Iceland 2017

We’d seen photos of the beautiful scenery.  We’d heard stories from our friends that we must visit.  So on one of our trips back to Haarlem, our home away from home, we went to Iceland.  Along with 3 million other tourists!

We took advantage of Icelandair’s stopover program which allowed us to stay in Iceland for a few days while traveling to Europe.  We flew from Portland, Oregon to Reykjavik on 19 July.  We had our usual seats in the back of the plane, not together.  The airline staff said there was nothing they could do.  We understood the difficulty when someone purchases five tickets with the same last name and enters their ages, birth dates, passport numbers, scans in birth certificates, provides DNA samples to know these passengers are related, might be young children and may want to sit together.  We arrived at the airport early to see if we could arrange to sit together.  The friendly on the inside, stone faced on the outside agent suggested perhaps we could negotiate with other travelers once we’re on board. Check-in was efficient and security lines were non-existent.  Icelandair doesn’t participate in TSA pre-check so we couldn’t skip the security line.  But we had plenty of time as we followed TSA recommendation to arrive 8 hours before our flight.

Icelandair flies older 757 planes that are nicely updated inside.  The 757 is essentially a stretched out 737 with 3×3 seating.  Each seat has it’s own video monitor with a selection of movies, TV shows, music and games.  We’ve found unlimited screen time plus a pound of candy keeps the kids from wrestling each other on the plane.  Actually the kids become great mini-travelers.  We did indeed successfully negotiate a few sweat swaps so husband and wife could sit together.  We’re not sure if the kids found a way to sit together but we did reconnect when we arrived at Keflavik airport.  We’d read reviews of the airport unable to handle the increase in travelers, not having any place to sit and general chaos.  We found it clean, easy to navigate with great food.  It felt a lot like PDX and we give it high marks.  In fact, it’s one of our favorite airports.  Our oldest keeps asking to back to Iceland so he can get the avocado pesto sandwich from Joe & the Juice.

We left 90 degree weather in Southern Oregon for 80 degree weather in Portland and landed in 40 degree, rain in Reykjavik with rain forecast for the next 100 days.

We cleared passport control with no line and grabbed our bags, bought 2 bottles of wine at duty free.  We have no idea what duty is.  We’ve never paid duty as far as we know. We’ve never seen anyone buy something in a duty-free shop. But someone had told us to buy wine in the airport so we did.  We were out waiting for the shuttle to the rental car agency in less than 20 minutes from touch down.  Impressive.  It was 6am and had the whole day to explore.  We had rented our car through an online broker that contracted with a local company.  This turned out to be a mistake, but I’ll cover that later.  In the future, we will stick with a major brand when traveling to Iceland to not hassle with the “damage” scheme.  We found driving easy and the roads were in great shape.

We drove straight to the Blue Lagoon which is about 20 minutes from the airport.  We suggest you skip it.  It’s hard to skip it because everyone says you must go.  We didn’t want to miss out.   You won’t want to miss out.  We bought the “comfort” package.  For $100pp we got to walk in waist deep hot-water discharged from the geothermal energy plant.  Our “comfort” upgrade meant we received a towel – but if we wanted a robe, we’d need upgrade even more.  The experience was nice – just not something we’d do again.

Everyone had told us Iceland was shockingly expensive.  We were still shocked.  We had arrived at the Blue Lagoon early.  They let you in up to 30 minutes before your reservation. We arrived 90 minutes early so went to the cafe for breakfast.  We had a coffee and a couple yogurt smoothies for $45 USD.  We usually don’t fixate on the price of things but here we are, fixated on the price.

We rented a house in Reykjavik near downtown through AirBnB.  It was a cute house. It had a small driveway with off street parking. Heating and hot water are geothermal so you have unlimited hot showers.  The downside of long showers is the water smells like eggs.  Dad had selected the house as it advertised a big back yard with trampoline and half-pipe.  While technically it had these amenities, the back yard looked like a homeless camp with broken glass, wood piled up and overgrown grass.  It wasn’t a big deal though as we had places to go and things to see and didn’t plan to spend much time at the house.

We walked around town and the kids quickly identified their favorite spot of the entire town, Freddi Retro Arcade.  While the kids played Ms. Pac Man and Donkey Kong, Mom and Dad were able to check out the shops and more of the downtown area.  It’s a nice small town that is quite walkable.  In July, the sun sets at midnight and rises at 3am so one has plenty of daylight.  It was clear that Iceland was on the destination map now.  The crowds of tourists downtown were speaking English. There might have been more tourists from Portland than locals when we were there.

That night we went out to dinner as we hadn’t made it to the grocery store.  Remember that everyone warned us Iceland is expensive so we were ready.  We found a cute sushi restaurant and looked at the menu.  They offered kids sushi rolls for 2,500 ISK.  We googled the exchange rate, did a quick calculation and figured $2.50 isn’t bad for a kids sushi roll.  We ordered 5 rolls, I had a beer. When we got the check, we pulled out the calculator to confirm the math we did in our head.  It turns out we were off by a factor of 10 and our sushi dinner came to $274 USD.  Everyone had told us to be prepared, but we were really shocked. We will stop talking about prices now.

Jet lag hit us hard this trip.  We were all on different schedules with one of us waking up at 2am and others sleeping until noon.  I think that was one factor why this trip wasn’t tops overall.  We spent our day roaming town in a daze seeing the sights.

We visited the church and took the elevator to the top.  Outside is a statue of Leif Erickson.  Named after a running trail in Portland, Oregon, he and a bunch of others apparently beat Columbus to America. Iceland seems to believe in alternative facts.

The next day, we eventually got everyone out of bed around noon to do some exploring on the famed Golden Circle.  Our first stop was Thingvellir National Park.  We thought it was quite nice and are certain many important things must have happened there.  It’s just when the kids are screaming at each other and refusing to walk so we must drag them along in the dirt, it’s a bit difficult to enjoy the scenery.  The kids are usually stellar travelers so we gave them a pass and chalked it up to the jet lag and the IV bag of sugar on the plane ride over.  We hiked through the park and then made a quick exit.  It was quite serene.

From there it was geyser time.  With ice cream bars and promises of massive volcanic eruptions the kids moods improved slightly.  We walked along the path of several geysers appreciating the ability to stand directly under the geyser and test if the water stayed scalding hot after the eruption.  This gave Mom an opportunity to discuss different safety standards in various countries.

Recognizing that hours in a car on a windy road wasn’t improving the children’s moods, we turned back toward town and spent a low key evening back at the house.

Dad had been doing some reading and found there was a playground made from recycled materials in the 70’s a couple hours away.  This seemed like just the adventure we needed and since Dad was wide awake at 4am, he woke everyone else up and we headed out of town. We drove deep into western Iceland.  The highlight of the drive was the Hvalfjörður Tunnel which reaches a depth of 541 feet below sea level.  It was eerie being the only car in a 3 mile long tunnel under the ocean. The scenery is stark, desolate and beautiful in Iceland and often it felt like we were the only ones on the road although that might have been because it was Saturday morning at 5am.

Eventually we found the playground.  It wasn’t quite as cool as Dad hoped but we did spend a few minutes playing on the equipment before heading to the public swimming pool we spotted on the way in.

It turned out that our favorite part of Iceland and where we spent most of our time was the geothermal swimming pools that also function as the community center and social gathering spot in each town.  The water was warm and most had water slides and we could spend hours going down the slides while Mom and Dad relaxed. We visited six different pools around the country.

We spent a few days touring the swimming pools of Iceland.  There are rules to visiting a pool.  You must strip, shower with soap, then put your suit on in the wet area of the changing room and then walk out to the pool.  Most pools are outside with a variety of hot tubs.  Signs state the water temperature of each tub.  And then there is a cold plunge pool.  This is typically a small wooden box or metal trough of -100 degree water.  The locals sit calmly in the freezing water and then go swim a few laps.  We dipped a toe in but it froze solid.  We would do endless laps on the water slides while mom and dad sat in the hot tubs. Iceland’s swimming pools are highly recommended and kid approved.

One evening we stayed until the pool closed at 10pm.  We were starving.  We had noticed that unless you were downtown, most shops and restaurants closed by 9pm.  The only place we could find open was a KFC.  We hadn’t been to a KFC for 10 years and not much has changed.  We ordered the family bucket of chicken.  It was $87 USD.

On our last day, we drove to South Iceland and the Westman Islands.  We had discovered a bakery that makes fresh cinnamon rolls (Braud & Co) so we stocked up and headed out of town.  This turned out to be our favorite part of Iceland and highly recommend it as a day trip.  The ferry ride was about an hour.  When we docked, we hopped off the boat and walked directly across the street to Ribsafari.  We stashed our backpack in their office and changed into survival suits.  Anytime one gets to wear a survival suit, you know it’s going to be an exciting day!  We figured it must be safe as a reviewer on TripAdvisor said so.  Dad double checked with the captain who confirmed no one had gone overboard that year yet.

We all climbed into the Rib boat which was a large zodiac with giant twin engines.  There were seats but you stand over them as it’s so bumpy.  Then your captain turns on a fantasticly loud stereo system, tells jokes, plays Beyonce, and then floors it and you go full speed out and around the island.  While it sounds a bit odd and might not be for everyone, we loved it.  Nothing like a high speed scenic tour with JayZ blasting in -5 degrees temps.  Some of the captains jokes were R rated but were actually quite helpful as we’d been putting off the “where babies come from” conversation with the kids.  We saw lots of Puffins, a few seals and lots of beautiful scenery.

After the high speed boat safari, we were picked up by the owner of Lyngfell stables. We love it when we get personal service from the owner. She drove us up to her barn where we picked out our favorite Icelandic horses.  While trail rides aren’t at the top of our fun list, they are at the top of Kaitlin’s so we all went along.  It was a nice afternoon, the sun came out and we rode down to the beach and back.

After the trail ride, we were delivered back to town where we made a quick stop to the local museum to see the rescued puffin.

Farewell Westman islands, you were our favorite part of our trip to Iceland.  We caught the ferry back to the mainland and then drove back to town for our last night.

Our final morning we packed up and dropped the rental car off.  When renting Dad made two fatal mistakes.  First, our credit card covers rental car damage but you must refuse to buy “extra” insurance from the rental company.  So we turned down the insurance.  This of course marked us immediately as an easy target for “car damage”.  The second mistake was not videotaping every inch our well used rental car with a floodlight in the presence of an attorney to record the condition of the car before driving off.  After we dropped the car, from inside the office, the attendant looked through the tinted window across the street to our car parked in dim light covered with dust and said “I think I see some damage”.  We walked outside, across to the car where he made a beeline to the passenger side, not visible from where had been inside the office.  “See there” he said pointing to a perfectly non damaged car door.  “I don’t see anything” said Dad.  We peered closer and closer until our noses touched the car.  He used his sleeve to rub the dust from the car and sure enough, at the very bottom of the door, when the dust was removed, and you looked at a 27 degree angle and shined a light on the metal you could just barely make out a slight indentation.  “That” he said looking very serious, “is damage you’ve done to the car.  And now you must pay”.

Had we actually damaged the car like we did in Argentina, we’d be happy to fess up and pay.  But this was clearly a scam.  He showed Dad the price list which showed $800 USD for “minor dent”.  He said he would do us a favor and only charge $600 as he wanted to help us out.  We won’t bore you with the details but after a few months of heated emails back and forth and research that showed this was a common practice and a draft social media post, Dad had our money refunded.  After a great family trip, we flew out with a sour taste in our mouth thanks to the rental care return.

On to Denmark….