Iceland Vacation, Day 1

Yesterday, Susan and I traveled to Iceland for a weeklong vacation with two of our couples friends: Nate and Angie and Marcus and Lisa. The flights were reasonable: an hour from Bismarck, ND, to Minneapolis, MN; an hour-and-a-half from there to Detroit, MI; and a six-hour flight to Keflavík, Iceland (just outside of Reykjavík). It's just that our 1:20 A.M. Central time arrival was actually 6:20 A.M. in Iceland ... so it was already time to start our day of touristy activities without a full night's sleep! We picked up our rental cars and got started.

(Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Our first stop was Kökulist Bakery for pastries and coffee. Then we spent a few hours at the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa located in a lava field outside of Keflavík. This photo came from the InterWebz (here) because we were all submerged in the water with mineral masks on our faces and cocktails in our hands ... so we were too preoccupied to take our own photographs!

Then we drove to Reykjavík, where we'll spend two nights. We ate fish stew and fish soup for dinner at The Icelandic Bar, where Nate tried (and shared) grilled puffin, Iceland's signature bird. We checked into our Airbnb and then walked around the area to explore the shops and take photos of interesting buildings. We found a grocery store and bought some items to make our own supper tonight (crackers, meat, and cheese) and breakfast tomorrow (eggs, bacon, toast, and jam) ... because food in Icelandic restaurants is expensive! For example, at dinner my fish stew came in a soup bowl with a slice of rye bread on the side. It cost 3,890 Icelandic krónur, which is about 32 American dollars.

Just a couple blocks from our Airbnb is the Lutheran church Hallgrímskirkja, the largest church in Iceland and a prominent part of Reykjavík's cityscape. It is named after the Icelandic poet and minister Hallgrímur Pétursson (Hallgrímskirkja means Hallgrímur's church).

This is just one of many Reykjavík buildings painted in interesting ways. Many otherwise traditional houses are painted in bright colors to add cheer during the long winters; and street art is embraced, with murals small and large (like this one) painted in alleyways and on the fronts of homes and businesses.