Iceland

We arrived to a bright (we decided it was perpetually 7:00AM for the duration of the night) midnight welcome into Reykjavik where instead of being normal people who would get a hotel and start getting adjusted to the jet lag, we got a rental car and started driving. I had one job in planning the logistics of the trip: to plan what we would be doing on our 16 hour layover in Iceland. My plan was to wing it, of course. The guy who gave us our rental car said since we had enough time, we needed to drive to some glacier that looked kind of far away on the map but seemed attainable given our need for speed. Driving out there, not knowing it would be a 10 hour round trip excursion that was entirely too much driving (but in the end so worthwhile), we stopped at every huge waterfall we saw from the highway. These were massive, cold, beautiful falls cascading off of the tops of mossy mesas spotted all across this volcanic, alien looking land... It made for a stark juxtaposition between life and death that made all of the scenery so much more impressive. On hour five of the drive out to see "the best spot in Iceland" according to the car guy, we were almost out of gas (figuratively and literally) as all of the pumps were giving directions in Icelandic (which honestly contains too many consonants to be a language), and we almost turned back around. Thank goodness we didn't, because a few minutes passed and we happened across one of the most breathtaking sights I have ever seen... A vast delta of glacial fragments were sunbathing as they drifted off towards the Atlantic, being entirely too picturesque. After spending a good two hours taking way too many pictures, we made the trek back to Keflavik Airport and are now trying to stay awake to board our flight to London. From there we will get in another car and drive another 6 hours to Birmingham where we will spend the night gearing up for another day of travel before staring the real adventure in Scotland. So much more to come- stay tuned!

Vatnajökull Glacier fragments in the Atlantic

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