Day 7 Budir and Return to Reykjavik

We woke up to see that it snowed last night.  It’s cold this morning, about 16 degrees.  There’s no hotel breakfast so we had coffee and toast.  We spent some time figuring out our plans for the day and then it’s time to pack up and go.  This is the view at the hotel that we stayed at.

We stopped by the Kirjufell mountain again as I forgot yesterday that there are waterfalls there.  There are 2 waterfalls on the other side of the road but I couldn’t photograph both together due to the snow.  I think you can do that in the summer because you can hike up the mountain.   Nevertheless, the one fall picture is still pretty good.  It was also cool to see that there is water flowing behind the ice in the fall.  Once again, Rick left his ice climbing gear in the hotel...doh.

Some more photos of the area.

We headed to Budir to see the Bjatnarfoss.  It’s iced over but there’s still water flowing down.  This is the same waterfall that we saw from the road yesterday but today, we walked up today.

Next we went to see the black church.  There was also a graveyard next to it.  It was very windy and cold here.  But, the church looks cool.  It was locked so we didn’t go in.  On the upside, that prevented any type of lightning strike from occurring.

Now we head back to Reykjavik.  This is pretty much all the site seeing that we plan to do in Iceland.  We stopped for gas and some more hotdogs.  

Below is a video of the tunnel that we went through a few days before.  Actually I meant to take a video but that didn't happen so here are a couple of photos instead.  Rick is very disappointed.  But YouTube has come to the rescue.  If anyone wants to see a video of the tunnel, you can go to this link:  Iceland tunnel video  This guy recorded the full 6 minutes, so I recommend watching on a faster playback speed in YouTube.

We are now going to the Christmas store and probably do a little shopping.  There's nothing to buy so now we are going to do laundry.  It was a very efficient laundromat.

Laundry done, we went to dinner.  We went to the Ryakjavik Fish and Chips again.  What can I say, we are boring.  Also, there's not a whole lot of food options in Iceland so why not get what you like.  Second time around was just as good.  My only complaint is that the ketchup comes in those little packets and when you are having fries, that's a little tough to eat since they serve the food in a bowl.   Oh, and they charge extra for the tartar sauce.

Time to get ready to go to Copenhagen.  We drove to Keflavik and are staying near the airport.  People recommend this when you travel in the winter because of potential road closure issues.  We are staying at the Marriott tonight.

Our flight is at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow so early wake up to return the car and get to the airport.  I will give  some of my thoughts on Iceland tomorrow since we will be on a flight.  End of day 7. 

Rick's final notes on Iceland:

This is our last day in Iceland, so here are some of my thoughts.

Iceland is a cool place, figuratively and literally (in March).  The island is unbelievably beautiful, somewhat other worldly at times.  Geologically, it seems like a newer island.  So much of the island seems to be shear mountains jutting up from the earth.  With the mountains covered or sprinkled with snow, they are amazing to look at.  Many of the plains of the county just seem like tundra or permafrost.  There seem to be very few fields for growing things during the short growing season, I assume.  We did a lot of driving along the coast and seeing all the inlets and fjords created by glaciers receeding is amazing.  Also, seeing the beach covered in snow is a pretty cool site for someone from California where that does not happen too often.  There is also a lot of basalt in Iceland and that is one of my favorite rock types.  Iceland also has a lot of lava fields.  In some respects, they remind me of Hawaii even though the climates are very different.

For me, the temperature in Iceland in March is just fine.  -8C with no wind is just fine for a cotton quarter-zip.  While we were doing laundry today, walking in 0C in a short-sleeve t-shirt feels nice and refreshing.  Now add in the wind and we have a different story.  The under-side of my nose is raw from constantly wiping it from the wind and cold.  Other than the earlier morning, the wind was pretty constant during our trip.  I only saw one person in shorts during our trip and that guy has my respect.  

The food in Iceland is nothing to specifically come to Iceland for.  All the food we had was good and tasty but nothing really exceptional.  Also, Iceland big soda, Appelsin, tastes pretty much like Orange Fanta, no big whoop.  All the fish dishes I had were good.  Although how bad can one go with fried fish (fish and chips) and fish with cheese and a cream-based sauce (plokkfiskur)?  Also, none of the fish was fishy so that works well for me.

The people in Iceland were all very nice and hospitable.  Pretty much everyone speaks English.  I think a bunch of the folks we interacted with in restaurants and stores were immigrants from other counties.  I think a decent amount of Eastern Europeans have immigrated to Iceland from places such as Poland, Lithuania and Romania.  Iceland does not seem like a very showy culture.  Most people seem to keep to themselves and not want to stand out.  In terms of accomodations and facilities, I would say that Iceland is lower first-world or higher second-world.  Very similiar to other European counties like the Czech Republic and Hungary.  Iceland seems (and I think is) exceptionally safe.  Today, I saw kids about 5 or 6 years old on their scotters with no parents around in Reykjavík just crusing around (no helmets).  I think if that happened in the Bay Area, the parents would be brought in front of CPS.  Never once did I fear someone was going to break in to our rental car or did I worry about getting pick-pocketed or otherwise harrassed.  I felt as safe in Iceland as I did in Japan. 

Another interesting thing (I think) about Iceland is its lack of multi-national chain store.  Rosie wondered if there was a Starbucks in Iceland and the answer is nope.  When I Googled it, the site said that Iceland likes to nuture and supports its homegrown companies over multi-nationals.  Rosie and I thought about it on the drive today and we could only identify three chain stores that we also have in the US that we saw in Iceland.  There was Costco (of which there is one in Iceland, but 70% of Icelanders are Costco members); we also saw an Ikea (of which there is one); we also saw a bunch of KFCs on our trip (later we learned there are 8 in Iceland).  We ended up passing on that finger lickin' good chicken.  Other than that, we could not recall any other chains we see in the US.

Well, thoses are all the thoughts I can think of today about Iceland.  I would love to come back sometime (maybe in the summer) to see more of the country.  Rosie and I seem to say that about every country we visit, but we never seems to make that return trip.  I can't think of one international place we have vistied twice together.  My guess is that Japan will be the first country for us to visit twice.

Also, a final shoutout to our Dacia Duster we named Dusty.  He was a champ.  Easy to drive and no problems.  He even allowed Bluetooth pairing of our phones.  This is pretty special to a guy whose car still has a tape cassette in it.  Now if I could only find some of my mix tapes from the 80s.