Reykjavik

We saved a tour of Reykjavik for our last ful day.  As part of the breakfast package at our hotel, a basket like the one below is placed in our mini-fridge for the next morning's breakfast and then at 8am, a half-loaf of fresh and warm sourdough bread is in a paper bag hanging from our door handle. There was also a liter of whole milk and some kind of orange juice that we did not care for.

For this morning, though, we had a different plan. Braud Bakery had been recommended by many as a can't miss spot, so we walked to the nearest one before starting our day. Since I was navigating our walk and I knew where it was...we wound up walking an extra many blocks 👀.  (Sorry, Erin.)

Erin had the vegan cinnamon roll and I had a caramel nut roll. Mine was gone too quickly to photograph. Erin said hers was really good, especially for a vegan one. It was just missing some icing. My caramel roll was also good (and I would never say no to more nuts).

When we were developing our plan of attack for our last day, I reminded Erin we had tickets to Perlan, an interactive nature museum at 10am.  She said, "10am? That does not sound like us. 'Us' would have made tickets for noon."  I think 'we' were feeling optimistic. (And we also could not anticipate how late people stay up, party, or drive down the street with music blasting and effecting our ability to sleep well.)

Personally, I like the idea of museums, but don't often like the practice of museums.  Hot, crowded, lots of kids, sometimes overwhelming.  Perlan, though, had just the right amount of information, activity, cool stuff, and well-behaved children (except one).

The first exhibit we could walk through at our own pace: volcanoes.

We watched kind of a dumb movie while sitting on a 

map of Iceland that was warmed and vibrated like an earthquake.

They had this piece of 'newborn earth' under a glass lid for us to lift and smell.
Do Not Recommend. 

Shoutout to the Brown Trout and the Northern Diver (aka Common Loon) for also living in Iceland.

This is a representation of all the different sea birds that camp out on cliffs. I took this picture because I work at an arts school and kids need to see that art is everywhere. Someone had to make this... and that someone could be them some day.

Then we had to wait to be escorted into a very small, very hot theater to watch a movie on the Geldingadalir eruption in 2021.  The craziest thing about it was that because the lava was so slow-moving, people were allowed to be near it all, like a day at the zoo. The link  tells you more about it.

We were then brought to watch a sneak-peak of an IMAX/Planitarium-like, 4D movie where we felt like we were swooped into a literal volcano before eruption. It was truly awesome.

Thankfully, we walked from volcano-land to a recreation of a glacier with the gift of it being 8-10 degrees F.  Being hearty Minnesotans, we welcomed the cold in our regular clothes and did not bundle up like the others. Our only directive from the guide: don't lick anything. And I think that warning was just for the one obnoxious kid, Olaf.

A queen must have a throne.

Now this was cool. I stood on some footprints and put my hand out. Then when I moved my hand, I could point to different areas on the screen and cool facts would pop up.

Erin was interested in river water. *Note*- the river
water I drank the other day looked like the one on the far right.

This was a fearless, adorable little child I may have wanted to smuggle into my luggage.
 Her brother was Olaf, the obnoxious.

Finally, the Perlan has an observation deck and we could walk around and get a 360 view of Reykjavik. This is just one view.

Finally finally,  we had the best ice cream so far on the trip.

On the way back from Perlan, we drove through some neighborhoods and stopped at a grocery store to buy candy and treats we can't get here, some for David and some for me to bring to school.

Erin wasn't feeling the best so she rested while I then shopped through the main shopping street, Laugavegur. Our hotel was only a block off and the whole area was packed with unique shops and lots of people.

The worst adventure of the night was trying to find a place to park for the night. The lot we had been parking in closed at midnight and didn't open again until 7am. We needed to be on the way to the airport by 6. Parking in Reykjavik sucks, to say the least. The streets are cramped, there's lots of rules, and the app we use to pay is not straightforward or helpful (a simple search feature would improve the user experience ten-fold). I wound up having to call Erin, have her track me via Find My Friends, Google which lots are open 24 hours, then direct me where to go.  An hour later (now 10pm), the car was parked and I took a leisurely walk back to the hotel.

The 5am alarm this morning was not a welcome one.  While I Am The Treat, I was not feeling like it.

It was a beautiful morning for a half-mile walk to the car. But. 'Open 24 hours' apparently did not mean the building to get to the car was open 24 hours.

I decided to be smart and now walk down these sketchy stairs to see if the doors at the bottom were open.

Instead, I walked down the entrance to the ramp itself.

And there was our little car, all by itself.

The rest of the morning went extremely smoothly. I highly recommend Go Car Rentals. I did all the paperwork online and pick-up/drop-off involved punching a code into a lockbox to get the keys and away we went. Also, a wifi router came with the rental and it was a Godsend. We often took it with us when we walked around so we could look things us or send pictures to people and not have to have our cell service on.

We are now tired and happy to be home!

The Golden Circle

 Friday was adventure day and our adventure took us around the Golden Circle.

I think if we had done the Golden Circle at the start of our trip vs the end, we would have oooo'ed and ahhhh'ed about the general drive more. But since we saw a lot of cool topography driving to and from Vik and through the Snuffleupagus, the drive itself was just a beautiful drive.

The sites we stopped at, though...

We stopped first at the Kerid Crater— a volcano that erupted all its magma and then deflated on itself.  We could walk up on the ridge or down along the water. We opted for along the water.

If there had been benches down here, we'd have stayed longer. Actually, that's not true because when there isn't wind or rain in Iceland, there's these devil creatures. Nowhere in any research on what to pack did we read that netting to cover your head would be good to bring.

These MF-ers were everywhere.

Our next stop was at a waterfall that was probably in my top three of the trip. Faxi (or Vatnsleysufoss)

It is grand and feeds into a river and there's a salmon ladder along the side. Sigh.

I was hoping this was gold in the water.

We took a back road to our next destination and had to cross this scary bridge.

We, along with hundreds of others, then stopped at Gullfoss.

But it was the gift shop that had us entertained.

These cleverly-marketed condoms
were $10

We were here.

Finding this foss required a 3km drive over gravel, potholes, little bridges, you name it. But the color was worth it.

And then the midges flew in our eyes and up our noses.

Having seen Old Faithful, seeing the geysir was not high on our list. We completely nixed it when all the parking lots were filled and we were tired of people.

Next was the National Park whose name uses letters not found in English. We planned to see the mid-Atlantic ridge but between lots of people and lots of midges, we drove around instead. We found this cool spot. 

There was a warning to stay on the path so that we wouldn't fall into any fissures. But there really wasn't a path. We did find some fissures, but were careful not to fall in.

  

Taking a Relax

 When Joe was little, he hated taking naps. Sometimes, we were able to convince him he didn't actually have to take a nap, he just had to take 'a relax'.  Today, involved both a relax and an actual nap.

The one thing we pre-booked was a Geothermal Bread Experience at Laugarvatan Fontana along the Golden Circle.  Since the ground literally boils in some places, Icelandians have used that heat to bake bread.  So they put the dough in a buttered pot and bury it in the ground for 24 hours. I guess they put rocks on the piles so they remember where the pot is.

Then a few times a day, this chick leads a tour to dig up a pot, dumps the bread onto a board, cuts it up and tells us how to eat it.

And how does one eat it like an Icelandian? With Icelandic butter and smoked trout from the lake on site.

I tried it with trout. Erin did not.

I didn't think I could taste the trout.

  #realtimereaction

Then Erin had me try a piece with no trout.

 .                                          

That's when I remembered I didn't like smoked meats.

We spent the next few hours sans technology, floating in some hot pools. Until, a tour group of seniors arrived and jumped in like characters from the movie Cocoon.

Back in Reykjavik, we had ice cream in a 'bubble waffle', which was really just a legit waffle.

The rest of the day involved napping (me), reading (Erin), watching Judge Judy (reminding us of our Aunt Amy and her side comments), a sandwich of leftover breakfast items (salami and mystery cheese) and a beautiful walk along the waterfront.

Tomorrow is another adventure day. We're hitting the rest of the Golden Circle and have been promised a crater, a geysir and possibly some more hot pools to relax in.