Iceland: Day 1

If you read my blog you know that Robyn and I took a trip to Iceland from May 20-30! It was a blast. Iceland is an amazingly beautiful country with lots to see. Most of the pictures here are from my camera - Robyn has a better camera that takes stunning pictures, I'll post some of those shots once I can get my hands on them!

Remember, you can click on all of the pictures to see a big version!

The flight from Toronto was five hours, and I snapped this shot out the window of the plane as we began our descent over Iceland. Already a curious place - a volcanic landscape, some kind of geothermal activity visible from the sky, and possibly a geothermal power plant?

Imagine my PURE JOY when we stepped off the plane and the first thing we saw on our vacation was IRON MAIDEN's touring airplane - ED FORCE ONE. Sadly, the band wasn't in Iceland - when Maiden isn't using it, it's operated as a passenger plane by a smaller British carrier.

Our plane left Toronto at 9pm EST and it was a five-hour flight. When we landed in Keflavik Airport (45min away from Reykjavik), it felt like 2am EST to us, but it was 6am Iceland time. We decided that to beat jetlag, we shouldn't nap - we were going to stay up for the whole day. Our cab took us to downtown Rekjavik, we checked into our hotel, and started wandering around the town. We spotted the iconic Hallgrímskirkja church:

We decided in our exhausted state we should go see Rekjavik's thermal beach, so we grabbed our swim gear from the hotel and set off on an unexpectedly long walk - bad idea for two people operating on no sleep. We arrived at the beach - packed with kids - and decided a swim wasn't for us. We went to check out a "Saga Museum" instead, all about how Iceland was founded. Super interesting! 

After a long walk back to downtown we grabbed lunch at a tasty place called mmmmm.

I think it was an early supper - 4:30-ish. Still exhausted from the long trip and staying up all day instead of napping, we headed back for our hotel to relax. No need to burn ourselves out on Day 1. We saw a store selling internet meme tshirts:

At our hotel we sat on our couch, trying to stay awake for a few more hours to beat that nasty mistress, jetlag. When we were at our most tired point I sprung a surprise that I'd brought with me - a proposal and a ring! Having been awake for 36+ hours, we went to bed happy around 8pm and slept for 10 or 11 hours.

There are no in-the-moment engagement pics - we were far too tired - but here is a picture of the newly engaged couple, feeling well-rested the next day!

STAY TUNED for volcanic disruptions, geysers, waterfalls, and more!!