Iceland Excursion: Day 1 and 2

Our trip started out good getting the emergency row for the extra leg room even though it was a short flight and since it was the first day of summer we got some free icecream onboard. The coaches were at the airport, waiting for us in the blistering wind and lashing rain, ready to take us into Reykjavik. Our hotel was just on the edge of town by the domestic airport. We first wandering into the newer part of time to see Hallgrímskirkja, the largest church in Iceland, which is shaped like a rocket ship. The inside was very stark, yet well done. There were a group of children inside singing ‘Day-O’, the Jamaican song, which was just strange, yet beautiful. We wandered down into the old town were we found some fantastic Belgian type waffles. I love waffles. With a bit of warmth in our bellies since it was no where near warm, we walked down to their main pond in city centre, Tjörnin.

Right on the pond was a well-designed building which was their city hall, Ráðhús Reykjavíkur. It had a living wall along the water, which is great to see growies on a building. City hall was right next to Alþingishúsið, the Icelandic parliament which was not such a fantastic building, but was important to them historically since their parliament is the longest running in the world. As we pottered back to the hotel we caught sight of their ample wildlife in the city, Bunnies and Geese. Their sidewalks were paved with Geese poo galore. I had a great little book that could lead me to all the free things to do since with the Easter Holdiay weekend, nothing was open. I my little book, I did find a local’s favourite restaurant where we had an amazing meal of yummy wild bird, otherwise known as Puffin, and their Minke whale. I feel ethically ok with it since they have been sustainable hunting these animals for a thousand years, use everything from the animal and do not overhunt since they have done extensive studies on their population and they are not near extinction like most other whales. Ben had been so exhausted from working crazy long hours, we were in bed and asleep long before the sun went down, even with sunset at nearly 11:00.

The next morning we headed out on our bus to the national park Þingvellir to view the Hellisheidi plateau which is one of the most historic site on the island. We stopped right at the Lake Þingvallavtn, the largest lake which is known for the scuba diving. The canyon that runs through the park is where the continental drift between the Eurasian and American tectonic plates are pulling away from each other about 10cm a year. It is the only place in the world where you can view this since the others are under water or heavily vegetated over. The waterfall there is normally very small, but with all of their rain is was a gushing torrent of water, where in historical times they drowned the adulteress women. The old clans used to meet at this area where the first parliament or Alþingi was established in 930 and remained there until 1789 when it moved to Reykjavik

Next stop was the geothermally active valley of Haukadalur, which contains the geysers Geysir and Strokkur. The work geyser comes from the geyser Geysir. Even though this one is still bubbling, it is dormant so we got to see Strokkur erupt every 7 minutes, and it even had another eruption just seconds after the first one, although it was much smaller. The smaller pools around there were nowhere near as stinky as the Yellowstone ones with the sulphur. One lady was even stupid enough to put her finger into one of the boiling pools. Some people have no common sense.

We left there to head to the Hvítá river which the Gullfoss waterfall is located, which is one of the most impressive waterfalls in Europe. We had our yummy meat soup that was much more appetizing than it sounds, before bearing the rain that pelted us as we walked up to the waterfall. The mist was hauntingly beautiful and also froze along the walls of the canyon. The roar of the waterwall was amazing. We were able to walk right out to it and get some great views down the canyon, although we got quiet wet.

Next stop was the Skálholt Cathedral (Skálholtdómkirkja). It was a very modest church, located on ancient catholic ruins. The stained glass and Jesus paiting were very modern.

The last stop of the day was an a lake within a crater, Kerið. It is nowhere near as impressive as Crater Lake in Oregon, but it was still beautiful none the less. Bjork even held a concert in the crater with everyone on little rafts. Now that would have been a great concert since the acoustics were great.