Reykjavik is a hip little bustling town. Very Brooklyn/Portland/Austin. Walkable streets, funky galleries, cool graffiti, man-buns, coffeehouses with punny names, youngsters who party until the bars close. which is at 4:30am. At which point they stumble home roaring drunk, howling and puking beneath our hotel window, which is open. Because Iceland has no AC and contrary to its name, not all that icy. 

Our first stop is the Blue Lagoon spa. Here we lunch and then change into our suits for a soak in the warm, milky waters. We swim up to bars where we get beer and wine and cheap sunglasses as the brightness is numbing, another where we get a handful of white glop to spread over our faces – when we rinse it off 20 minutes later we get a handful of green glop. The silica in the water gets in my hair and it takes days to wash it out completely, but apparently it is all healthy and whatnot – 

It’s another hour to the hotel where we unpack and enjoy the view from our room overlooking the park which is packed with people as apparently the weather had been awful and this is the first day the Icelanders have seen the sun in several weeks. It looks like a university quad down there. 

Dinner is at Idno, housed in an old theater. The food is pretty good and well presented, with a turkey/mashed potato thing as our entree, which is the first time we’ve seen turkey on the trip, likely because we are American. Icelanders mostly eat fish – what they call trout but is larger, pink and firm like salmon and a lot of lamb. Even the hot dogs here are made from lamb.

Following dinner we are entertained by a woman’s choir singing Icelandic songs. (It is very, very white here.)

We take a short stroll around town and explore. Lots of Viking this and Viking that. At night in our room we are treated to sounds like raping and pillaging in days of yore as revelers make their way home from the bars.

The next day we get in monster jeeps and tour the “golden circle” which includes Trollish rock formations

and geyser hot springs

and the Gulfoss waterfall.

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There is a pool of water where in olden days they used to execute unfaithful women by drowning them in a bag. Like kittens!

Afterwards they deflate the tires on the monster jeeps and we four-wheel through rocky creek beds on our way to Langjokull glacier.

There we put on huge down jumpsuits and gigantic orange rain gear and gloves and boots and helmets and schlepp out to the glacier where snowmobiles are waiting for us. It starts to rain and the ice is incredibly slippery and we are walked out clutching our guides who have crampons. But once the snowmobile starts we race out – the rain stops and the ice turns fluffy and soft and it’s completely magical – hushed and powerful.

We get back to the hotel late and stumble out to Apotek for dinner – which is super hipster and serves some shellfish starter on top of a block of pink Himalayan salt followed by cubes of lamb tartar. We are too full and tired to enjoy our entrees when they arrive. It’s midnight when we tumble out, and just getting dark.

Our final day we decide to explore on our own. We find an adorable brunch spot called Snaps and get bloodys and avocado toast just like home. Then we wander the streets finding a lot of cool graffiti, and street musicians, and a stone church, and other nonsense. We shop and goof and get back just in time to go whale watching.

Around then the weather turns bad, but the whale watching boat goes out anyway. It is incredibly rough and despite wearing the rain gear they provide everyone gets soaked. We see some amazing breeches – animals fully in the air, but taking photos is impossible as we are all hanging on for dear life.

Several people huddle below deck, watching through windows, because it’s so rough, and by the time we are told to get below for the return, as waves slosh over our heads crashing onto the deck, things have taken a bad turn below and vomit bags are everywhere. We hang out at the door, despite the deluge, just to stay out of the grim.

That night it cleared up and we took a short ferry ride to Videy Island for a private dinner in a big old barn.

No one puked. Success!