Iceland!

So we went to Iceland!

Over a year ago!

I'm pretty behind on blogging! 

I don't really know where to begin so I'm just gonna kinda clumsily jump right back in.

When Dave and I were planning our trip home from Kuwait, we realized we could save like $1100 if we had a long layover in Iceland. 

The flight from Amsterdam to PDX is approximately 10 and a half hours, and I had really felt like we'd be DONE with airports by that point in our journey and maybe spending the cash to take a direct flight would be worth it?

Also, what were we gonna do in Iceland for an 18 hour layover?

It seemed at first like the best choice for our family would be to just to a direct flight, but at root we're just too frugal for that...I mean, $1100 is a lot of money!

Then it was like a switch flipped, and we started thinking that 18 hours in Iceland could be pretty cool...I mean, we would be in Keflavik, not Reykjavik, but maybe we could still find some stuff to do? 

We worried a bit that we were gonna be pushing our kids (and ourselves) a tad with this addition...after packing up and leaving Kuwait, and then planes, trains and automobiles through Paris and Amsterdam, maybe an add on less-than-24-hours in a new country would be too much?

But would we ever have an opportunity to see Iceland again?

Likely not - so we went for it =). 

Our plane would land in Iceland shortly before midnight, and then we'd have until the following evening to play around. 

We booked a room at the Alex Guesthouse close to the airport with free airport pick-up so that we could get a little sleep and have a place to store our luggage. 

Everything is crazy expensive in Iceland.

 But, even with the $264 we spent for a tiny room with two double beds and a desk (shared bathrooms), plus the money we spent on food and activity, we still saved money by having this layover, and, WE GOT TO SEE A BIT OF ICELAND!

Super cool.

In the air again...

Waiting for our luggage again...

(The airline gave the kids those cute little travel packs)

The sun was setting as we landed (again, in the middle of the night!) and then rose again about 40 minutes later. 

It was trippy.

We took a cab the short ride to our guesthouse, quickly got checked in, and the kids crashed in the tiny beds...

Over a year later, and I still remember taking that picture above.

I remember that moment feeling noteworthy, as our kids had easily fallen asleep in this completely foreign environment. 

Those same kids who had been the world's worst sleepers as infants. 

A lot of things were hard about the entire process of moving overseas and living abroad for two years, and one of those things was the flexibility continually required of all of us. 

But some good fruit from that is our kids learned how to settle in and sleep pretty much anywhere =).

 

Various converters and plugs required to charge our cell phones...

 

 David snapped this pic out our window before he and I went to sleep. This is about 1:30am.

With both kids out already, we took turns heading down to the bathroom to get ready for bed, then set our alarms for 7am, and then crawled into bed ourselves.

When the alarm went off I considered just bailing on seeing Iceland because SLEEEEEEEEEEP.

Dave and the kids went to the cafeteria and had a traditional Icelandic continental breakfast of multiple yogurt and cheese mixed spreads, thin meat slices, and tasteless wafer crackers while I slept another 20 minutes and then ate a protein bar.

Clearly, I was winning the morning.

 

We had planned to go to Blue Lagoon, as it was near enough to the airport that we could go and still be on time for our evening flight. It was going to take our entire time in country, but we thought it looked too cool to miss.

Apparently everyone else agreed, because when we went to set up our ride at the front desk of the guesthouse, they informed us tickets had been needed to be purchased in advance, and unfortunately the Blue Lagoon was full that day. 

Oops.

Dave and I just kinda blinked at each other.

It was such a rookie mistake, and we totally should have known better. 

OF COURSE a large tourist spot like that is going to offer pre-booking, and even though it's for a random weekday morning we should never assume availability. 

We took a minute to regroup.

We asked if there were any other geothermal areas we could go swim in, and she directed us to one a little over a mile away.

We decided to pack up our suits and walk over, so we could experience the area a bit more and also soak up the freshest air any of us had ever felt!

 

It was a bit chilly - both because we'd spent the last two years living in the dessert, and also because of the cold ocean air - but that wind felt and smelled and tasted SO CLEAN and pure and like just the freshest air we've ever experienced. 

I kept taking big, deep breaths =) 

 

We walked to the pool nice and slow, trying to take note of the neighborhoods...the way the houses and yards and gas stations were.

 

 

 

 

 

 We arrived at Vatnaverold! ("Water World")

 

I was pretty thrilled we were still getting to experience the thermal pools of Iceland even without the Blue Lagoon! 

 

There is an entire inside area with slides and kid play areas that I didn't get any pictures of. Oops again.

We played in there a bit, and then came to the outside pools where the twins made some friends...

 

 There were multiple pools of differing temps all around. Here the kids were seeing who could stay in that ice bucket the longest...

Meanwhile, Dave and I enjoyed different hot tubs and soaks...

 

 ...it was pretty cool.

We spent the entire morning and middle part of the day there, and then it was time to change and walk back to the guesthouse.

We tried to be intentional about taking in the fresh Iceland air on our way back.

To be sure, we were tired.

But we were also so happy to be experiencing this taste of a new country.  

It was so green!

Such beautiful, fresh air to go exploring in =)

Back at the guesthouse, we grabbed our luggage and took a taxi back to the airport...

We paid an absurd amount of money for dinner at the airport, where David had Viking beer, because When In Iceland...

The kids liked this particular airport a lot!


Thus ending the quickest little pop in to a country we've ever made =). We all agreed that we wished we'd had more time! Even a few days... Iceland seemed so beautiful. 
But, a peak was better than nothing, and we were also very ready to be back in the good old USA.  

When we walked through our gate at PDX we were greeted by a bunch of our friends and family, all wearing red t-shirts that said our last name with "Making America Great Again" underneath it....I laughed SO HARD. 

It was good to be home =).