This year for Dave’s birthday instead of packing to move to London (yep it’s been 1 year!) we celebrated his 34th in Iceland. We had an amazing time and it was our final trip before the baby.
We arrived late Thursday just in time to check in and get to bed for the night. Friday morning we had breakfast in the dark, because you don’t see the first glimmers of sunrise until 10:30am and even then it takes a while for the sun to pop up, and in January it never rises much above the horizon. After breakfast, we set out to see the sites of Reykjavik.
Reykjavik is the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay. With a population of around 120,000 (and over 200,000 in the Greater Reykjavík Area) it is the heart of Iceland's economy and well, just about the only place that doesn’t look like the moon. The downtown was so cute and all the shops were fun to look at. I say look because the price of everything was incredibly high.
After lunch, we headed for the water’s edge to could document Dave's birthday on my belly! Fear not, it was erasable ink.
Friday night we set up a tour to see the Northern Lights and were very excited…but to our dismay we hunted the frigid darkness and the lights never came. In fact the old lighthouse was the only light we saw that night.
Saturday we set out before dawn (sounds so ambitious) to see the Golden Circle, which are the three primary stops of interest en route to the national park Þingvellir, the waterfall Gullfoss (meaning "golden falls"), and the geothermally active valley of Haukadalur, which contains the geysers Geysir and Strokkur.
Iceland's 2nd largest glacier, fits in Kelly's hand
Kelly pushing the North American plate from the Eurasian plate
Small town life
Each site was so beautiful. We took as many pictures as we could at each and enjoyed the day very much.
When we got back to our hotel around 4:30 we decided it was best to go have a traditional Icelandic dinner and we were referred to a restaurant by a local shop keeper with high reviews. We each decided to eat something out of the ordinary off of the specials menu.
Dave had the whale
Kelly ordered the Icelandic Horse
We can’t even begin to tell you how delicious dinner was, once Kelly got over the fact we were eating horse she thoroughly enjoyed it and she said it was one of the best steaks she had ever had. We also celebrated Dave's birthday with a delicious hot chocolate cake with ice cream, yummy!
On the way back to the hotel the taxi driver informed that Northern Lights were supposed to be spectacular that evening as there were solar flares located earlier in the day. We were able to re-book our Northern Lights tour free (as we didn’t see them the night before) and geared up for another night with high hopes. We were super tired but figured we would only be in Iceland once so we went for it and we are so very thankful we did! This time the tour headed out to Pingvellir, that National Park we were at earlier in the day, as it was in complete darkness. To our surprise and much relief the lights did indeed decide to show up and it was unreal!
The lights moved through the sky like flowing curtains of greens and light blues. It was pretty chilly with temps down below freezing but we were prepared and so happy to see all the beautiful stars that were out and most of all to say we have seen the Northern Lights!
We had an early flight the next day so we went back to the hotel packed up, slept for a few hours then headed to the airport for the short 2.5hr flight home. We were happy to be home again with Katy and to rest a little. Overall is was one of the best mini holidays we have had! A great way to celebrate Dave's 34th birthday!
