Iceland Adventure

In mid-late November 2016, I went to Iceland with Simone, Louisa and Diana as part of my Europe trip (yay finally stepping out of my Asian bubble lolll). It was my first time in Iceland and Europe as well! We flew from Sydney --> Abu Dhabi --> Rome. After stopping in Rome for one day, we flew from Rome --> Gatwick, London --> Keflavik, Iceland. On a side note, from Rome to Iceland, we caught Norwegian, an award winning European budget airline, and they had FREE WIFI ON THE PLANE. Because you know ,wifi is always the most important :P

Top 10 Highlights

1. Northern lights OMGGGGGGG

As northern lights are a natural phenomenon, I was told to not expect that I will definitely see the lights or I may be disappointed. We actually saw the northern lights 2.5 times during the week we were in Iceland!

First time we saw it was outside the Airbnb place we stayed in. The Airbnb was located in a farm (in the middle of nowhere lol) so it was very dark. Since the skies were clear that night (after a massive snow storm in the evening?!), we thought we'd try our luck. At around 1am outisde on the veranda, we saw a very faint streak across the sky. We weren't sure if it was just clouds or northern lights, so we took a photo on the camera to check. On camera, it showed up with a green tinge!!!!

The half time was on a night when the skies looked clear and the forecasts were favourable for northern light viewing. We drove around the outskirts of Borganes in search of a place to view the northern lights. On Louisa's camera, there was a faint green tinge but it was unfortunately blocked by a mountain.

Second time was totally unexpected and the most amazing. It was our last night in Iceland, and we had dinner in the Blue Lagoon and were dawdling around until 9pm. Luckily we dawdled because as we were walking to our car, we looked up and THERE IT WAS THIS SUPER BRIGHT STREAK OF GREEN that was undoubtedly the northern lights! Other passerbys also stopped in awe as the lights "danced" across the night sky. Luckily I had my camera with me, and there happened to be a bin with a lid which made a perfect replacement for a tripod lol. The lights were there for about 15 minutes.

2. Diamond Beach

True to its name, the beach looked like it was covered with humongous pieces of diamonds which were actually pieces of ice which had broken off from glaciers. The black sand of the beach made the "diamonds" stand out even more. I have never quite seen anything like this before!

3. Black Sand Beach at Sunrise

To view the sunrise in Iceland in winter, you don't have to wake up that early haha as sunrise is at round 9-10am. We were staying in a guest house near this Black Sand Beach, and happened to be there when it was sunrise. An amazing view.

4. Blue Lagoon

One of the top attractions in Iceland, Blue Lagoon is a thermal hotspring. Silica and other minerals in the water gives it a unique, milky blue shade. The waters of Blue Lagoon are side to have healing qualities for those with skin conditions.

It's so cool because even though the ground temperature was 0 - 2 degrees, the water is constantly at around 40 degrees. They also gave guests silica / algae masks and we also had a free drink from the bar in the lagoon.

We also had an (expensive but) amazing dinner at Blue Lagoon's restaurant LAVA.

5. Scenery from the car

Couldn't stop taking photos haha

6. Kirkjufell

The perfect combination of waterfall and mountain.

7. Geysir

8. Ice caves

Note: It look much bigger in the photos than in real life.

9. Icelandic Food

LOBESTER SOUP YUMMMMiest soup I've ever had

"Magic" salt - most restaurants had this amazing salt that was orange. I suspect it has paprika in it. I bought a bottle from Bonus as a souvenir.

Puffins & whale - tried this in a gastropub in Reykjavik. They were both served carpaccio/sashimi style.

Deer - This may be quite common in Europe, but not in Australia. One of us ordered this in the Blue Lagoon. Can't remember exactly what it taste like.

Shark - Tried this in the Shark Museum. Kinda nice in the beginning, like Japanese prepackaged hotate. BUT the aftertaste was very strange (might be ammonia)

9.5 Bonus

9.5 because although not the most unique, Bonus did give us many happy memories. Bonus is the budget Icelandic supermarket chain with a cute sleazy looking pig as the logo. Definitely our best friend in providing alternatives to 9000 kronas ($106 AUD) KFC meals for 4. And free self-serve coffee too!

10. Reykjavik and parking fines

​Might be a bit extremely to list this as a highlight, but it is definitely something unforgettable. In Reykjavik, we received a parking fine because we parked on the street overnight, forgetting that morning hours are metered. The fine was 2500 kronas (approx $30 AUD). We learnt that you can pay for the fine at the bank! And if you pay on the day (or within a certain amount of days after receiving the ticket), you get a discount! In the end we only paid 1400 kronas ($16.50 AUD). In NSW, the cheapest parking related fine is $108 :O

Impressions

- Iceland seemed to have emerged as the new "must-see" tourist destination. Having never been to Europe before, I wondered what about Iceland made it so unique from the rest of Europe. Now I can see why Iceland is very captivating - from glaciers to thermal geysers, to the winding roads with nothing but rocks and mountains on the side, which makes you feel like you are driving into the sky

- Living in Sydney where winter temperatures rarely go below 10 degrees, I was a bit anxious to visit Iceland, especially since I've always had the impression that Iceland was a land of ice (lol). Luckily when we were there in mid-late November, the weather was kind to us and the lowest was probably -4 degrees.

- Most people I saw were probably tourists. Iceland only has a population of around 300,000 (compared to Sydney's population of 4.2 million).

- Despite its small population and towns are very spread out, everything seemed to be very high tech (they even had signs that showed a sad face when you were travelling too fast in the most random places). All the roads were travelled on had very good reflectors (seems like an energy efficient alternative to street lights and are relatively easy to maintain). Petrol stations were self-serviced and credit cards were accepted almost everywhere

- Of the Icelanders we met, everyone spoke perfect English. I still struggled with signs/packaging because they are mostly written in Icelandic (because everyone spoke perfect English, I subconsciously expected packaging to be bilingual too)

- Everything was expensive except for the parking fines (lemons were like $3 for 1 and a burger meal at a diner was $25 AUD)

- Driving in Iceland was tough, especially when the wind blew, I could feel the car swerve slightly. They also drive on "the other side" of the road

#iceland #europe #travel #adventure #wanderlust