March 2019

In December of 2018 I decided I wanted to go to Iceland. Living in Boston, it’s an easy five hour flight to get there and seeing everyone’s amazing pictures of the hot springs inspired me to check this place out for myself. Luckily for me, I have a mom that always up for a new adventure.

This trip was supposed to be in February of 2019, but due to bad weather and flight issues, we ended up rescheduling to March, which was probably for the best. The amount of daylight in March seemed a little more on par with what we were accustomed to and it also allowed for the weather to warm up a bit (30 degree temps are better than 20, right?).

So with a slight hiccup in scheduling, we finally found ourselves on a red eye flight to Iceland on March 8th. Because of time changes, we landed around 5am Iceland time (GMT), or 1am according to our bodies (EST). We had read that Reykjavik was an expensive town so we stopped in the airport duty free store to stock up on the essentials (wine and chocolate) before heading to the shuttle. Being March in Iceland, we weren’t sure what to expect from the weather, so we felt it was better to play it safe and not try to drive ourselves.

Reykjavik is about an hour away from the airport and by the time the shuttle dropped us off in city center, it was around 7am and still eerily quiet. The sun was starting to come up, the streets were deserted, and the air smelled incredibly crisp and clean. We quickly dropped our bags at the Airbnb, bundled up, and found a small cafe for breakfast.

Our first breakfast consisted of fresh bread and fruit, yogurt and granola, a hard boiled egg, prosciutto and cheese. Needless to say, everything tasted fresh and healthy – a perfect first meal to the start of our trip. That morning we walked Reykjavik end-to-end. Starting at the Hallgrimskirkja cathedral, we walked down the main street of shopping, then along the Old Harbour path, and finally, my mom took us to the Viking museum to learn a bit of Icelandic history.

By the time we finished all this, it was about 2pm in the afternoon and we were exhausted. We went to the Airbnb, which would more closely be described as a hostel, and both took a long nap.

Our next day was a full day tour around the Golden Circle. Our first stop was Thingvellir National Park, also known as the “place where you can walk between two continents.” This is because Thingvellir is home to the fault line between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. While some tours offer the ability to snorkel between these plates, since it was still March, we opted for the non-snorkeling tour.

The next stops on our tour included the Geysir Geothermal Area and Gulfoss Waterfall. Due to the immense scale of the waterfall, the winds here were bitter cold and we didn’t last too long outside taking pictures before hitting the gift shop for more chocolate.

Finally, we ended the day at the Secret Lagoon hot spring. While most pictures you see of Iceland are taken at the Blue Lagoon, I wanted to go to a hot spring that was a little lesser known and felt more natural.

Day 3 was marked by a tour of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. This was a smaller tour group and it was led by our favorite tour guide. She was a very friendly, Icelandic native that was extremely knowledgeable about the land and culture and you could tell she wanted to share that knowledge with people. We made several stops throughout the day, including to Kirkjufellsfoss, the location of Games of Thrones filming. For lunch, we stopped at a grocery store in a small coastal town and my mom was able to try skir, Icelandic yogurt, for the first time. And finally, the tour continued with stops at a crater (Saxholl), lighthouse (Londrangar), black sand beach (Djupalonssandur) and concluded at another small town that’s home to the Badar Sagar statue, the mythical protector of Snaefellsnes.

That night my mom stayed in while I went and walked around the Old Harbour and ate dinner. It was again a time for me to reflect. I felt so fortunate to have the means to travel, to be able to experience and appreciate this new culture, and to be sharing these moments with my mom.

Day 4 was our final tour that consisted of a couple waterfalls and a glacial ice cave. This was an interesting experience. Packed in the back of a van, we endured a 40+ minute bumpy ride out on onto the glacier to arrive at a blackened ice cave. We were instructed to put on helmets and spikes and then we walked the final bit to arrive at the cave. Standing outside the cave, it didn’t look like much, but as you looked more closely, and as the sun would hit the ice in the correct way, the cave transformed into vivid blue and black colors. We were told that this glacier was melting at an alarmingly fast pace, another sign of global climate change.

That night, we decided we needed to try to see the Northern Lights. Being without a car, our initial plan was to walk 3 miles to an area outside the town that was supposed to offer good views of the lights. But my mom being who she is, decided to chat up two young guys who were staying in the same Airbnb as us. Shamelessly, my mom asked if they’d give us a ride to see the Northern Lights with them. A quick exchange of glances, and they hesitantly agreed.

Thank goodness they did. It turned out to be bitter cold that night, especially along the coast. We drove out to a viewing area and stood outside the car for 5 minutes before my mom decided she’d had enough. While we saw the lights, they were not at all what I expected. I hadn’t realized that the green appearance of the lights only shows up in pictures. In person, however, it just looks like hazy lights in the distance. Nevertheless, we had a good time with our new found companions and that night I stayed up playing cards with them.

The next morning we did some more brief exploring around town, my mom got her Icelandic hot dog that she had read about, and as we were getting ready to leave for the airport the first signs of snow flurries started appearing. It was as if Iceland was telling us it was time to go back home.