I have been talking about vacationing in Iceland since approximately 2002. There were less than a handful of times where it looked like there was a legitimate opportunity that I managed to convince someone else to make the trip as well. However, this all recently changed. Dorothy asked me to pick and block out a weekend and that she wanted the rest to remain a surprise for my birthday. I didn’t think too much about it / where she was planning to go. After getting me a Nook Color for my birthday, I figured we would do something local (NYC, Delaware, similar) to just get away for a few days. Then, an hour before the cab was coming, she hit me with the Iceland Frommers. Nice!! The winner for wife of the year goes to … you betcha!
Dorothy can’t keep a secret, so I know how much thought and effort went into this. She said that she only booked the flights, hotel, and a trip to the Blue Lagoon / Northern Lights and left the rest open. I had talked about Iceland so much over the past few years that she knew exactly what to book. We had talked about going for our one year anniversary next April, but going in the Fall/Winter allowed us the opportunity to chase the Northern Lights. As an added bonus, the weekend we were heading to Iceland was their annual Iceland Airwaves festival, where a ton of bands from around the world (apparently) play in various bars, clubs, and other miscellaneous venues. Well played Dorothy, well played.
Given that she told me where we were going and we had about an hour to burn, I rummaged through the suitcase that she packed for me – she couldn’t hold out the surprise any further, plus, I was really starting to bother her about the trip and not knowing what was going on. I threw out a few things and we were on our way to JFK. One of “our” traditions is to get to an airport hours earlier than necessary and sit at the bar for a bit. After about an hour, Dorothy keeps looking at her phone and around the airport. Then she says, “Wait, what are they doing here?” The final surprise of the trip, we’re going to Iceland with the Schlenks!
Our flight was on Icelandair and departed/landed on time, so we arrived in Keflavik around 7am local time. The flight itself is only 4.5 hours from JFK, i.e. nothing. Icelandair itself was perfectly fine; nothing to write home about, nothing to complain about. The wives booked a package through Icelandair and correctly chose to ‘upgrade’ the hotel to the Hilton in Reykjavik. We took a bus/shuttle from Keflavik to Reykjavik (just to spell all of that out again) that took about 45 minutes. Our first stop was the other hotel that was available in the package, and let’s just say that it was a great move to book at the Hilton. One middle aged woman on the bus looked mortified that she was going to spend the next few nights in this hotel. It looked like a rundown high school.
When we got to the Hilton we checked in and decided that A. we needed a quick nap and B. needed something to eat. My biggest pet peeve about traveling abroad is when you land in the AM locally, can check in at your hotel, but they don’t let you have the complementary breakfast and charge you for it. If you are offering the free breakfast with a reservation, just give the extra day’s breakfast to the people that booked a stay with you. How much are they really saving, $3, $4 tops? The VP of Common Sense just checked into this blog entry; satisfy your customers!
After a quick bite to eat and short nap, we hitched a cab ride to downtown Reykjavik. We found the place to get our wristbands for the Iceland Airwaves shows – which basically gave us free admission into each and every venue. The most confusing thing about Iceland is that every street name has about 15 letters in it and is virtually impossible to pronounce. Can we buy a vowel please? Downtown Reykjavik was a quaint little city with a lot of places to pop in and out of. While some buildings look a little run down from the outside, especially bars, the inside of just about every single building is modern, very clean, and accommodating. According to the driver that took us downtown, one of the biggest attractions downtown is this little hot dog stand. Apparently, there is a long tradition here and the hot dogs are phenomenal; they contain lamb and lord knows what else. (Chris can comment here as he dove into one the following evening. And by evening, I mean around 4am.)
After about an hour or so of walking up and down the roads that I can’t pronounce, we finally found City Hall and a few other buildings for site seeing. It took some time to find the Parliament building, and to be honest, we’re not sure if we actually ever did. Let’s just assume that one of the buildings we took a picture of is the Parliament building. Guess what time it is now in our trip? One glass pint of personality please. Thank you. We stopped to eat / have a drink in a place called “Gamla Posthusid”. Good luck with pronouncing that. Our first and second Viking Stouts were tested and stamped with approval. Unfortunately, I never saw Viking Stout again, as the venues at night had Viking Light and a slew of other beers I couldn’t stand.
After closing the tab we wound up walking around the streets and taking pictures for another few hours. We may have also popped into the casino. As a few drinks were consumed, we reached the conclusion that given the rain and weather, we weren’t going to head back and forth from the hotel, we would just stay downtown. We had also postponed the Blue Lagoon / Northern Lights tour due to the weather, as they told us that we wouldn’t be able to see the Lights due to the clouds.
The music festival started popping up at various venues throughout the early stages of the evening, including the local hostel that we popped into. Good times! As we’re walking down the street a sign from heaven appeared; a local tavern that served Guinness. The name of this palace is “Olsmidjan”. Again, good luck. For the first 30 minutes or so, we were the only souls in there. However, a few locals popped in, including a middle aged local. About 30 minutes later, somehow, we were learning about the history of Iceland, their expertise in trout fishing, and then broke into political affairs 101. I’ll leave it at this. He did manage to call Americans something to the effect of “Gum chewing, Cigarette smoking, Chocolatiers” and I couldn’t have been happier. Really, it was hysterical.
Our next stop was dinner at “Islenski Barinn” (???) where we tried a few local trays. I will never again eat whale. It was prepared two different ways and I didn’t like either of them. However, our lamb burger was phenomenal. I really do not like lamb at all here in the states, but this was actually really good. After dinner we popped into a few different venues for the music festival. While we largely had no idea what the artists were saying, the music itself was pretty good. We found ourselves at the Icelandair Lounge which basically was another bar/club that Icelandair took over for the festival and hung a banner over the name of the bar. Notice I’m starting to get more and more vague as this night progresses? Eventually, we head back to the Hilton where we stop by the hotel bar to look through flyers of tours. Around 2am or so, we found a cheap, condensed tour of the Golden Circle and immediately after breakfast the next day, booked the tour for that afternoon.
The Golden Circle tour takes you to a few of the core sightseeing areas of Eastern Iceland and the condensed tour does all of this in approximately 5 hours. Win. We drove for a little over an hour East and once you get out of Reykjavik there really isn’t any civilization or cities whatsoever. The tour guide on this bus was not very good, but the scenery held its own and made it easier to overlook his ineptitude. I actually feel bad for saying this because he was a really nice guy, but I don’t think he is in the right profession.
The scenery itself in Iceland is amazing. The US would have built a playground and other unnecessary buildings on this if it had the chance. It is nice to see that Iceland has let its natural beauty remain, even as the country boomed before the financial crisis. Our first stop was Gullfoss Falls, where the wind whipped around and the hail/snow hitting your face felt like you were getting pelted with paintballs. Our second stop was at the geysers, aptly named Geysir. It’s pretty amazing to see this come out of the earth. We may have dared each other to put our fingers/hands in the water coming out of one of the springs. It was hot. The name of the spring that we put our hands into was “Konungshver”. Really?
Our next stop on the bus tour was at a location where the North American and European plates meet and separate. This is the cause of many small earthquakes in the country. Our last stop on the tour was a place called “Pingvellir”. Sure. This was a historic place but we’ll ignore that part and call out the views of the volcanoes and the lake – which was the largest body of water within Iceland. Icelanders are waiting for one of the volcanoes to erupt in the near future as it has erupted on a relatively regular schedule over time. Imagine knowing something like this was coming where you live? No thanks.
Upon returning to Reykjavik, we made dinner reservations at the Fish Market restaurant. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday night and our reservation wasn’t until 10:30pm. Here’s another local dish that I probably won’t ever order again; monkfish. It was OK. Luckily, the other food (salmon, lobster bisque soup) that Dorothy ordered was good. Given our late start, we exited the restaurant and began hopping around to different bars with very little alcohol in our systems. Meanwhile, the rest of downtown Reykjavik seemed to be falling down on their faces. My patience for this when sober is always incredibly low. We wound up at a bar/venue that looked like a place that belonged on the side of a ski mountain here in the states. The band here was good but was wrapping up. Afterwards, music came on and a freak show ensued. Essentially, we saw what I believe to be the beginning stages of an Icelandic “pants off dance off” among a handful of guys and quickly bolted for the doors.
After a few stops and walking in and out of places, we returned to the Icelandair Lounge where we had to, unfortunately wait on line to get in. By unfortunate, I mean that the people behind us were terribly annoying and had absolutely no comprehension of personal space, continuously bumping into me, stepping on my shoes/pants, all while yapping/yelling into their cell phones. Enter Grumpy Old Man. We finally got into the bar and the lack of personal space continued for a few minutes. As I’m ordering drinks Dorothy comes behind me and says she just got jacked in the face by another girl who was air swinging at a separate girl. Awesome. After slugging a drink, we both tapped out of the lounge. We told Jen and Chris we would go outside, but after 15 minutes or so, we decided it just made more sense to walk around a bit more before heading back to the hotel.
Our final full day in Iceland was the clearest day of the weekend; limited clouds, no rain. We pushed back the Lagoon / Northern Lights tour until Sunday due to this and then pushed the tour until the evening so we could chase the Lights, as the forecast for seeing them was upgraded to “Moderate”. During the day, we walked to downtown Reykjavik and hung out at a few watering holes, bought souvenirs and that’s about it.
Our tour guide picked us up at the hotel in our “super jeep”. This is an all-terrain vehicle that can basically handle off-roading, sides of mountains, etc. He drove us to the Blue Lagoon and I have to say that it is absolutely phenomenal. It is gorgeous to look at and even better to sit in. As an added bonus, they were smart enough to put in a “swim up bar”. Brilliant! I really don’t think I can put into words how much I enjoyed the Blue Lagoon, so I’m not even going to try. Just go there!
After a few hours at the Lagoon, we were back in the super jeep and hitting the road. Our driver made a few stops along the way to show some of the nature to us, including the hot springs. I haven’t the slightest idea what town, city, or area we were in though. We have pictures of signs that say “Krysuvikurkirkja” and “Seltun”. Don’t even try to pronounce the first one, just move on. Back in the jeep and we began our off-roading adventures, going up and down small mountains and hills. We then put the jeep in park along the side of a mountain as we were at one of the drivers’ suggested areas to see the Northern Lights. Shortly thereafter, we started to see some of the green and blue highlights in the sky. Well, I only saw a very small bit of it due to my terrible night vision, but the pictures that were taken do show this pretty clearly. (Trying to insert a picture here, hopefully this works and if it doesn’t, I blame Blogger)
After others jumped back in the jeep due to the terribly cold wind, I decided to take a walk up the mountainside of where we were parked. Let’s just say that if the driver made a bad turn or hit the gas too hard at certain points of this drive, we were bound to slide or fall a good couple hundred of feet down the side of the mountain and this blog entry would have never happened.
All in all, Iceland met my very high expectations and I would definitely return for another long weekend. I would probably look to stay at the Blue Lagoon for the better part of a full afternoon as part of that trip. The girls did a great job at surprising us and definitely made some good decisions on the hotel and the jeep tour. What a great gift!
What do you think? Are there any other recommendations for while you’re in Iceland? Did we miss anything?
