Iceland Day 4: Golden Circle (Part Two)

Let's catch up Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. 

And now it's day four that we'll break down into two parts.
Part One: Þingvellir, Geysir, and stood in awe of Gullfoss.
Part Two: Local horses, Skalholt cathedral, and Kerið crater

We finished out the golden circle with a drive through the countryside, a stop at the historic Skalholt Cathedral, and lost our keys (briefly) at Kerið crater before returning back to our hotel.

The pictures hopefully speak for themselves. everything was gorgeous although pretty cold - around 32F but with bright/clear skies.

Iceland Day 4: Golden Circle (Part One)

Whoops, kind of fell off the Iceland recap wagon!

Let's catch up Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. 

And now it's day four that we'll break down into two parts.
Part One: Þingvellir, Geysir, and stood in awe of Gullfoss.
Part Two: Local horses, Skalholt cathedral, and Kerið crater


PART ONE:

We started our adventure by booking a rental car via our hotel - we used Procar which came out to about $150 for the day. And gas is really expensive. We started around 8:30am, to meet with our snorkel guides at  Þingvellir National Park. We booked with arctic adventures - they brought everything we would need to go snorkeling in the crystal clear, freezing waters. However, it took longer to suit up than it did to actually go snorkeling, but it was one of my favorite adventures on the trip... I mean, we went snorkeling between the north american and european tectonic plates!! 

Next, we drove to Geysir, and you can learn all about Strokkur and how Geysir doesn't actually fire off anymore... it's nerdy

Iceland: Day 3 Horseback Riding and Caving

After our fun night out, Day 3 (Tuesday) of our adventure included Horseback Riding and Caving. It was an all day adventure that we topped off with an AMAZING crepe and ice cream dessert.

 The Icelandic Horse is truly beautiful, friendly, and easy to ride. I highly recommend doing this on your visit. It was easily one of our favorite things. Spelunking on the other hand, while cool, was not worth it's cost to do. It was a relatively short out and back in a lava tube (cool!) but nothing too special to see or experience. Then there was an option to do another route back, which involved army crawling for about 15 ft. I opted to just go out the way we came in and Ben continued the other way. 

Horseback riding and Caving booked through: Arctic Adventures
Actual horseback riding done at: ishestar
Crepe Desserts: Eldur and Is

Iceland Day 2: Night Adventure

With our travel package (airfare, hotel, flybus) we choose to include a Northern Lights Off-Road Adventure! 

This included pick up at the hotel, drive down to the southern coast of Iceland, seeing the black sand beaches, a huge lobster feast, and chasing the Northern Lights. Seeing the northern lights is always a gamble, it's not 100% predictable - though clear skies and a sliver of a Moon tends to make it more probable. This just so happened to be our case Monday night. It was amazing. Even the tour guide was amazed (and he chases them for part of his living!). It was a spectacular site, and we felt so lucky to have seen them!

Tour Group: Icelandic Mountain Guides
Lobster at: Fjöruborðið

Iceland Day 2: Exploring Reykjavik

Find day one recap here

Even after a pretty much sleepless flight over, landing at 6am, we promised each other that we wouldn't spend our first day sleeping. On the ride to the hotel, I admitted to Ben that his job of waking me up at 10 or even 11am would be very hard. 

We were staying at the Center Hotel: Plaza location. Our 45 minute trip from the airport (via Reykjavik Excursions - Flybus) was great - a fancy bus with wifi for the win!  When we arrived, extremely sleepy and a day late, Angel, working the front desk, was seriously the nicest guy in the history of hotels front desk employees. He was welcoming and very friendly, it was a great start to our adventure. 

And then we spent the next ten minutes figuring out how to turn on the lights in our room. (hint: it had a room key/card slot that would trigger the connection for all the lights, then you could turn on anything, if the room key was in the slot). The bathroom was very tiny, our view was great, the all hot water smelled like rotten eggs, but the rooms were warm and otherwise great!

We woke up mid morning, and got ready to get lost in the city. We walked all around, maybe about 5 miles total - saw sights, lots of cats, took pictures, had great espresso, and just plain enjoyed being tourists!

Highlights:
Espresso at Fish & More
Leif Eriksson at Hallgrímskirkja
bread bowl soup at svarta kaffi
walked the shopping area and had amazing desserts on Laugavegur

Iceland Day 1: the Iceland that didn't happen

Saturday afternoon (2/9/2012), Ben and I have safely arrived at our gate at SeaTac International Airport, having breezed through check in and security. We board the airplane, a Boeing 757, each seat has its own monitor, blanket, and travel pillow - What A Dream! Having never flown on an international (Bahamas doesn't count) flight, this was such a treat to experience. 

Icelandair Economy Class Seating

We cozied into our seats and, being total nerds, opted to watch the flight path and information in lieu of any actual movie or television show. About 2 hours into our flight, the in flight entertainment and all the lights went dark. It was alarming to say the least. We weren't in any turbulence... the power just went out, no oxygen masks were dropped and things just seemed quieter. Again, being total nerds, Ben and I raced through the reasons why the lighting system would fail - we came to two conclusions: 1) someone did a bad repair on the IFE wire or 2) an engine was sucking up too much power and in return, the lights and IFE system shut off. It turned out to be related to the latter (report found here). About 5 minutes later, the captains said they were working on the problem. About 10 minutes later the lights came back on -- we thought "Hallelujah! We're back on track!" 

Well, not so much. The IFE returned, and now, instead of going to Iceland, we were flying to Edmonton, Alberta - Canada. 15 minutes later, the captain gave a 5 minute spiel in Icelandic. Our Icelandic counterparts started to look defeated and I turned to Ben and remarked that the Captain's English version would be a sentence long. Luckily, that wasn't the case - we were going to spend the next 24hrs in Edmonton (hotel paid for by Icelandair) and would be contacted about the flight the next day. 

We spent the night/day watching hockey, Bolt, and otherwise indulging ourselves in cable television. I wasn't going to risk being outside to brave the 12F weather. Ick!

After a very chaotic re-check in the next day, we left Edmonton for a 6 or so hour flight to Iceland around 3pm, Sunday afternoon. We landed in Keflavik around 6am, Monday morning... and having paid for the previous night, we were thankfully able to quickly check into our hotel.


And that's how we lost a day in Iceland but gained a stamp in our passports.

Pre Iceland: Packing & Cold Weather Essentials

1. Tuesday Scarves, made by a local Seattle artisan, were a life saver in the often windy, chilly Iceland weather. Besides the flannel one below I also wore a similar, faux fur one too. Highly recommend buying them! They were easy to pull up and over my ears too. Two of my favorites in her Etsy Store now: Flannel Cowl Scarf and the Faux Fur Cowl Scarf.

2. Pack Layers. it was great to be able to mix and match items too, so pack and buy in the same color families. This Athleta top was a big favorite to wear underneath a thermal or with my vest. Also, this top is pretty cute (and practical!) too. Don't forget your gloves too! No need for huge skiing gloves, it's not that cold or snowy out there.
3. Camera and underwater camera too. Having a fancy pants camera to capture the northern lights was key. hands down, absolutely necessary. We also were able to grab some landscape and scenery pictures that we plan on blowing up and framing. If you plan on snorkeling or going in the blue lagoon, I recommend buying the underwater camera before your trip... it cost us about $20 to buy the $7 camera. Also, buy an (european/ two prong) electrical outlet adapter... we got ours at Radioshack, but they're cheaper online (Grounded Europe Adapter) if you plan ahead! Remember you can only plug things in there that are rated at 220-240 volts - most modern/new laptops and chargers are.
4. The travel basics: leave your big bag at home, and invest in a small purse and a backpack. Our backpack came in very useful: kept papers from getting folded or lost, had lots of room to pack extra scarves and the camera, my purse even fit in there too!

Ben, the official backpack wearer

5. Phone Info: once on the airplane, set your smart phone to airplane mode and keep it there the entire trip. Your carrier will probably charge you for any text or call made or received during your international roaming. Airplane mode will prevent this. The cool thing is that there is a ton of free Wi-Fi in Iceland (hotels to coffee shops). So turn on your wi-fi and do internet from there. If you don't have a smart phone, just keep the phone at home or off the entire trip. Side note, the GPS/ maps feature was useless in iceland unless we were connected to the internet (I still have no idea why it didn't function well). So it leads me to my last pre-trip advice: 
6. Buy a Travel Mapand one of those touristy Travel Guidebooks. Then cross check all the restaurants to the internet to verify they still exist - because sometimes even a year old book is outdated!

Iceland Teaser

Look for recaps and advice about Iceland travels over the next two weeks! Ben and I had so much fun and there's still so much we want to do there!

travel backpacks

I'm starting to feel like backpacks are the most practical packaging in the world. The asymmetrical loading of my purse to my shoulders is starting to take its toll and I need something a little bit more durable to carry. I've been eying travel packs/ sacks/ backpacks etc. for a while now. I think our trip to Iceland is finally the perfect time to splurge on one!

Any of these will be perfect for traveling and sightseeing... and maybe Ben will be a little bit more responsible for sharing the load, literally.  I favor the kind of pack that can transition to a tote or messenger bag when the need calls for it, too.

Here are a few many of my favorites:

wool rucksack

Fjallraven rucksack no. 21

large tote/pack

brown backpack

transformer backpack

baggu daypack

Obey Noreaster

Finkel Backpack

three in one tote

Do you have a favorite travel bag? 

Winter Vacation

Next Month, Ben and I are headed to Iceland (I know! OMG! Can't Wait!). Unfortunately, it's going to be a chilly 30 degrees!! 

To keep warm, stylish, and adventure-ready -- I'm going to assemble a suitcase with these much needed items:

Winter Vacation by sonodana featuring side zipper boots

It's always been on a top ten places to visit for me, and after finding a killer deal through IcelandAir, we couldn't say no to the adventure. We both wanted to do an out-of-the-country vacation before having kids, so the timing works perfectly. AND we'll be budgeting and paying for this trip all with existing funds and NO CREDIT CARDS! In our effort to become debt free this year, this is a HUGE deal.

We're so excited to see all the wonderful sights and culture Iceland has - and have been reading non-stop about what to do & where to go. Ever been to Iceland? Or what's your dream vacation? I'd like to do Costa Rica or Alaska sooner than later!

Here's some of our favorite posts we found about Iceland:

http://bigbangstudio.blogspot.com/2012/08/iceland-diary.html   

http://www.littlethingsbringsmiles.com/2012/03/iceland-day-one.html 

http://beersandbeans.com/2011/04/10/visiting-iceland-on-a-budget-our-daily-travel-budget-in-iceland/

http://nelkindesigns.blogspot.com/2012/08/iceland-adventure-in-photos.html#

http://www.flightcentre.ca/blog/destinations/a-winter-in-iceland/11576

http://witandwhistle.com/2011/09/12/iceland/