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Published: June 19th 2011
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Me in CMH. Happy Icelandic Independence Day everyone!
Yes, 17 June is the nations birthday, and Icelanders like to celebrate it big time. It's 11:30 PM up here, and if we didn't have to get up early tomorrow we'd probably be down there having a good time in downtown Reykjavik.
I thought it'd be a great idea to start a little travel blog to keep anyone who might be interested updated on our trip as well as great way to remember our trip. I'm going to break it down day by day as much as I can starting with wednesday last.
Wednesday 15 June
We were driven to the Columbus airport by mom's BFF Rocky, where we caught a flight to JFK in New York aboard a Delta connection flight. After about a five hour wait in JFK we hopped on a Delta 757 and headed up to Iceland, by a route that takes us over parts of Quebec and the southern tip of Greenland. Unfortunately for my dad and myself, Delta has an annoying habit of labeling exit row and bulkhead seats Economy Premium and selling it like its a better seat (which anyone who has ever sat there knows
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I guess Iron Maiden was in Iceland. Bruce Dickinson the bands front man is a pilot and big into planes, and he flies the jets they charter for tours. it is not, trying to sleep with all those people running to the restroom all the time). Not to mention my seat didn't recline, so we were miserable and got no sleep. We may try an arrangement on the way back to get better seats.
Thursday 16 June
We arrived at the Keflavik airport, which is about 40 km southwest of Reykjavik, a little after 9 AM, and immediately headed towards the duty free store, which is a haven in a country where VAT taxes run around 20%! (MISSING)After we went through customs (where no one was having bags checked, you just walked right through) we were happy to see my dad's cousin Ester Helga, who has been great with helping us plan the trip. We also picked up our rental car.
After that we went to the famous landmark near Keflavik, the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is an artificial swimming lake directly adjacent to one of Iceland's many geothermal electric and water plant (Iceland get's 100%!o(MISSING)f its electric power from water superheated by volcanic activity below the earth's surface, with the steaming turning generators, and all the hot water coming out of Icelandic faucets also
comes from the earth). The Blue Lagoon runs at about 90 F which is quite comfortable, and when you stand up your refreshed by a 45 F wind. The Lagoon also has healthful mineral deposits, and we spread a silicon putty on our faces, which really works! I had one small zit on the bridge of my nose, and as of today it is almost gone! We stayed for not quite 2 hours, as we were very tired and looking forward to an afternoon nap.
We came into the capital city of Reykjavik, the largest in Iceland, with a Metro of 201,000. It seems larger than it is, thanks to how spread out it is, as well as how much activity there is in places. We have a 2 bedroom 1 bath traveler's apartment in a fantastic location just a few blocks from busy downtown Reykjavik, in one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, where my dad's grandfather was born in 1899. Many of the houses have plaques that date them to before that time. The apartment has a fantastic view, especially out the front, towards the harbor and the mountains beyond, and its modern and European style throughout, with
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Path to Blue Lagoon entrance. absolutely everything in it having an Ikea logo.
We made a lunch of ham sandwiches and then passed out for three hours, before eating another meal of Icelandic hotdogs, we went to walk around Reykjavik downtown and the harbor area, but we headed back at about 10pm, when people were just starting to come down to enjoy the night life.
Friday 17 June
Independence Day! Not surprisingly I was the last one up at about 11am, and all of us slept great, none of us had any problem with the sun not going down last night, because of the high latitude, over summer the sun will only dip below the horizon, and starting on Sunday, it will not go down for 5 days. We ate a breakfast that included pastries and rolls from a bakery just down the street. We then headed to downtown, which was packed with people celebrating independence day.
We walked for a few hours, before heading off to the Viking festival in nearby Hafnarfjörður, where we saw people doing Viking related things like arts and crafts, cooking, and a small demonstration of combat.
For dinner we met up with Esther Helga and
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Part of the Blue Lagoon. You can't swim here though. her husband Omar at the home of her parents, my dad's Uncle Mimi and Aunt Dida, where they served us a delicious traditional Icelandic leg of lamb, and talked a lot. Mimi speaks limited English and Dida speaks about as much English as I do Icelandic, so whenever we were speaking it was up to my dad or Esther Helga to do the translating, and sometimes Dida seemed to forget, and would look Nathan, mom or me straight in the eye and say something with us taking up very little of it.
Tomorrow will be the beginning of our first adventure here in Iceland, with a trip with Esther Helga and Omar to go horseback riding, deep sea fishing, and a visit to a great national park.
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