I Don't Speak Icelandic

Everything You Love Comes to an End

Well, today was my last day in Iceland. 

• Woke up in hotel
• Breakfast in hotel, lame.
• Went to wool outlet, in Alafoss, bought hat.
• Drove to Reykjavik.
• Went to city’s art museum.
• Went to photography museum in public library.
• Had lunch at Thai resteraunt.
• Walked around Reykjavik, shopped around.
• Dad and I went to the top of the Reykjavik main church.
• Walked around some more.
• Got chocolate cake at some outdoor cafe.
• Sat and people watched.
• Went to a mall.
• Drove back to the hotel.
• Packed everything up.

I don’t want to go home. I REALLY don’t want to go home. 

WAHOO

Same deal goes as the previous 2 days. 

• Didn’t sleep a wink last night.
• Skipped breakfast, peanutbutter and Ritz crackers in the car.
• Drove to the Blue Lagoon.
• It was fucking amazing.
• Talked to really cool New Zelander who has been camping in the north for 5 weeks.
• White silica mud faces.
• Forgot conditioner, gross hair.
• Showered, afraid to be naked.
• SO MANY OLD LADY BOOBS.
• Drove to Reykjavik.
• Fell in love with the city.
• Ate at fishy resteraunt, had a veggie kabob.
• Drove around Reykavik for a while, then drove home.
• I want to live in Reykavik. Really badly.
• In hotel now. Mom is driving me bonkers, I can’t fall asleep at 8:00 no matter how many times she wants me to try.  I need to get the fuck out of here.
• Plan: escape from hotel room, go dancing.

Insert Geyser Pun Here

Hello there!  I currently find myself at the end of another very long day.  It’s already too dark to really navagate the room and find my camera, so I have to recall today’s occurences soley based on my memory (this isn’t going to go well). I’m going to do basically what I did yesterday and fill in the details/fix things at a more opportune time.  HERE WE GO.

• Woke up in town with long name (they all have long names)which was slightly out of Vik (the town without a long name). 
• Got breakfast in the hotel, made my own waffles, they were delicious.
• Packed up and headed out.
• Drove.
• Stopped in Vik to photograph puffins and weird rock formations (couldn’t get close enough to any puffins, was super bummed).
• Walked on the black beaches in Vik for a while.
• Went to a weaver outlet, bought a hat, gloves, and a sweater.
• Drove.
• Went to the town of Geysir (to see the first ever noted geyser) took pictures of geothermal things.
• Drove.
• Stopped to see Gullfoss, the second largest waterfall in all of Europe.
• Drove.
• Stopped to see a crater.
• Drove.
• Had dinner in Sulfoss at a small cafe, had veggie soup and home made bread.
• Drove.
• Got to hotel, chilled out, planned what to do tomorrow. 

So, thats about everything…for now! =)

Dear Internet,

I’m really tired. So many incredible things happened today, but I’m in a really sour mood, and I don’t know why.  I don’t really feel like talking about the things that happened today.  I’ll make a list of everything for now, and maybe I’ll give details later. 

• Woke up in less than awesome hotel.
• Breakfast in hotel, German boys makin’ eyes.
• Drove.
• Stopped at abandoned building with Banksy artwork on it.
• Drove.
• Walked on black sand beach (with hundreds on icebergs on it).
• Took anphibious vehicle into glacial lake (with hundreds of icebergs in it).
• Ate a chunk of an iceberg.
• Drove.
• Hiked up a glacier.
• Drank glacier water.
• Ate dinner at the visitor’s center back where the glacier tours are organized.
• Drove to next hotel.

And now I find myself here. Sitting on my bed, alone in the room, scanning the internet and finding absolutely nothing.  I’m being really pessimistic and I can’t help but think that this is how next year is going to feel.  It doesn’t feel too cool.

Getting to Know the Rental Nissan

Wow, what a day!  I’m so fucking tired and there is so much to talk about!  I’ll start with a recap of what happened yesterday.  OKAY, so the plane landed in Keflavík and from there we drove for just under an hour to our hotel in Mosfellsbaer.  It sounds really strange, but the Icelandic people are so amazingly attractive, I have yet to find a local who wasn’t, it’s SO weird. Anyhow, it was abnormally light out for being so late and I SWEAR TO GOD I saw a faint green wave of aurora borealis.  The hotel was really great.  The rooms, and everything in Iceland for that matter, were really clean and modern (heated floors!).  I wasn’t used to sleeping without sheets or blankets, all the hotels here just have a bottom sheet and a comforter, but it was fine. 

The next morning (today) was absolutely beautiful.  By the time we woke up the sun had already been shining for hours.  There were these floor to ceiling glass doors and we flung them open to let some air in, and that was the first time any of us had really seen the landscape.  It was breathtaking.  Huge mountains appeared seemingly out of no where, right outside our room.  It was bonkers.  We had breakfast at our hotel.  It was pretty limited, especially for a vegetarian, but I was able to down some freshly baked bread and soupy blueberry yogurt. 

Then we got in the car and started driving. And driving. AND driving. AND DRIVING.  The landscape of Iceland is so strange, the first thing that came to my mind to describe it was to say that we were on the moon.  You’d be driving for miles upon miles of glacier ravaged, black sand, flatlands, and all of the sudden you’d turn a corner and you’d be completely surrounded by huge mountains, with visible glaciers.  The strangest landscape was the moss covered lava fields, that stretched on for as far as you could see in every possible direction.  They were lumpy and bumpy, and completely covered by a tanish moss.  It really looked like something out of a science fiction novel.  I found myself taking pictures of teeny tiny houses in front of GINORMUS mountains.  Everything about the landscape seemed to dwarf any and all human structures. The landscape was just so overwhelming.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen any place so beautiful.  On our drive to the next hotel (which is in some ramshackle town outside of Hofn) we stopped a few times along the way to check out the glaciers.  The first glacier that we stopped at was Eyjafjallajokull.  If you have ever heard of the band The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, they have a song called Eyjafjallajokull Dance, and you better believe that I got my ass out of the car stood in front of the glacier/volcano and danced. 

Shit, I’ve run out of time again…I’ll edit this later with the rest of the day’s details. 

Góða nótt! (Goodnight!)

EDIT:  We stopped in Vik along the way to grab some lunch.  We ate at a cute little local cafe and it was absolutely delicious! I had a personal sized pizza, and LET ME TELL YOU, it was the freshest most delicious pizza I’ve ever had. Ever.  We kept driving, and driving, and driving, and eventually came across a glacial lake, with maybe a thousand ice bergs floating in it.  It was the most beautiful thing ever.  The ice bergs were stripped with dirt and glowing bright blue.  We even saw a few seals playing together in the icy water.  It was absolutely fantastic, and I think we’re going back today.  The hotel we stayed in last night was a chain called Hotel Edda.  It was clean, but dorm room styled (no bathrooms in the rooms).  We got dinner at a resteraunt in town and it was absolutely delicious, I got garbanzo bean cakes and the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. EVER. SERIOUSLY.  We went to bed early (thus signing off so soon and having to type all this now).  Day 1 of Iceland exploration was a complete sucess!

Góðan daginn!

That relatively translates to “good day” in Icelandic.  We just arrived at our first hotel, “Hotel Laxnes” in Mosfelsbaer, Iceland.  It is currently 1:44am here (9:45pm in the states), and we’ve been traveling all day.  Our plane departed from Logan Airport in Boston around 2:30pm.  There is so much more to say, but my parents are yelling at me for being on the computer at 2:00 in the morning. Later!

Hello!

Hello there! I’m Sara, and I like to travel.  Ever since I was really young my parents taught me how important it is to experience and understand different cultures.  I think it is also really important to share things with people, thus the birth of this blog!  

I’ll be posting details about the places I stay, the things I see, the people I meet, the food I eat, as many of the things that I experience as possible, so I can share them with you.  

So fasten your lap-belts and put your seats and tray tables in an upright position and get ready for take off! (How corny!)