Yes, I know I look ridiculous. Anywhoo, off to the airport at 4:30 pm and 30 hours later half way there in Keflavik.
And yes that is 10:40 pm not AM, the sun never really gets all that low at night in Iceland(at least during the summertime)Iceland is a beautiful country day or white nights. We’ve been taking advantage of the fact that you can take pictures of gorgeous sunsets at 2am and great shots of scenery any time of night or day. Really the sun is only barely below the horizon and it never gets much darker then a beautiful sunset that lasts 4-5 hours.
This is at about 3am.We were put up in a really nice hotel in Keflavik by the airline called Hotel Keilir. It is a beautiful hotel right on the ocean in Keflavik. The woman who owns the hotel was very kind and helpful to us talking to the airline and arranging fancy fish meals for the airline to pay for. We really liked her a lot and we loved her hotel. Basically 30 angry people showed up at her hotel at 11 or 12 o’clock and she got rooms ready for all of us and woke up a local restaurateur at home to come to his restaurant the Duushuus to prepare us a special fish dinner. Though we were given free airline sandwiches and snacks on the plane we were now 19 hours later our scheduled arrival in Iceland and very very hungry having eaten some cookies and some crappy airline sandwiches. This dinner which I know we would have loved even if we were not at wits end and starving was simply amazing.
Breaded Halibut and Cod lightly pan fried with a green salad and some pan roasted potatoes on the side. We sat at a table with 2 Swedes and a Norwegian who couldn’t stop exclaiming “This tastes just like home!”
There is a cute little free museum in Keflavik which has hundreds of model boats of the fishing fleets of Iceland over the years. Clearly fishing is a huge part of Iceland‘s past and present economy.
After two days in Fabulous Keflavik we basically have run out of things to do. We wandered around and took pictures of these interesting rock statues, we visited the Blue lagoon and had a good time getting to know a very cute Belgian couple, Philippe and Perrine. They went with us to the blue lagoon and the second nights dinner at Duushuus (thanks Iceland Express).The Blue Lagoon is a beautiful sulfur spring created accidentally when they constructed a geothermal power plant outside of Keflavik. The water is really stunningly blue and kept regulated in the designated swimming area. Really nowadays it’s a major tourist trap and is quite expensive to get in but our entrance was paid by Iceland express(thanks again) even if the bus wasn’t(though they said it would be on the phone - no thanks Iceland express). Under the strongly sulfurous smelling water was a kind of salty silica clay that people would rub all over their body and it was supposed to be very good for the skin. After extensive testing and sitting around looking like a woman at a spa I can honestly report that though the nice hotel owner instantly declared that we look 20 years younger, I can see no difference nor do I think I looked like a 6 year old.
After all that we decided we were done with Keflavik and we decided to move on to Reykjavik in the mean time.
I pulled 10,000 ISK from the ATM, Indubitably I am quite the baller-shot-caller. (this is only like 75 dollars US.)
On to Reykjavik!