Day 21 – U Jul 19 – Ísafjörður, Iceland
- After a breakfast that included blueberry pancakes, we were slated for a bus tour. It turned out to be incredibly informative.
- Arctic Terns have nesting grounds near the docks. They lay their eggs on the ground instead of building nests. They are sweet with a gentle chatter, fun to watch because they “bop” when they fly. They are migratory, too.
- Ísafjörður has golf! It’s only 9 holes, so people play two rounds. It’s also near a creek that goes from the top of the mountains to the fjord, so golf balls land in the large creek of ever-flowing water. Once a year, (brave) kids wander the near-freezing river collecting the golf balls to return them to the course.
- Near the golf course and at the bottom of a waterfall is an RV park. It is a beautiful place for a camping vacation.
- Lupines, everywhere. They were one of our wedding flowers. Colorado has the mountain ones. We’ve seen so many on this trip, too.
- The town also has a couple of ski resorts. One is typical lift up and ski down. The other is atop a mountain, focuses on cross-country skiing, and has a great view of the valley below.
- Near the middle of the area is a 9km tunnel. Long parts of it are one lane, so one direction of traffic has the right of way and the other direction has to pull over into little notches at the side to let the right-of-way traffic pass. The tunnel also splits away and makes a T shape to go to another part of the area. So, it’s literally a three-way, one-lane tunnel.
- In addition to mountains and tunnels, the area has beaches. The sand is a fine powder like Destin, Florida but not bright white like theirs.
- Before our first photo stop, we saw sheep. At it, we saw kids with large shovels playing on the beach in jackets and tuques.
- While nesting, the ducks are guarded by farmers from minks, foxes, and ravens, but they can not be saved from the protected eagles or falcons. Normally, the ducks are skittish of humans, but these protective farmers can even pet “their” ducks. After the birds leave the nests, the farmers collect the down used to make the nest…and that down becomes part of puffy jackets and duvets.
- As the foggy clouds rolled in, our driver said, “The mountains wear the cloud like a hat.”
- Flateyri, a small town of 200 outside of Ísafjörður lost 20 residents to a devastating avalanche in 1995. Losing 10% of any population would be tragic to that community. In the aftermath, they asked the government to build them an Avalanche Dam. The government declined due to costs. The whole country/island raised money so they could build it.
- Similar to Colorado, tire spikes are required for icy areas. For most of Ísafjörður, it’s October 15 through April 15. By April 16, they must be removed so as not to damage the roads. However, if you are pulled over and say you are from that tiny town, the rumor is you won’t be fined for having them on too late. The people here understand the townspeople’s apprehension about snow.
- One farmer who lives and works alongside the “golf ball” creek has two hydroelectric generators and makes enough power to sell it to the grid.
- Iceland had left-side driving until 1968. (Sweden changed theirs in 1967 to match the countries around them.) Iceland shut down all roads one night, crews changed all the signs, and they re-opened the roads the next morning. It was the safest period of driving in the country’s history. So, one politician proposed that they should change it every year to make people pay more attention.
- Iceland babies sleep in strollers in the front yard just like they do in Sweden.
- Money is a Krón or some Króna: 1 United States Dollar equals 125.14 Icelandic Króna (Norwegian Kroner were 9.65 Kroner to the dollar)
- After lunch, we went to the cabin to pre-pack. It’s always a sad day when the rubber blanket comes out onto the bed. We also took our cruise surveys.
- We met our boat besties and another Aussie couple for dinner with 5 Aussies before going dancing with Lara and closing down the bar. We couldn’t hear the female vocalist, so we asked them to turn her mic up. She’s really good and deserves to be heard.
- Back at our cabins, Lara and I had another “girls” night for one more drink before our departure.
Day 22 – debark in Reykjavik
- Debarkation days are always early to rise. They suck. But we had a lovely farewell breakfast with our Aussie friends, Lara, Astrid, and Matthew. It was very sweet of them to offer to get up early to join us.
- After border control, our taxi (no rideshares in Iceland) driver was nice and helpful with the luggage, but then he dropped us at the bottom of the hill. While it was a short-ish walk, the hill, the weather, and the fact that we had any luggage made it a bit of a hike. Once we got there, we learned he could have gotten us a lot closer, but chose not to. Our formerly 5* review was downgraded to 2*. Those assholes both argued with us and also submitted our review for a claim. We appealed it and won. So, if you debark in Reykjavik, walk as far as you can from the cruise terminal and then call a cab the normal way. Fight for good service.
- It was long before we could check in at our kiosk-hotel, but they sort of had luggage storage. It was secure in the sense that only guests could get into the hotel and with a code. We felt safe and dropped our heavier stuff there.
- To kill time and for the newness of it all, we did a walk of the town. We found a gallery of beautiful photography by jurie. Sometimes he hiked a mountain as many as 20 times to get the shot. Next, we found a cafe with the most amazing hot cocoa and a sitting break where we had a brief chat with a couple from the Netherlands who had just finished a Holland cruise.
- And then, we found an instrument shop with an incredible owner who was happy to show us the weird mouth harps that seemed to be made from bamboo.
- By then, we were hungry for lunch, and a burger joint named Big Lebowski’s beckoned. While we ate, we watched Dazed & Confused with subtitles. We got to see the same-ish moment of “It’d be cooler if you did” and “alright alright alright” which just made me LOL. The table next to us mused about the name of the movie and we assured them that it was, in fact, Dazed & Confused. It was cool to see some of old Austin.
- By then, our hotel was ready at only 1pm! Wow! They worked hard to get us “dibs” on a room. We were grateful. We even had a small kitchen to work with. We also did some laundry so it would have plenty of time to dry. Next, we did the smartest thing and took a rest.
- Later, we wandered the town a bit, ran an errand, hit an Irish bar (of course), and found fish and chips for supper where some younger travellers were taking up two whole tables for just the three of them. The staff even had to ask them to sit together instead of spread out.
- We also stopped by the grocery and learned just how expensive Iceland is. For $38 USD, we got 4 soup packets, 1L of milk, some grapes, a loaf of bread, a jar of jam, 2 packs of lunch meat, 1 pack of cheese, and 1 bag of chips. It was pricey, but it was a lot cheaper than eating out for a few of our meals. (In-my-head math shows that we saved somewhere around $240 eating some meals from a grocery, but only spent about $60 on food.)
- We used part of the evening to research hot springs, pick one, and book tickets.
Day 23 – T Jul 21 – Sky Lagoon in Reykjavik
- We had a slow morning of breakfast in our room, getting ready, resting, and watching the safety video for our next cruise. Then, it was time for our adventure.
- We love to take public transportation. After the last flat-fee, $50 cab ride that was short and had bad service, we wanted to avoid cabs. Plus, public transport in other countries is nice, and Google Maps will tell you exactly what to do. We walked to perfect bus timing, walked to a second bus, and then walked the rest of the way to the hot springs.
- Sky Lagoon was amazing.
- After checking in, we had to remove shoes to enter the locker room. I get it, but this seems a bit unhygienic to me. I brought shoes that could get wet, but couldn’t wear them, and they didn’t provide any slippers.
- The process to get in was planned well. Everyone (except for one photo diva who didn’t follow any rules, the bitch) must take a full shower without a suit, but you don’t know that until you get there. So you change into your suit, move to the showers, get undressed again, take a shower, put on a swimsuit while you are still steamy from the shower, and then go out the other side to the steps down to the lagoon. So that part was a little wonky. I’ll forgive it because WOW!
- Step 1 of the Skjól Ritual was the giant lagoon of warm and cozy water with an infinity edge to the ocean. On our day, we were surrounded by a misty fog. For the other 6 steps, we did a cold plunge, sat in a dry sauna with a picture window to the ocean, walked through and sat in a cool mist “cave”, did a really nice salt scrub, visited a steam room where most of the salt melted all over our bodies, and enjoyed an elixir made from crowberries, which are native to Iceland.
- After the seven steps, we hung out in the main lagoon, had drinks, and visited the waterfall.
- We then hit the showers to wash off any remaining salt. Even the hair and body products were amazing. I did wish they had a “salad spinner” for our suits, but they had little “produce” bags to carry them home in.
- You know how something might not live up to the expectations? Well, this looked amazing and still blew us away. This experience made any Disney park (where everything is “perfect”) look like back-to-school season at Target and Walmart.) After showers, we had a drink in the lobby bar before heading back to the city center via the walk-bus-walk-bus-walk.
- After a long and uphill walk, we found a Thai place for dinner and then went back to our hotel to rest. Relaxing really takes it out of you. I also downloaded all the remaining pics from our phones so I wouldn’t have to try to do that on the next ship.
- Our hotel had a great view of the main street of downtown, so we liked to sit and watch people come by the souvenir shop across from us to touch the polar bears and take pics with them. He also caught a video of the bears going “to bed” at night.
Day 24 – W Jul 22 – trashy day in Reykjavik
- I woke up a sleep cycle before he did and got a little work done. It was nice to have real/stable Wifi to crank out a day’s worth of content for one of our blog posts.
- He awoke when the trash trucks came by. Normally, this would be super annoying, but it was quite interesting. We didn’t see all of the beginning and we never saw recycling, but we’re pretty sure of the order. A normal trash truck comes by and takes the compost from the wheelie bins. A second truck comes behind that one. Four guys put two bins in the truck to clean them. It’s like a mobile dishwasher for the wheelie bins. Bins go in, churn for a couple of minutes, and come out sparkling and steamy. Then they hose the lid and edges down with something (disinfectant?), roll them back to their spots, and flip the cans over to let them dry (as best they can in the ultra-humid climate). It was amazing and something all trash companies should add.
- When we were ready to venture out again, we went in search of tshirts, found good hot chocolate with real chocolate shavings instead of sprinkles, and grocery shopped for dinner.
- We did some travel “work” until we were ready to cook and that’s when we learned the microwave/oven combo didn’t work. We made our food in a skillet, instead. It turned out just fine.
- After a little work, we headed out again, but this time, we were looking for a sticker for the Jeep and found a feral cat, a false bar, and an Irish pub (of course). When they started music that was far too loud, we bounced over to the gay bar. He sneezed and the whole place all said “bless you.” It was a slow night, so I asked the bartender how many gay bars the city has. He said, “Here, every bar is a gay bar.” <3
