Iceland got character!

I’ve been meaning to finish posting on Paris before moving to Iceland but a friend asked if I could blog on Iceland so here it is :) … Versailles, Montmartre and Pere Lachaise will wait for another day ;)

Coming to Iceland has been a refreshing experience. Despite having only a short stopover of 3D/2N (we leave tomorrow evening, sob!), the time spent here is probably one of the best memories I would carry with me (albeit the broken luggage bag but that’s for another post!). Geographically, Iceland has one of the most amazing nature that I’ve ever seen and Icelandic people have a quirky sense of humour that I like very much. For example, when I was flying IcelandAir, one of the ads shown was this quote, “The most amazing thing about winter in Iceland is not students pouring over books in five universities, it is that Gryla, the illiterate mother of the 13 Yule Lads, is still the most known and feared person in Iceland.” The Yule Lads are famous Icelandic folklore characters which teach children to be good :)

Iceland is less than three hours from Paris and about five hours to NYC. Good thing about Iceland is almost everyone speaks English so communication for foreigners is pretty easy. The capital city, Reykjavik is located about 30 mins from Keflavik International Airport. IcelandAir has a promotion for passengers flying its routes - they can stopover in Reykjavik for free (hence why we managed to get here!) We rented a car from Hertz, which gave us the best price versus two others, and found our way to Snorri Guesthouse.

The accommodation was perfect. It felt more homey than Paris’ hotel and finally we have a kitchen to use (shared, of course). Breakfast was included in the 59 eur/night rental and the spread was really nice - yogurt, cereal, six types of spreads, breads, ham, salami, tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum, and the usual juices and coffee and tea. Needless to say, I had a hearty breakfast to kickstart the day.

Reykjavik is a pretty city; the centre is a quaint little place with many restaurants, cafes and shops on cobbled street. Iceland has over 300,000 population and 60% of them are in Reykjavik. On the first night when we arrived, we went and had laundry done at The Laundromat Cafe, which is both a cafe and a laundromat (it’s ingenius!). Food was great and while we ate, our clothes were being washed!

For our only one full day of sight-seeing, we headed to the Geysir, which is less than two hours drive from Reykjavik. I’ve seen geysers before, first time in New Zealand and second in Taiwan, and guess now I can add Iceland into the list :)

Much to our surprise, the route passes by the Thingvellir valley, where the North American plate meets the European plate, called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge! There was also a little waterfall, which quick water dashes upon the dark rocks again and again. I stood in awe at the sight where the earth breaks into two; speaks a lot of the unseen powers.

Finally we reached the Geysir (it took longer than two hours since we stopped so frequently to take pix!) and they were quite amazing to watch! One of them is still active and erupts every 10 minutes. The oldest one no longer erupts, apparently the last time was after the earthquake in year 2000. The wonders of nature :)

So that’s the Icelandic adventure for me so far and I’m loving every minute of it! :) Hope to come back again to see the glaciers one day!

More pix here.

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