Wow I'm Glad I Bought a Raincoat

Sunday morning was very relaxing... Leifur slept late since he went to bed much later than Jon and I, so the two of us just spent the morning in the house planning out our agenda for the week—we booked a rental car and also an ice-climbing tour for Wednesday. The plan was for us to do Skógafoss, a large, famous waterfall in the south, on Monday, then the Þingvellir National Park, where the continental rift is, on Tuesday, and finally the ice-climbing tour on Wednesday, as we planned.

Once Leifur was up and we were relaxed, Josef came back over so that we can go into town. They first made us hotdogs, which were as good as BB's from the first day, if not better. I also got it with the mustard this time, so maybe that helped the taste. But again, I just find it funny how much the Icelanders care about their hotdogs!

Making Icelandic hotdogs

We then headed out into town, this time, a little farther out from the city center. We drove through the city center though, and this time it was much less foggy, so we were able to see the mountains in the distance across the water. It was, at the time, super beautiful and a unique view, but today has proved that mountains like that litter Iceland's landscape!

We stopped at a shopping mall, advertised as a Hagkaup (One of Leifur and Josef's two go-to department stores, where they get their energy drinks). It was really just a generic mall, but it was fun looking around and seeing both the native Icelandic brands, like Subway, a sandwich chain with a few stores open in the United States, and not-so-Icelandic brands, like 66° North, an outdoor clothing brand founded in the great American city of Súgandafjörður, which touches the Arctic Circle. I bought a book about Iceland for kids, in Icelandic, as well as a little flag :)

We then headed out to an early dinner at some hamburger restaurant that Leifur and Josef claim has the best hamburgers in Iceland. Much like hotdogs, for some reason, they're very proud of their hamburgers over here. Well, the Manchester United – Liverpool game was on in the restaurant and the place was packed, so we didn't get as seat. What was funny was that right when we left, Man U scored a big goal and the restaurant went wild. We found it funny to imagine that they were cheering that the tourists left...

So we headed to another restaurant that they claimed also has good burgers, and I can confirm, this burger, as well as the fries and the traditional Icelandic sauce that goes along with them, were delicious. I also had another collab go go along with it (that fish collagen energy drink that is 'supposedly' healthy for you). After dinner, we headed right outside of the restaurant to check out the artificial white-sand beach that they have on the river. See, beaches here are made with volcanic soil/sand, which is black. So when you see white sand here, it's really strange and certainly artificial.

Dinner, and the restaurant's artificial beach

We also saw what Leifur described as a very stupid statue that tourists flock to for no other reason than to be stupid, but he said we had to see it just to be funny, so here's a few pictures from there.

When we got back home, Leifur's family had gotten back from Ísafjörður, which is in the very north of the country, visiting grandparents. I got to meet his parents and his siblings, and especially his dog, Loki! Very very cute puppy, and he's a pure-bred Icelandic sheep-herding dog. He probably herds sheep better than Teddy ever could... Leifur's dad does a lot for the city, he owns two ports and a decent amount of real estate, he is also the ambassador to Turkey after an accident in Istanbul injured and killed several of his family members, and he also is on an energy board for Iceland. Seems like a very skilled guy passionate about helping out his community. Leifur's mom has been so nice to us, offering us dinner right after we came home tonight and making sure that we are driving on safe roads and know the way. And of course, Loki is a beast.

Teddy better watch out, he's got competition...

In the evening, after listening to my friend from Birthright Solomon's senior recital live streamed, (which was super good), we surprised the other three CISV kids by having them come over to Leifur's house. It was super good to see them all and catch up, and I'm shocked just how little they have changed. What made me laugh is that Finnur asked me why I was here, if there was some sort of grade or essay attached to it... But otherwise, they all still look just the same, and if I heard their voices from a mile away, I'd still recognize them. We looked through pictures and reminisced about funny times we had at camp for a while. At around 11:30, we all went to bed.

CISV Reunions :)

This morning, we woke up at 7:50 and got ready. Our rental car was ready for us at 9 at the Reykjavík airport, which is a regional airport just a few minutes from Leifur's house. The car is a stick, which means that Jon needs to do all the driving. I really have to learn how to drive stick at some point, though. We tried turning on our cellular data for the first time during the trip, but we actually were unable to connect to any networks. So, we went the entire day unconnected and relying just on maps and memory. It was surprisingly successful, and actually led to us making it to our last destination of the day on time. We left Reykjavík on Highway 1 and drove east towards the southern part of the country. The fog set in real quick after a downpour, and we were quite disappointed that we couldn't see the views. But eventually, we took a turn and headed down from the highlands into the lowlands. I imagine that this sudden altitude change comes from the continental divide, as we were right around there, and it looked in some ways very similar to the area around the Dead Sea in Israel—also a continental rift. We stopped right at the bottom of this drop at a Bónus (a convenience store much like a Hagkaup) to grab some food for later, and then continued onto Skógafoss. The original plan was to do the hot spring hike first, then Skógafoss in the afternoon, but we didn't know where the hot spring hike was, and we also were scared the fog would ruin the views, so we switched up the order. We took two more pit stops on the way to Skógafoss, first was a detour into what seemed to be a parking lot, but it was made of volcanic rocks, and the mountains in the distance were very cool looking. Again, we'd get used to this type of view after a few hours, but for now, it was stunning. But it was funny, we were in awe over the parking lot...

Our last pit stop before Skógafoss was another waterfall, Seljalandsfoss (if you haven't picked it up yet, "foss" means waterfall). We didn't know this was even here, but we pulled over and admired it and the mini hike around it for about 45 minutes. We did get drenched, but I'm glad I bought a raincoat, since I was all dry underneath... We also went off the path a little bit and climbed high up to get a vantage point of the whole valley. Would totally recommend, as you can see the waterfalls, the mountains in the distance, and also the huge volcanic ash river delta that is off to the left. The clouds even cleared up for a little bit, which made the moment even more magical.

We came back to the car and drove a half an hour or so to Skógafoss. I had my sandwich, which I just knew was a roast beef sandwich, but it was basically an Icelandic hotdog with bread and roast beef instead of a bun and a sausage. I was worried that I'd be underwhelmed after seeing that other waterfall, but boy was I wrong. It was frankly unbelievable. Massive, and the sheer volume of water flowing down that per minute is stupendous. What I like about it, as opposed to Niagara Falls, is that there's not a tacky town built around it. In the US and Canada, I think it's really fun. And in fact, it adds to the atmosphere of Niagara Falls. But in Iceland, that's not the way. They prefer to leave nature to be nature, and all there is at Skógafoss is a parking lot, some bathrooms, and a place to buy (admittedly overpriced) sandwiches. What was cool about Skógafoss was that you could see it from the bottom, but you could also climb up and admire it from the top.

And from the top, the hikes started. We hiked for close to two hours, admiring the breathtaking river that's cutting through the plateau that the waterfall drops from. Up in this area, there are plenty more waterfalls, and each has a name. Most have a sign that says its name. Deep, deep into the hike, where few hikers were around, Jon and I found a sign that was just lying on the ground. After taking pictures with it, I floated the idea of taking it. And by time we had moved on, the idea was eating at me so much. I could just see it on my wall back in Ann Arbor... it was the perfect souvenir! Alas, upon turning around and trying to take it, it was too big and the screws wouldn't come out. I spent the rest of the hike complaining in a funny way about how I was disappointed in myself being a wimp, not a cool guy. I even likened myself to Gru from Despicable Me: whereas Vector stole the pyramids and the moon, I was sitting there making boogie robots :( The hike back is the same views anyways, so Jon and I passed the time by just me joking about how much I wanted to take the sign.

I am significantly disappointed in myself. That being said, I am not convinced it would have fit in my luggage to go home.

The sign was too big to walk out with :(

On our way home, we stopped at the same Bónus that we did on the way over, since we knew it was close-ish to the hot spring hike, and we had been there before and saw that there was a tourist information center. We didn't have the maps loaded up since we didn't have service, so we decided to go in, connect to Wifi for a bit, and ask the info center where this hike was. Just like in Chicago, our timing was impeccable. We walked in, got our question answered, and then they locked the doors and were done for the day. But they told us that we were just minutes away, needing to turn onto the exact exit off the highway that we did to get to the Bónus and information center in the first place. So, not having the maps actually got us in the most efficient way to where we wanted to go! Funny how fate has a way of working like that.

So we drive about three minutes over to the hot spring hike, which is a 2 mile hike into the mountains to find a river that is flooded with hot springs. Jon said he had done this last time he was in Iceland, and he wanted to avenge his past self by making it to the hottest hot spring. As we were walking, the view was once again incredible. Before I had the current cover-photo for the Iceland portion on the site, I had just a stock image, and the picture I chose looks identical to the scene that we saw. There were patches of ice over a barely alive, greenish yellow layer of grass and moss, with dark black volcanic ash underneath. You could see steam rising out of the mountain at certain places, which was super cool. But the highlight of the hike was the wind. It was SO windy. Like I didn't know that wind could be this strong kind of windy. At times it was almost impossible to move forwards, and at other times, it felt like we were being pushed into the trail or up a hill. We're lucky that the wind never pulled us into the ravine, since we would have certainly been a lot more scared... We turned a corner and saw a steaming river, and I knew that that was the "hot river," as the lady at the tourist information center had described it. So, the geothermal springs are actually at the boiling point of water, between 180°F and 212°F, so in order to not scald yourself while swimming in them, you need to swim in the mixture with a glacial stream. We got to this stream, and though it was steaming, it wasn't warm. It was lukewarm at best, though it really wasn't cold either. Despite all the wind and the not-too-warm temperatures, we were totally comfortable just wading through the water. We never got anything past our ankles deep, since we didn't want to have to deal with how cold it would feel after we got out, and the water was just a stream anyways. It was super rocky, and hurt my feet, but somehow Jon just went through it like a superhuman. I am honestly shocked, as my feet were in total agony. We climbed not necessarily to where the river was "warm," but we did find our fair share of hot water springs and places where the sand was heated by what felt like magma nearly beneath your feet. So my feet were going constantly between being stabbed by rocks and soothed (and occasionally close to burned) by the geothermal heat. I wore my raincoat to break the wind, so that I wouldn't feel cold in just my bathing suit. It was totally an experience, and I am so glad we did it, despite the pain I was in and dissatisfaction that they weren't just like natural hot tubs. The wind on the way back was even worse, somehow, and the sun was beginning to set. I am really glad I brought my raincoat, as I would have been freezing without it. See, the wind isn't that cold, as the air is really not cold at all. It is just a lot.

We drove back home, and Leifur's mom had prepared dinner for us—pasta with an Icelandic sauce on top involving cream, broccoli, chorizo, and onions. It was delicious, and I ate a lot of it. We're spending the rest of the evening just recovering from this crazy day, and we'll get more of it tomorrow!