Day 1 - Countries that start with "I" for $200 Alex

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Day 1- Well it has been quite an eventful trip for 2 of us so far. Everyone was to converge on Denver to fly directly to Reykjavik on a 5:15 flight and arrive in Iceland at 6:30 am. Kirsten and Chester made it no problem to Denver. Kirsten's flight from Houston was uneventful, except for the screaming child sitting next to her on the flight, and Chester only had a 20 minute drive to the airport for once. Gene and Judy, Kirsten's parents, were to arrive in Denver around 2:30, with plenty of time to make the connection. Suck it Frontier. The Omaha flight was delayed over 6 hours for mechanical reasons. So during her layover, Kirsten spent lots of money to change and find new flights so her parents can make the trip. Gene and Judy flew to Denver, then JFK in New York for an 8 hour layover, then to Iceland. They were only delayed by 18 hours. In that time, Chester and Kirsten were on the loudest flight ever. No one would shut up and just watch a movie or sleep. Unfortunately for Chester, Kirsten declared this flight a NO-AMBIEN flight. The flight was only 7 hours, so not enough for Chester to totally sleep off the effects of her favorite, go-to drug. We don't need another "Spain" incident where Chester took the Ambien too late and Kirsten literally had to carry and drag Chester off the plane.

So the two of us arrived in Iceland at 6:30 and had 2 hours to kill before catching the bus to The Blue Lagoon. Insert "ahhhhhhhhs" here. Arriving at the Blue Lagoon one gets a whiff of the sulfur smell well before one reaches the destination. Was it worth it, yes, even if we had to rent a towel for $8. We could have just taken someone else's, but we were good. (Despite the many efforts by Kirsten to get Chester to steal a towel as they were handing everywhere) The women's locker room attendant made sure we knew "das rules" before entering the pools. We must shower without our suits before entering the lagoon (actually we just turned the shower on and got wet with our suits on, we showed her!) Then we finally waded into the healing waters of the lagoon. They say the water temps range from 98 degrees to 200 degrees. Thank goodness too, because it was rainy/misty and really cold during our entire stay at the Lagoon. We were there early enough that it wasn't too crowded or busy. The brochures make the place look like the lagoon covers acres of land, which it does, but you are limited where you can go. But there was still plenty of room for all. The waters were so warm and inviting. We scrubbed up with the silica mud mask and waded all around the pools for about 90 minutes. We scooped up algae and volcanic rock at the bottom with our toes. When we tried to leave we encountered a problem. There were about 5 or 6 older women trying to get into the pool using the stairs, there is one major D-Bag sitting on the stairs with his mud mask on his smirky face basking in the water. There is a line of people trying to get in and out of the pool, but this guy is sitting on the stairs. So, since we are in a foreign country and everyone thinks Americans are rude anyway, Chester decided to take the stair case and literally walked right over the guy and made sure she splashed him in his face when she ascended the stairs. She was pretty proud of herself for that one. Kirsten stayed back and laughed and tried to do the same thing, but those old ladies finally got down the stairs and cock-blocked her. It was still pretty sweet.

Back to the locker room and "das rules". We grabbed a shower and then tried to make our way back to our lockers. "No, you must be completely dry. Dry here!" (you can say it with any mean accent, it will work) Yes, Mommie Dearest. No wire hangers and no wet bodies. Really? Fine. But we showed her again, after Kirsten changed she washed her suit out in the sink and hung to dry over her locker in the "dry" area.

We left the blue lagoon and headed to our hotel, the Hilton. It's nice and even better our room was ready early. We crashed for only 2 hours and then knew we had to get up and battle the jet lag and hit the town. The main area by the harbor is really cool. It reminds us of Belgium, Germany and a little of Amsterdam with its architecture and layout. The area is quaint and nice with lots of shopping and restaurants. We settled on a seafood place right on the Harbor and it was awesome. We had crab, salmon and catfish. Everything tasted great and our dessert was the bomb. Literally it was titled "The Bomb". We heading back to the hotel via bus, and as happens when you are learning a new city, we got on the right bus, but maybe in the wrong direction. So technically we took a private bus tour (we were only ones on the public bus) with a private guide (the driver) around the city. It only added about 15 min to the trip so no big deal. By now it is 10 pm and it is still light out. This is totally going to screw with our internal clocks and sleeping. But it is kind of cool to look out and have it be light, well, light through lots of clouds.

Tomorrow will be a great day as it will for sure rain again, but Gene and Judy will be here to start their much delayed vacation. First, we need to make sure their room isn't better than ours and wait a couple of hours until they get here for the Icelandic adventure to begin.

NOTE if you are keeping track or starting a pool of the Judy Glesne face plants the official rules state you start over with each trip (not country). But note it is wet, rainy and lot of volcanic slippery rock. Get you bets in now.

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Photos

Chester and Kirsten
Don't mistake this for a honeymoon photo.

The Grotto
Kirsten pretending she is at the Playboy Mansion Grotto. Has the boobs, but not so much the rest of the body.

Silica Mud Mask
Chester trying to recapture her youthful appearance.

Results
NOPE Still the same

Not your Bay Watch life guards
No red swimsuit for these guys. Just work boats, wool hat, rain slicker and gloves.

Blue Lagoon
View from above

Feet
This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went to the blue lagoon.

Comments

[Jill Manchester]

The Antics of Chester & Kirsten
...and the antics of Chester & Kirsten continue...let's just apologize to the Icelandic people now! Have fun guys!!

[Mikki]

Oh, my, causing trouble in Iceland already. . .
Maybe I will write a blog from Oklahoma next week. . .

[Claudia]

YAY! More travel blogs
Love your adventures!