Iceland Adventure: Days 7 & 8 (end of trip)

Friday 9/9: Rainy Day in Reykjavik

We were able to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast again in our apartment, including some treats from Sweet Aurora bakery  next door that was just opened recently by a French pastry chef. Yum! We had planned to have a Happy Hour helicopter tour this afternoon, but the forecast for rain all day proved to be accurate, so the tour was cancelled. Better that than to do the tour and not have a good view!!! The cancellation freed up our schedule a bit, and we headed out in the late morning to the Culture House, which is part of the National Gallery of Iceland and features select works by Icelandic artists.

Our next stop was an immersive digital video experience Circuleight at Harpa. There were only three other people who entered the exhibit when we did, so we had lots of space to spread out and enjoy how the digital images interacted with our movements. The purple spore-like images were particularly striking. 

Then we finished up a bit more shopping and dropped stop off at our apartment before going for afternoon tea to Apotek, a very highly rated and well-known restaurant in Old Reykjavik. We finished off our tea experience with two specialty cocktails -- a Black Death Negroni for me, made with Brennivin (whose nickname is "Black Death"), and a Dilligan for Evan, made with Icelandic gin infused with dill. Both were delicious and certainly unique!

For our final evening, we had drinks at Mr. E's favorite local bar, Kaffibarinn, which we also later discovered in the Best of Reykjavik list in several categories. We returned to Krua Thai for takeout again and finished up the evening with packing and getting ready for our departure in the morning. Our roller board bags were very, very full!!!

Saturday 9/10: KEF > ORD > SMF

We got upgraded again to Polaris Business class for the flight from Reykjavik to Chicago, so we could enjoy the Icelandair Saga Lounge at the airport prior to departure. We also had a fast track lane for security but encountered a weird additional and slow security check at the gate itself. Once we were on board, we tried to switch seats to be together rather than in separate window pods but didn't have luck this time around. My seatmate was a very friendly woman from the Chicago area who had just done a tour of Greenland with some friends, and I enjoyed hearing about her experiences. Mr. E got some great aerial photos of Greenland from his side of the plane during the journey but didn't have as personable a seatmate.

 

Our transfer experience in Chicago was excruciatingly slow, primarily due to the renovations underway at the international terminal. We waited for more than an hour just to get through passport control, and there was no separation between citizens and visitors, which seemed very strange and made the process much more lengthy. We had to repack our bags to fit the two bottles of Duty Free Icelandic alcohol (Brennivin and gin) that we had purchased at Keflavik, and we still managed to have about 20 minutes in the Polaris lounge because our connecting flight was delayed by nearly an hour. We arrived in Sac about 45 minutes later than anticipated and were home by about 8:15pm, just enough time to unpack some necessary items, snuggle with Calypso, and go to bed.

Such a great trip!!! We definitely want to go back to do more in Reykjavik itself and also to see other parts of this fascinating country.

Iceland Adventure: Day 6

Thursday 9/8: Golden Circle & Snorkeling

Today was our shortest day tour, still beginning at 8am but returning by 6:30pm. We began with our snorkel adventure in the Silfra fissure, which is in Thingvellir National Park. The water comes from a glacier (of course) and is always right around 3 degrees Celsius (37ish degrees Fahrenheit). We had to provide our own base layer of long underwear and then got into a fleece-lined jumpsuit and finished off with a dry suit. We also had wetsuit gloves and a head covering. This was the first time in a dry suit for both of us! The water was incredibly clear so you could see deep into the fissure, and the protective gear kept us relatively warm, although my hands and wrists took a while to warm up, especially because I had extra elastics around the wrist area to help keep the dry suit seal tight.

 (Note: The last two photos are from the tour company's staff, not specifically from our snorkel experience. They definitely give a good sense of the experience!) 

Once we got out of our gear and back into our regular clothes, we were dropped off at the site of the first Parliament, a very historic and cultural space for Iceland and Icelanders.

We had nearly two hours to explore and have lunch before getting picked up for the remainder of the Golden Circle tour in the afternoon, which included stops at the AMAZING waterfall Gullfoss and then finishing with a stop at Geysir to see some hot pots and geyser eruptions.

Then back to Reykjavik, where once again got off near the church, which was silhouetted against the twilight sky.

We took advantage of the earlier return time to go to the SKY rooftop bar for a cocktail and a great view out over the harbor. Mr. E ordered his usual special Manhattan, and I had a Negroni made with Stuðlaberg Icelandic gin, which we were able to find later at the Duty Free store in the airport to bring home with us!