There's No Such Thing As Bad Weather, Just Bad Clothing and a Bad Attitude!
- jordanbrockway95
- Sep 28, 2017
- 6 min read
I was pretty lucky with already knowing a local before I even arrived in Iceland. I was given his contact info from a girl I worked with back in Toronto. Him and I had been talking probably a week or two before I arrived. His name is Hlynur and he works at The Blue Lagoon and had invited me and Abby to go with him on one of his days off once I arrived. And to already have something so cool planned out before I had even left Canada just made me so excited to start my year abroad!!
I arrived in Reykjavik early Wednesday morning. After walking around the city and getting very confused as to where I was, I finally reached Abby's place and we went to grab a coffee. She was supposed to have class that day but decided not to go and instead go with me to the Blue Lagoon. After coffee, I took a much needed nap. By the time I woke up Hlynur was basically there so we grabbed our stuff and met up with him. You could tell as soon as we met him he was a nice guy, and we both felt very comfortable around him. When we arrived at the Blue Lagoon we had to wait in line for maybe 10 minutes. We walked up to the desk and they handed us towels, robes, a bathing suit (which Abby and I were surprised they had, as we had brought our own), and wrist bands. The wrist bands let us into the change rooms and let us use the lockers to put all our stuff in. Then we went to the showers. I read a lot about how overwhelming the showers are because you have to shower naked with everyone and blah blah blah, but I thought it was fine. There weren't that many people there, and a lot of single shower stalls. In the showers they supply you with body wash and conditioner. I, and everyone that works at the Blue Lagoon, advises that you put a lot of conditioner in your hair and don't rinse it out, because the sulphur in the hot springs will make your hair like straw for the next couple of days after. Once we were finally ready and came out of the change rooms, Hlynur was already in the water with a beer just waiting for us. We asked him where should we go first and he said "it's your trip, go wherever and I'll follow" which was so nice, and if you haven't figured out by now, he's really nice :P The Blue Lagoon is massive, breathtakingly beautiful and not as crowded as both Abby and I thought it was going to be. When we went it was raining but you didn't even notice once you were in the water. There's a swim up bar, which you use your wristbands to buy drinks, a waterfall, a place to get massages, another section to do face masks and lots of room to just float around and enjoy yourself. We stayed there for maybe 5 hours or so, and personally I enjoyed every minute of it. I do have to say though, I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much (or had even gone) if I had to pay for everything/didn't know someone who knew so much information about the place. Having Hlynur just made everything top notch.
The next day I just wanted to explore the city. Abby was at school, so Hlynur ended up coming down and we just walked around together. He was a really horrible tour guide though, and didn't know anything about the city, lol! We grabbed lunch, walked up the shopping street, went to this massive church and explored inside. He then had to go to try on a suit or something for work, so I went with him but the store was closed so instead we just drove around. No clue where we went, but it was along the coast and obviously beautiful! I then went back to Abby's and made dinner and hung out with her a little and went to bed.
Friday I was supposed to go on an excursion. I had received and email saying that the excursion started at 9am but be at your pickup stop a half hour before that. So I arrived at the city hall at 8.15 to look at my voucher and see "Pick up at 8am"!!! I then received an email saying "the driver couldn't find you, but he'll come back to pick you up." I then waited over an hour and a half, called them about three times for someone to just say "Oh yea. They probably left". So I emailed the company asking to reschedule Sunday. I then grabbed a coffee, took a nap, woke up and booked free walking tour of the city. The tour was really awesome, and I learned a lot about the town and Iceland in general. Learned that Iceland has a smaller population than London, Ontario, learned that Icelandic people can read stuff written in like the 17/1800's because the language that the vikings spoke they still speak today, and learned that Icelanders love themselves and think that they're the greatest because they are "vikings" :P I won't give too much away though as I really enjoyed the tour and think anyone visiting Reykjavik should go on it. After the tour I went to Icelandic Fish and Chips for dinner (read about it on my 'Food' page).
Saturday was my Couchsurfing day, where I met up with some people I was talking to online who are from Iceland/have lived in Iceland for a while now. The first guys name is Hafsteinn, he's Icelandic and also just showed me around Iceland. We were going to go on a road trip but the weather was not that great, so we went to a park instead. Iceland doesn't have many trees, because when the vikings arrived they cut down all of them (assuming they would grow back) to build houses and such...But the trees never grew back. We mostly just walked around and talked lots. We also stopped at a grocery store because every Saturday in Iceland bags of candy are half priced. Don't know why.. they just are! Then later that evening I met up with a girl named Sarah. She's originally from Spain, but moved to Iceland 3 years ago. She was really cool and kind and reminded me of some of my friends back home. We went to a bar downtown, which was a fun environment to be in. Hafsteinn joined us near the end, I bought him a a couple of beers to pay him back for the day, and then we all went home.
Sunday I finally got to go on my excursion, and I'm so glad I rescheduled instead of getting a refund! It was absolutely stunning. At one point I almost cried because of how beautiful everything is. We first went to Seljalandsfoss, which is a waterfall. You got to walk behind it which was a really cool experience. Although I wouldn't recommend it to everyone as to get back you have to just climb up a bunch of wet rocks with no ropes or nothing to help you up, which I thought was kind of hilarious as in Canada that would never fly. We then went to Skógafoss which is another waterfall. This one you could walk up to the very top, which was a great view, but boy, did I almost die climbing up those stairs lol. We then went to the black beaches which is where I almost cried. The waves are just so massive and the caves are beautiful and the weather ended up clearing just when we arrived. The last place was the glacier, Svínafellsjökull. I don't know what I expected, but I did not expect actually hike the thing. We got fitted for crampons, harnesses, helmets, and got pick axes. We then got walked through all the procedures and how to hike a glacier and then we were off :P It wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be, and all my years of stomping around the house finally paid off because you have to stomp to get you crampons into the ice! I was afraid I was going to be cold because I had no hat or gloves, but the sun came out and I actually got kind of warm up there. Things worked out for the best and if I had gone Friday I don't think the weather would have been as nice as it was Sunday! I booked this excursion through www.tour.is but I would look a little harder than I did, because I'm pretty sure I found the exact same tour on another site for cheaper. But honestly, close to $200 for an 11 hour day isn't that bad!
I was never really that excited to go to Iceland for my layover to England, but thought "might as well". The more I told people about it the more excited I got because all their responses were "Oh my God! It's the most beautiful place ever" or "You're going to love it there!!" and honestly now I wish I hadn't started my Europe trip with Iceland because I don't know how anywhere else is going to top the amazing experience I had there.
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