ice ice iceland

For my 30th birthday, I decided to treat myself to a holiday in Iceland... a long weekend of spas, waterfalls and the Northern Lights... sounds perfect! Thanks me! I let Joe tag along too.

We took the early morning flight into Reykjavik and went straight to the Blue Lagoon from the airport. There really is no better way to spend a beautiful winter morning than to soak in a geothermal spa.

See that cube to the right? That's a bar! You could just float over and get a beer (which is charged to your bracelet.) Ingenious!

 Ahh... to just float along without a care in the world... To make the experience more luxurious, there are these buckets of silicon mud around (and at the bottom of the spa) which you could slather on your face. I saw later at the airport shop that they're selling a tube of these mud mask for about 40 pounds! Should have bottled some myself!

We spent a whole afternoon there, alternating between spa, sauna, and steam bath, and left feeling quite relaxed.

That night we went on a Northern Lights tour. It was cold and quite tiring, and we didn't end up seeing anything as the cloud cover was too thick :(

Never mind! The next day it was onto the "Golden Circle" tour - which covered the major natural sights close to Reykjavik. Our first stop was a massive crater with a frozen lake. You could see waves under the frozen ice, it's pretty cool...

It was also very windy and freaking cold up there.

Onward to see some waterfalls...

and geysirs.. The very active Strokkur geysir erupts every couple of minutes, which is great for us tourists chumps.

We were standing camera ready for a good 10 minutes waiting to get a good shot of me with an erupting geysir.

They used to cook food in these geysirs... Mmm sulfuric!

 Joe the anarchist.

Next was the spectacular Gullfoss waterfall, which is formed of two converging waterfalls.

Did I mention it was damn freezing?

Iceland sits between the North American and the Eurasian plate. These plates are actually drifting apart from one another, which is why Iceland is so rich with volcanic activities. This is the valley between the two continental plates.. so called "no man's land".

The drifting apart of the plates carves up valleys and ridges in the landscape. You could say this is like the border between Europe and America.. (kinda)

 That shimmering in the stream is coins people have thrown in for good luck (or something)

Some awesome scenery here... 

Apart from being the boundary of the continental plates, this place is also historically significant as it was where the oldest parliament (formed by the first settlers of Iceland) in the world convened in the 10th Century.

On our last day in Reykjavik we decided to look around town - starting with the Sun Voyager sculpture in the centre of town - it is an "ode to the sun", facing out to sea.

We stopped by the Cathedral to gawk at its towering modernist architecture. Inside, the vibe is very tranquil and comfortable.. all muted pastels, soft edges and rounded corners. Comfy padded pews too.

 View of the city from the Cathedral tower.

 View of us at the Cathedral tower

Across from the Cathedral is Loki Cafe where we had a taste of Icelandic cuisine. We weren't adventurous enough to try the fermented (rotten) shark, and settled instead for cod and egg on rye bread, smoked lamb, soup, and rye bread ice-cream.  All quite delicious, though the rye bread ice-cream was a standout.

The rest of the day we spent at the Laugardalslaug swimming pool. We've got no photos of the pool, but it is seriously the best value fun you could have in Reykjavik (the entry ticket is less than three pounds!)  It is equipped with an Olympic sized pool, a couple of smaller pools, a 38C seawater pool, and four hot tubs from 38 to 44C. Oh and there is a giant water slide! All pools but one are outdoors and geothermal heated to various warmness. It was truly the best way to spend a freezing (-4C), snowy day!  I soaked in the hot tubs until I got quite hot, then I did a few laps in the swimming pool, followed by a few turns down the water slide, and then it was back to the hot tubs to repeat the cycle.

And before we knew it, it was getting dark. We ate some hot dogs and took a bus back to hotel.

On the way back we saw a bubble tea cafe.. even in Iceland!

In the end, even though we tried all three nights, we didn't end up seeing the Northern Lights. But we had such a great time touring the beautiful scenery and soaking in the geothermal pools.  Perhaps we'll be back again someday, and try our luck again with those tricky Northern Lights.