Iceland

I started off this year by taking a trip to Iceland.


Iceland in January was not exactly the easiest time to go to Iceland, but the flights were cheap! We stayed with friends of my flatmate just outside of Reykjavik. They very kindly picked us up at the airport even though we got in really late, and we went to their house and hung out until far too late.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast, then we headed into town. We spent the day walking around Reykjavik and hanging out with one of our hosts. This is the view from the center of Reykjavik!

For lunch, we went to this place called Cafe Babalu. They were super vegan- and vegetarian-friendly, which was good, because half of our little group that day was either vegan or vegetarian. It's also the cutest little place ever. 

We didn't do a whole lot, but had a really nice time exploring for the day.

The next day we slept in because we stayed up really late hanging out. We got up and went straight to town. Our first stop was the frozen pond in town. This picture was taken around noon, and as you can see the sun has barely made it over the horizon! This was fun, because I've never seen a pond entirely frozen over. It would have been really fun to skate on! Also, note that I stood in the middle of the pond to take this picture.

Also, again the mountains across the bay tower over the little town. The day-long golden hour made the mountains look absolutely gorgeous!

We went to grab coffee after this, and then made a game plan. We decided our next stop would be a church called Hallgrimskirkja. You can go to the top of the tower and get a panoramic view of the city. It was such a wonderful view, made even better by the clear weather.

After that, we did some shopping around. We popped into any shop we felt like going in. It was really nice. If only I had more money, I could have gotten some nice things in Iceland! It was a but pricey for a student.

We decided to grab a late lunch at a burger place our hosts recommended, because their veggie burger was supposed to be amazing (it was!). It is an extremely tiny restaurant and is really cute on the inside. I don't remember what it was called, but it's by the pier or harbor (where all the boats are), and it on a street called Burgerjoint. I am not joking.

After that, we did a bit more shopping and then headed back. We managed to actually get to bed at a reasonable time that night, because we had to wake up early the next morning.

The next day we took the Golden Circle bus tour. I really wanted to see a bit of the Icelandic landscape and see more of the country than just Reykjavik, so I'm glad we got to do that.

On the tour, our first stop was a greenhouse that uses geothermal heat to grow tomatoes all year. We got a little presentation on how it works, which was pretty cool.

We were there about 11 o' clock in the morning, so naturally it was still dark!

Next, we stopped at a hot spring area. There we saw Geysir, which is the first geysir known to modern Europeans. It's the geysir that all geysirs are named after, which is pretty cool. It turns out it's dormant though.

The active one was just a few hundred feet away though. I couldn't quite catch a picture of how high it goes, but it's still pretty impressive.

The rest of the park looked like a different planet. The ground was weird colors like red and green and black. There was steam coming out of holes in the ground all over the place. Also there was no snow, because the ground was too warm for the snow to stick. Also there were little streams of water at boiling temperatures. Yeah, it was pretty weird.

We stayed there for a while, at lunch, and then headed on. Our next stop was Gullfoss waterfall. That's where I experienced the most intense weather in Iceland. To see the waterfall, you had to walk on this viewing platform, which was basically a curved bridge that goes over a cliff. To get down to the bridge was scary enough because you had to walk down an ice-covered hill while being blinded by the wind. It was even scarier trying to get a good view of the waterfall, because the bridge was covered in ice and I was being hit with hurricane-force winds. I had to hold onto the railing, because the wind at one point blew me back almost a foot before I could grab onto something. I couldn't actually appreciate the view because the winds were so strong. I just took a picture and got out of there before the wind knocked me off the bridge. So I hope you can appreciate what I went through to take this picture.

Our last stop on the tour was this national park, where the North American and European tectonic plates meet. We walked through this rift (anyway, that's what we called it). It apparently has been used to shoot Game of Thrones, which doesn't surprise me, because it looks so sci-fi.

By this point, the sun was set and the sky was overcast, so the photos started to come out really blue. The view from the top of the hill was absolutely amazing, through. The valley was beautifully covered in snow and there was a little cluster of buildings nestled by some trees.

There was also this amazing braid-like pattern of rivers that went out to a large body of water (presumably the sea, but who knows).

After that, we drove back to Reykjavik. We just hung out that evening. We had planned to go see the Northern Lights, but it was too cloudy, so we had a Friends marathon.

The next day we had a slow morning and then made our way to the airport to fly back to Edinburgh.

I can't wait to go back to Iceland. I really loved Reykjavik and I think the countryside is absolutely amazing. I just hope next time I go I can go in the summer.