to go outside to see the Northern Lights when it happens.

Sunday was our favorite day.  It was a full day of driving and sightseeing.  That was when Suzie's research really helped us.  We drove from Reykjavik to Vik and took lots of side roads (that's our style) whenever the mood hit us.  We saw and interacted with the most mellow and pretty horses I've ever seen.  The Icelandic horses are much smaller than what we're used to, and they have wild manes of hair.  I kept saying it looked like they had mullets.  Suzie remarked about how clean they were--undoubtedly due to the cold weather and the lack of parasites.  We saw waterfalls that were majestic in scope, which the added attraction of the spray freezing the areas surrounding them.  Quite the sight to see all that ice formation.  Everywhere there were versions of sod houses.  We don't know what they were used for but many of them included the use of concrete so they weren't all that old, but they still had a very interesting look and feel to them.  The lighthouse we drove to was in one of the windiest places on earth apparently.  When we got out of the car we seriously had to think about each step--it was that windy.  The basalt columns we saw were tucked in where you would never find them without knowing they were there--at the end of a road, and around the corner on a beach.  Speaking of beaches, that same area had the most beautiful black beaches I have ever seen.  So clean and stark!  Our day took us through the cleanest overall countryside I have ever driven in.  There was no trace of any litter or even signs.  It was really nice scenery.  The tail end of our day of driving culminated in some of the worst driving I have ever been in.  Couple nighttime with intense wind, and throw in some snow and what do you get?  You get snow blowing sideways across the road so fast and furious that it was hard to see and was accumulating in dangerous drifts here and there as well.  Add the fact that we were in a very lightweight car and what do you get?  White-knuckle driving, that's what!  Regardless of that snowy, end to the drive, we both agreed that it was our favorite day.  Even the snowy drive was part of the adventure, right?

The one "touristy" thing we wanted to check out was downtown Reykjavik:  The Hallgrímskirkja Lutheran Church.  I don't care diddly about churches, and Suzie avoids them if they're not Kingdom Halls, so why would we want to go to this one?  Simply put, it's the highest building in downtown.  For a small fee, you can ride the elevator up to the top and look out on the city spread beneath you.  The main viewing room was above the giant clock faces that were on each of the four sides of the tower, but you could also see out the four lower panels of the clock faces themselves.  It was well worth it.  Even the inside of the church was worth seeing.

We would both love to go back to Iceland.  We decided it should be a week-long and it should be in the summer months so we can experience the color green instead of just black & white.  It's a country that really has a lot to offer--especially if you love exploring and love photography.