Last day in Iceland

On my last day, I had a 5 pm flight and everyone else left in the  morning.  I went to the bus station and put my luggage in a locker and then walked around the rest of the day.  This is a good time to say that I didn't take cash out of an ATM the entire trip.  Everyone uses cards for everything in Scandinavia.  So at the bus station, I could even use a card to pay for the locker and also to pay 2 kroner to use the bathroom.  Since I have a credit card that gets me miles for every purchase, I loved getting miles for using the bathroom.


First I stopped into this famous church.  I happened to get there a little before 10 am and a service was starting at 10:00 (it was a Sunday).  I thought I'd stay for the service, but then the 10 minutes to wait seemed too boring, so I left.

I liked this little garden

stores and houses

My last cinnamon roll.

We had a Braud & co bakery about a block and a half from our B&B and we went there a few times.  This is the front of their other location.  

The end! (When can I go back?)

Iceland day 3 and 4

On day 3, my friends went to tour the Golden Circle, which I had already done, so I went on a whale watching tour.  For some reason, I have no pictures from that day. I took a Dramamine and was still feeling sick, so I took a second one. Then I was sick, but also very sleepy.  I did get to see a few whales, but I will never take another whale watching boat again.  I went home and slept for three hours (which was actually quite nice).

On day 4, Julia and I went to tour a volcano, while Heather went shopping.  She had had enough nature by then.  First we hiked to a little rest stop because we had to go in shifts.  We were divided into groups of 8.  There was a professional football player (they kept talking about how he had to be careful not to get injured.  Meanwhile, my mom would have done this "hike" in flip flops and been just fine.) and his wife  and a private tour guide that were put into the second group.  After a little whispering, they were changed into the first group and by the time we were finished, they were probably already back in Reykjavik.

Outside the "basecamp" 

The volcano is named "Thrihnukagigur"  

When it was our turn, we walked up a little path and then crossed this bridge to a "lift" that we took down into the volcano.

On the way down

I took a lot of photos inside, but they don't look like anything.  These people give you a little perspective of what it looked like inside.

We walked around inside for about an hour and then went back up in shifts. 

Here is base camp from above 

And here is the traditional Icelandic stew that they fed us, which was quite good.  

After the tour, we went back into town and quickly changed into our bathing suits to go to Blue Lagoon.  I didn't take any pictures here, either.  But I did see a big group of people enter the water at one point and Robert Plant was in the group.  When we got back into town, we saw this sign that showed that he was there to play a show for the solstice festival going on.  

Last time I was at Blue Lagoon

Iceland day 1&2

I got into Reykjavik after 8 pm and we had a 9:30 pm reservation for dinner at Grill.  We were adventurous this trip!  

Appetizer:  Whale steak (it was delicious)

Julia's dinner: Monkfish skewers

My dinner: Atlantic Char with pesto sauce (yum!)

Heather's dinner:  Rib-eye steak

The next morning, we got up early because we had a tour booked for the southern coast.  We booked some tours and didn't know necessarily what we were getting.  This day we were happy to find out it was just the three of us, plus our tour guide, Thor, who played 90's rock in the "super jeep".  

There are a bunch of waterfalls to tour.  

Heather and Julia

Universal sign for Be Careful, there could be falling rocks

We went to see Eyjafjallajokull volcano (there wasn't much to see), but to get there, Thor had to deflate the tires a little bit to get over the terrain.  So he hooked up this wire and flipped some switch.  At the end of this part, he did the same thing and pumped them back up again.

Back on the road...

Some hidden falls

We stopped for lunch and I had Atlantic Char again.  The presentation was lovely and tasted delicious.

After the falls, we went to a black sand beach.  Thor told us that if we went in the water, we would die instantly.  

That night we went to Dill for dinner.  This is a "new Nordic" restaurant and they had a fixed menu.  There  were 10 courses of small plates and I don't remember any of it.  All the food was weird and I resisted being even weirder, and just ate what was put in front of me.  And I was happy I did because everything was good.  Here's one picture I took and I have no idea what it was, but it just gives you an idea of what we ate that night.  

Heather has some dietary issues, so she wrote in the reservation that she wanted the dairy-free menu.  But after a disappointing dinner in Stockholm, she decided she was not going to make that mistake again.  So when the waiter came and asked who wanted the dairy-free menu, she answered "That person is no longer with us" and I laughed so hard because it sounded like she died.  That was just the beginning of a night that we couldn't stop laughing about the smallest things, plus asking a million questions. The couple next to us were in a fight and didn't talk the whole time.  On the other side was another couple that talked in whispers.  When we left, the waiter thanked us "girls" for being so fun.  We were happy to be called "girls" by a "man" that looked about 12 years old.  

Stockholm part 3

In Stockholm, most of the bathrooms had been converted to unisex bathrooms.  This was the sign outside the bathroom in one of the museums.  

Julia was determined to get a cake that she remembered from when she lived there.  I think she had this one in mind (Princess cake), but they did not have raspberry or strawberry filing.  She was very disappointed when I told her that they have this in Ikea.

So she ordered this cake, which wasn't exactly what she wanted.  We all had a slice and then gave the rest to the staff to finish.  The strawberries were in season and so delicious, but the cake was a little disappointing.  It was a lot of cream, but not enough cake.  There was another treat she wanted and any time she brought it up, people acted like she asked to eat their baby.  Apparently, it's only available at a certain time of year and can't be made any other time of year. 

For our last breakfast, we asked if we could have Swedish pancakes, which is not a typical breakfast for them. This is the breakfast table.  The pancakes and fresh strawberries were delicious!

We had different flights to Iceland, and I was not leaving until 5 pm, so my last day in Stockholm, I took a train to a different part of town.  We were told this was the hipster part of the city.  When we talked to the people at the hotel about that, one guy rolled his eyes and said it was the most expensive part of the city.  Which means it probably is, in fact, the hipster part of the city.   

This is a bakery that I wanted to try.  They have one in NYC now, too.  I heard some Americans going in after me and someone said, "I'll get one for us to share" and there were about four of them.  Meanwhile, we usually bought three or four things to share.

This is the "sugar bulle."  pretty creative name, right?

View from across the river