Iceland Day 2 - Monday, September 16, 2019

Good morning! Our first real night of sleep. We made sure to just adjust ourselves right to this time zone. Thankfully we were so exhausted from our red eye it wasn’t that difficult to go to bed early. We had gone to bed around 10-11pm Iceland time, which is 6-7pm our time. Bry had to be up early enough to go get our rental car. However, Ethan and I slept in. Bryan got up and I was awake but desperately trying to stay in bed and attempt an extra little catnap or two. I waved to him as he left to get the car… I’m pretty sure he figured we’d be packed and ready to go when he got back.

Ethan slept a bit longer and when he finally got up he wanted to watch cartoons… a must in his morning routine. Alas, in mommy fashion, I lifted my covers and made him snuggle up with me instead. I plan to get my snuggles in for as long as he allows! So far age 9 has not removed this privilege from my life. We snuggled for a bit and then Ethan asked if he could watch cartoons. “Not yet,” I said, trying to take advantage of everything minute. Eventually I gave in and so the morning began.

Feed Ethan breakfast, pick out our clothes, pack up our PJs, stuff all of Ethan’s stuffed animals back into the suitcase. Then, make sure Ethan’s had his vitamins, continue to pack his clock, dirty socks and other random jackets or clothing that won’t be worn today. I stuff my pillow into the other suitcase, get his toothbrush ready, and then eat my own breakfast. I get a couple bites into my breakfast bar and then I’m off doing something else. Getting myself dressed maybe, or finally going pee this morning. Who knows! But somehow when Bryan finally gets back it looks as though we’ve done nothing buy lay around, still in our PJs and bags of groceries and random things everywhere! I don’t know how it happens, but no matter what I do it always seems like I’ve done nothing at all. And so this theme continues throughout our trip. 

While Ethan and are were snuggling and doing much of nothing, Bryan was waiting in the cold rain waiting for his ride to the car rental office. Maybe it wasn’t raining, maybe it was just cold, but either way, he waited about 30 minutes longer than he had planned, so things were not going as well as he hoped. So, as you can imagine, that extra 3o minutes should have given Ethan and I ample time to get our act together, but somehow it didn’t.

When Bryan got back we quickly got everything together… I use the term “quickly” loosely because if you know me (and my son), there’s really nothing quick about us. In fact, the more you hurry us, the slower we seem to get. Not on purpose of course, it’s just some horrible side effect that is the source of much pain for Bryan. In fact, I believe he was reminding Ethan and I several days later that “I have this pain right here,” as he points to his right butt cheek. “This is Ethan. And the pain right here,” he points to his other cheek, “this is mommy.” The truth hurts. Haha! I know we stress him out with our ridiculousness, but he hides it so well.

  

We did manage to pull it all together, but we definitely did NOT hit the road early! However, we loaded up into our 2019 Toyota Land Cruiser. I worked my Lego puzzle magic to fit all of our bags into the back and we were on our way. I forgot to mention before… this is not the truck we were supposed to get. We were supposed to have something similar to Bry’s old Land Rover LR4, which is actually the Discovery here. It was having problems so they gave us what they thought was an upgrade. Bryan appreciate the gesture, but the Toyota was a much beefier truck, so a little wider and not as cozy as what he was hoping. But I’m thinking now, we may not have had room for Ethan in the other truck once we fit all our bags, and that would have been sad not to bring him along… I guess?

Today is our first big adventure of the trip as we head to Víðgelmir in Hallmundarhraun lava field for a Lava Cave Tour. By the time we get there it’s about lunch time. I forgot to mention the night before we took a little walk down to “Bonus,” the local grocery. Their logo is a pig, so I’d like to think of it as the Icelandic version of a Piggly Wiggly. That was a whole experience in itself. The refrigerated items were in a completely refrigerated room! And good luck shopping for ham and cheese when everything is in Icelandic. We would find the occasional brands from back home for things like Doritos, Lays potato chips (which we bought), Oreos (also bought), CapriSuns (check), CocaCola (got it), but not so much with cold cuts. Thankfully we were able to do a little process of elimination, compare pictures on packages, and use our good old eye balls to make out what was very likely some sweet ham and some cheddar cheese. We didn’t really want cheddar but every other cheese had Icelandic words and this package said ”Cheddar” so at least we knew what it was. We had bought some bread (the only loaf that had allergen information in English) and we had packed Sunbutter and strawberry jelly in our suitcases from the states. So, Ethan was able to enjoy his usual Sunbutter and jelly sandwich (although he did let us know he was not a fan of the wheat bread, more like the crust wasn’t his favorite) and Bryan managed some big gluten free crackers that made a nice open face sandwich with the ham and cheese. I did manage to find spicy mustard, but I never had a knife or utensils, or napkins, or plates or anything useful in making a sandwich really, so I just washed down a dry ham and cheese sandwich on Ethan’s delightful wheat bread. (I’m with Ethan, not a fan of the crust… the bread was nice and soft, but the crust was kind of hard and dry). We ate lunch, which was mostly successful!

We put our helmets on inside the office and got a quick safety overview and started down the trail. It was a little bit of a walk to get to the cave opening, but we were able to take pictures and soak in the surround lava field surrounding us. A site I don’t even know how to explain, but so unique and for that reason, so cool! We get to the cave entrance and our guide teases us that we have chosen to go underground in a cave on the first non-rainy, beautiful sunny day. Little did we know this would be one of our few sunny days.

Wow! The opening of the cave is so cool!  They built wooden stairs going down to several platforms throughout the decent. Our first platform brings us just below ground level, so we’re getting our first taste of really being “underground.” He gives us all kinds of history and information about the cave and how it was formed. He is a wealth of information. I wish I could have filmed the whole thing so I could retain more of the things he shared so much about. 

We made our way down another stretch of wooden stairs, down, down, down. Things were getting a little darker, but we still had the large opening that was shining plenty of light onto us. After we reached the lowest platform, we walked the dock-like deck that took us deep into the cave.  We learned about lava turds, lava nipples, lava candles and all kinds of words that apparently lava cave study peeps creatively came up with. I wish I could justifiably explain how these lava caves are made. It would be much easier if I had a picture presentation, but here goes the super quick version… we’ll see if it makes any sense.

When a volcano erupts, the hot lava begins to flow like a raging river. As the lava river flows, the lava on the surface starts to cool and creates a crust above the lava river. The crust acts as an insulator so that some of the hot lava can keep it’s high temperature and continue to flow. For whatever reason, it naturally creates a tubular shape and continues to flow. As long as the volcano is erupting this lava tube will continue to flow. Once the volcano stops erupting the lava flow decreases and just like water in a pipe the lava level in the tunnel decreases. The tunnel form keeps it’s shape beneath the crust of the cooled lava and as the lava flow decreases it leaves marks along the walls of the cave, almost like lines from tides. And because the level is going down the top layers are cooling and leaving very specific formations of lava on the walls of the tunnel. Once all the lava is gone, you have residual lava dripping and oozing from places, which creates all kinds of interesting formations (like lava poop, lava candles, lava nipples). Not sure if that made sense, but it’s quite incredible and an experience like no other!

This is getting way too educational… SO, we found out that our guide, Hörður Míó, (AKA - Míó) and his family had purchased Fljótstunga Farm where this lava cave exists and he personally set out to share this cave with the world! It took him and 4 other guys three months to build the deck walkway we were touring on. They worked about 12-14 hour days, 6-7 days a week, “because what else are you going to do in a dark, cold cave? If you stop working you get cold, so it seemed best to just keep working.” They later learned that the space they used as their dining area throughout the project ended up being the coldest room in the cave. So, he thought they could have gone through far less coffee and hot tea had they just changed spaces. Oh well. 

When someone asked if he enjoyed the project, he told us that is was a level 3 kind of fun. When none of us knew what that meant, he explained… “Level 1 fun is fun right then, in the moment. As it’s happening you’re having fun! Level 2 fun is the fun right after, like a roller coaster or sky diving… kind of crazy or scary in the moment, but so much fun the second it’s over. Level 3 fun is the kind of fun that takes months or years after the activity.” So, Míó said he just kept reminding his team that they were having all kinds of level 3 fun! Reflecting on it today, he is very happy with the results of the project and if he had to do it all over… he would!

Amongst the extensive education we were getting, we were also hearing interesting stories of Icelandic culture. He told us how Icelandic stories for children are awful and that’s why they’re all a little grumpy. However, it has given him great perspective because “when things are really bad, just remember, they could be even worse!” He laughed! We learned how Santa doesn’t actually come to Iceland, but 12 brothers do and they come to steal all your presents… the stories went on and on. All kinds of interesting stories with trolls and so it continued.

Throughout the cave, Míó would turn on small sections of lights. Some lights were simple pathway lights along the deck and some were put up in crazy hard to reach places or just shining on a wall with incredible character of all the phases of the creation of the lava cave. Well, when we reached the very end of the deck (not the actual end of the cave), he had us all stand in a circle. We all shut off our helmet lamps and he shut the last pathway lights off. You thought you experienced total darkness, and then you went around 1,000 kilometers into a lava cave. THAT is TOTAL DARKNESS! The real kicker is when Míó said, “now close your eyes for a minute and then open them. Do you see a difference?” Holy crap! NO! No signs of lights, no black static as I like to call when it’s pretty much pitch black but your eyes are trying to translate the the darkness. This is total nothingness. It was freaky and cool… and of course what cave tour from a native Icelandic is complete with out awful tales while in total darkness… like no Santa in Iceland, etc. These were the stories he told while we stood in total darkness. And at the end of our darkness he said, “would you rather open your eyes and have one person missing from the group, OR one person added to the group that wasn’t here the whole time?!?” LOL. It was a good time. And Ethan really enjoyed the experience. He was soaking up all the information that he could and was a great explorer when Míó gave us pieces of lava candles and such to inspect.

This was a memorable day and this adventure alone made Iceland worth the trip… and there was so much more to come!

** CAVE PHOTOS WILL GO HERE EVENTUALLY ** :-)

On our drive about we had plans to visit Hraunfossar & Barnafoss Waterfalls. Hraunfossar is a whole series of waterfalls over a distance of about 900 meters out of the same Hallmundarhraun lava field (where the lava cave was). We expected a great waterfall, but when we walked just a short distance from the parking lot, all 3 of us said, “Wow!” It was breath-taking. There were so many falls and they were so grand! It was just incredible. We walked all along the viewing deck, taking pictures in different area. There’s even a bridge to the other side so you can enjoy so many different angles of this amazing collection of falls!

A little further down the trail was Barnafoss. This paled in comparison to Hraunfossar, but once we hiked a little further it revealed more raging rivers and lots of small falls that come down to join Hraunfossar, which by the way translates literally to Lava Waterfalls. It took us a while to catch on that “foss” is waterfall. There’s a horrible story that goes with Barnafoss, but you can ask me about it or google it online. It kind of ruins the experience of the Hraunfossar.

Oh, and Ethan got to do an earth cache here! It’s a special geo cache where you answer questions instead of finding an actual hidden cache. I’m pretty sure we were ready to strangle him because he couldn’t seem to read about the falls enough to answer the questions - AKA - he was too lazy to read to find them. Anyway, the usual arguments and such between us and our 9 yr. old.

From here we called it a day and headed to Borgarnes where we would spend the next 2 nights at B59 Hotel.

It was a nice building in a nice little town. Fairly big compared to most of the tiny towns throughout Iceland… it had a grocery, gas stations, and multiple restaurants. Once we were inside we met a VERY energetic lady at the front desk. It was as if she was excited to be practicing her English. She had a very thick accent and her English was a little broken, but very good over all. The smile across her face was so big it was almost a little scary. You couldn’t help but smile back at her though. She was very excited to tell us all about our options for dinner and the restaurants. We were a little overwhelmed by her energy, but thankful that she was so friendly.

We made our way to our room with ALL of our bags. By this point, we’ve got our suitcases and backpacks, but we’ve also grown in grocery bags, and a cooler and who knows what else. So we pile it all on a cart and make our way to the VERY end of the hallway. Somehow our room is always the farthest point away! We walk in and the room is very big for a European hotel! Lots of extra space and what seems to be some big windows. Well, once we settle in, we realize that 2 whole walls are nothing but windows overlooking the water! And to top it all off, we have a patio door that takes us out on a wrap-around deck that gives us an amazing view over the entire town! All we need now are the northern lights to appear!

Iceland Day 0 & 1 - Saturday & Sunday, September 14-15, 2019

So last night we flew out of Palm Beach around dinner time to catch our first flight to Boston. Only a 3 hour flight, it was mostly uneventful. We flew Jet Blue… they were very nice, had an awesome snack collection and we had extra roomy leg space near the front of the plane. Hard to argue with that! Oh, and Ethan got his JetBlue Wings as soon as we got to the airport. Which he stuck in his journal and wrote all about it!

In true Floridian fashion, it seemed we were trying to outrun a tropical depression. We had a little rain, but it seemed as though we out ran it. Or perhaps it just headed off the coast. We did have some concerns it would try and follow us up the coast or even prevent us from being able to fly out of Palm Beach, but… not!

We arrived in Boston and were able to head right into the International terminal with no additional security. We found some nice couches near the entrance of the terminal which apparently was the quiet area. Bryan and Ethan made a trip further into the terminal to brush their teeth and get ready for “bed” and it was mass chaos. The terminal was loaded with international flights all over the world. Pretty crazy!

Once we all had a chance to freshen up and get ready for bed (brush our teeth and use the restroom), we relaxed on the couches until our 11:50pm flight to Iceland. Ethan curled up on the couch and laid his head on my lap. It didn’t take too long for him to fall asleep. He must have yawned a million times. It was so cute watching him toss and turn with one leg almost kneeling on the floor and the other nearly kicking the girl’s purse off the counter between our couches. He didn’t seem to mind. So, we let him get a little cat nap in.

Icelandic Air! Super nice and fun accents :-) We also had great seats on this flight. They gave Ethan a little kid bag on the way onto the plane. It had some games, colored pencils, and some other cute goodies. Unfortunately, Ethan didn’t discover that the bag also included a sleep mask until AFTER the flight. Ha!

We all tried our best to sleep on the flight. After all, we were going to be landing in Iceland at 9am local time (5am our time). Ethan did pretty well. I surrendered my pillow to him. Each seat had a small pillow and cozy little blanket for each of us. Once we took off we were able to tilt our seats back, but it’s never quite enough to put you in a position to really sleep. It was a long restless night, but I’m sure we slept in little bursts.

The flight attendants would make all their announcements in Icelandic and of course we couldn’t understand a word. Then they would say, “Dear passengers…” We thought it was kind of silly cause they would start all their English announcements with “dear passengers.”

As the sun was rising on Iceland, we looked out our window as we made our decent. Once we finally cleared the clouds we could see a rough ocean… and nothing but ocean! It was pretty wild. We got lower and lower to the ocean and still no land. Finally, we could see a lighthouse and some patches of low, wet land. Before we knew it the plane was finally over land and we were touching down. If my memory serves me, the first set of landing lights for the runway were nearly in the water!

So the airport wasn’t that big, but it wasn’t too small either. What was so interesting was that there were plenty of empty gates off the building, BUT they parked our plane in the “long term lot.” My words, not theirs. It was like a whole parking lot for planes, but detached from the main terminal. How is it that one of the coldest places on the planet doesn’t have ALL their airplanes park at actual terminal tunnels?!? So, in the cold rain, we exited the plane, right onto the tarmac, where a bus was waiting for us. The 2 sets of double doors were wide open so we could quickly board the bus, but it’s freezing outside, we have no winter coats yet, and the doors are wide open! Brrrrr! So we wait and shiver as the bus fills up enough for us to be driven to the terminals. It’s a short drive, but then we walk outside in the rain and into the terminal building. Weird! Everything about the setup of this airport was strange, but we made it inside and were able to warm up.

Before we could make it to baggage claim we walked through a huge duty free store. Everything from “the alcs” (as Ethan calls it) to food, sweet treats and more! It was torture as I walked by massive bags of peanut M&Ms… I mean they were 6+ shelvers high and atlas 6 feet wide and it was ALL peanut M&Ms! YUMMM! I could have devoured a whole jumbo bag! But, we walked on by and made our way towards some…. That’s right… Legos! What vacation is complete without a Lego set for Ethan to build when he’s bored in a hotel room. We made him buy a set that had an Iceland theme. Ha! I’ll have to find a picture to send… I think you’ll agree it fits in with Iceland.

We got our luggage and our driver was waiting for us to take us into the biggest city in Iceland, Reykjavik. We drove from Keflavík International Airport about 30-45 minutes in the rain into Reykjavik while our driver chatted with us about Iceland, museums, town, the people, where to go, etc. He told us if you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes. Reminded us of Florida, so naturally we felt right at home :-) Everything we received from the travel agency before hand and upon arrival made constant mention of driving safety here in Iceland. So Bry asked our driver what was so dangerous about driving here, because it didn’t appear to be anything crazy. Turns out most of the Asian tourists come here and rent cars having never driven before! So, really, they have no license and then they come to Iceland and hop in cars and start driving the country. Ahhhh!! So, our goal is to stay away from Asian drivers. lol. Sorry for the stereo type Asia, but your reputation precedes you. Let our Iceland adventures officially begin!

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Oh my! We got to our hotel and walked into the lobby… standing room only. The place was full and of course we had no idea what was going on. We crammed all our bags into the corner and stood like sardines while Bryan made his way to the counter. (Remember, it’s still raining outside) The girl at the counter was very friendly and full of energy despite the craziness surrounding her!

The lobby emptied of the big tour group that was there and we opened our suitcases to change our outfits into something a bit warmer and water resistant! We tucked out bags into the laundry room for the hotel because the bag storage room was OVERFLOWING! So that was a little weird. We hoped for the best that they would still be there when we returned :-) We set out on the town to explore.

We headed to Harpa which is an all glass/windowed building right on the water. This is a huge music venue! I actually saw a fair amount of young people (high school/college) carrying violins and cellos into the building. This venue appears to house operas, theater productions, orchestral concerts, regular rock n roll concerts, etc. There was a cute little gift shop that we hid from the wind and rain as we waited for the bus to take us to the Perlan Museum. The bus comes at the top of the hour so we went outside around then and Bry ran ahead to see if the bus was there. We tried to hide against the building to stay out of the VERY COLD wind! The bus stop was right on the water and not protected at all. I’m not be dramatic when I saw it was freezing! Bry met another family from the UK waiting for the bus. They hadn’t seen the bus either. Bry came back and waited against the building with us. Only no the wind had shifted and the building was hardly protecting us from the freezing wind. We waited… and waited… until it was about quarter after 1pm. At that point Bry thought we had to have missed the bus. Rewind… as we were waiting there was a bus that bad been sitting at the bus stop wince before we got there. As that bus left the stop, Bry noticed a sign on the side for the Perlan. Ding ding! Was that the bus that we were all supposed to be on. We assumed this was the case and Bry called for a taxi.

A local taxi picked us up to take us to the Perlan. I suggested we try and grab the family from the UK. The Taxi drove us nearby and I ran out to invite them to ride along. They were VERY appreciative. Bry insisted there was no need for them to pitch in, but they insisted and gave us 1000 krona (about $10 US). Ethan was very excited by this because it was his first time seeing the local currency. Naturally he wanted to keep it forever and bring it home, which was fine, but we thought we may need it at some point some we had NO local cash on hand.

The museum was very cool. We walked through part of the exhibits briefly and then wandered back to the beginning where we started our official tour with a movie of the Northern Lights in their Planetarium! An amazing show, but after a red eye flight from the states, also perfect conditions for mommy to take a little nap. LOL. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the presentation… and I did as well… when I wasn’t taking a little at nap. I mean come on, the chairs were tilted back in a lounge position, the lights were down and there was soothing music playing as we viewed the vastness of the Northern Lights from all over the country of Iceland.

There were so many great things at the museum, details of volcano eruptions with great photos, time lapsed erosion of the glaciers and it’s long term effects, and an ice cave. The Perlan was built on water tanks that used to supply the water to the area. Since they are no longer needed, they actually froze one of the tanks and carved out an area so you can walk through from the museum. It is COLD! Ethan loved it! The top floors of the museum had a restaurant and observation deck. We had lunch at the cafe and enjoyed the 360 degree view of Reykjavik.

After the museum, we took a taxi back to Hotel Fron. The hotel was MUCH quieter now. We even teased the girl at the front desk, but she insisted she loved the craziness and informed us that she had super powers and she can handle anything. Her super powers are what helped her remember us from the morning craziness. She gave us our room which was outside to another building. That’s when we realized the hotel rooms were more like apartments surrounding the hotel lobby, which made the lobby a store front of sorts. It was very interesting.

Our room was super cute… and huge! It had 3 small bedrooms and a nice size living room. I’m betting before it was a hotel, it would have made a nice apartment in the “big city.” The living room was almost wall to wall windows with the exception of the kitchen cabinet area. The were so many pubs and bars around. We heard it gets quite rowdy in the city on nights and weekends. Apparently Sunday nights not so much. I’d say it was fairly peaceful. We were running out of steam, so we hit the pub next door to our hotel. I really wanted a burger from Chuck Norris’ Grill, but the pub had a better selection for Bry, so we went there.

The Public House Gastropub was a cool little place. I could see what young people want to come and spend time in Reykjavik. The food was Asian infused tapas, but not the kinds of things you may think of. Bryan had a “best of” platter. It started with some kind of sake cocktail. His tapas were fried duck chopsticks (the size of a small beef jerky stick), bacon wrapped dates with a sweet Thai chili type sauce (I liked dipping the duck sticks in the date sauce), and beef tenderloin for his main tapas. I needed something somewhat normal so I got chicken dippers. They came with a Thai bbq sauce and some bleu cheese sauce. As you can imagine the bleu cheese sauce was for looks… at least on my plate it didn’t stand a chance for getting dipped! Bry did take a quick sample of the bleu cheese sauce, but that was the end of that.

This was our first real sit-down meal. So, when Bryan got the bill there was no place to tip. We grabbed one of the many wait staff that had helped us throughout the night asked how or if people tip in Iceland. We explained this was our first meal here and we didn’t know what to do. She said we couldn’t tip on our credit card because that would just go to the owner. If we wanted to tip the wait stuff we could just leave some coins on the table. We had no cash, so no tip for her. But, she didn’t make it sound like it was a big deal.

As soon as we walked next door to our hotel, we immediately asked the front desk what proper etiquette was. I had the one 1000 krona bill that we thought we could run back and give to her if necessary. The lady at the front desk was great and explained that in Iceland it’s very different. A service fee is included in all of our checks or built into the price of the food. So, they don’t really work for tips. However, if you have exceptional service or if you feel you want to leave a little something extra, it is very much welcomed for people to leave a couple coins (the equivalent to a couple dollars). It’s funny though, it kind of shows that they’re not working for tips. Unlike in the states, they’ll leave you to sit at the table and look over the menu for a while. They might come take your drink order, but many times they’ll just leave you alone for a while. Eventually they’ll come over and take your drink order and your food order. They might check on you once you’ve gotten your food, but it feels as though they’re trying to leaver you alone. It’s nice in some ways. But after dinner we were waiting for someone to let us pay so we could just leave. Basically, if you’re in a hurry, don’t go out to eat!

That’s all the fun we could take for one day. We settled in to our very nice hotel room the night. Ethan had his own room, so I got him settled in and snuggled for a bit. About an hour or 2 after I put him to bed, I was getting ready for bed myself. I heard Ethan moving around and say, “Mommy… mommy!” I hopped up and came to him standing in the middle of the hallway. I was trying to figure out what he wanted, but couldn’t figure out what was up. Very upset he said, “mommy, Matthew aslkdfmaosidfmcaklsjdfmc.” I was like, what?! “Matthew lsasdojcadsmc oasjdfmoiacsjdfm,” he whimpered. “Buddy, what did Matthew do?” *Insert more nonsense about Matthew.* So I started to ask Ethan if he knew where he was, I reminded him that we were in a hotel in Iceland, etc. I got him back into his bed, but I still felt like he wasn’t actually awake. So, I kept talking to him to wait for him to snap out of it. I said, “now what about Matthew?” He looked at me with his brows crinkled and said, “what?” I said, “what did Matthew do?” Ethan looking at me funny, “What are you talking about?” And that was the end of that! Weird, right?!?

On that note, I went to bed.

PS - there are lots of great pictures, but these were the quick shots from my phone :-)