Travels to Iceland

Hello! I must be experiencing a little jet lag, because I would never wake up at 5am without an alarm, but I thought this would be a great time to update you on our travels.

We had a great experience with air travel. We first flew into Toronto, and we even arrived a half hour early! It might have been one of the coolest airports I had ever been in. Compared to the crowded seats/gates at O'Hare, the fancy tables with free iPads was pretty awesome. The following is not my picture, but gives you a sense of how nice it was. The main purpose of these deluxe tables was for the restaurants, but when there are over 40 of these seats at your gate, we couldn't help but enjoy it! During our four hour layover we ate here as well, and it was some of the best food ever! I had an outstanding vegan meatball and pesto sub sandwich, and Jake ordered a pizza.

The next phase of our trip was flying to Iceland. This flight was about five hours, and Jake said it was one of his best flying experiences he has ever had. We both watched some movies, and even flew over Greenland, which was very exciting! I had never seen anything like Greenland, with all of the snowcapped rocky coasts and completely snowy/icy interior. The girl next to me was sleeping so I did not get a picture out of the window, but I took this picture to get a sense of our route.

The menu on the plane was absolutely hilarious. We didn't end up ordering anything, but we loved their humor.

Here is a picture of our plane. Iceland's airport was also really great, and unlike any other airport I had ever been in. Some of the architecture seemed reminiscent of Ikea/modern style, but then there were also areas that were mostly made of wood. The food here was excellent once again and not nearly as overpriced as the other two airports. We both bought some yummy smoothies and veggie sandwiches.

After we left the airport, we were off to our first stop, the famous Blue Lagoon! This giant geothermal spa is a major tourist attraction in the middle of a vast expanse of a lava field, with rocks more than 800 years old.

 We stopped to pose by some of the rocks before we went in.

 These aren't the actual areas where we were swimming/relaxing, but you can get a sense of what it looked like. The waters were about hot tub temperatures and has a cloudy color because of the silica and other minerals that are in it. There are also spots where you could put some of the silica mixture on your face like a face mask, which was humorous.

After the Blue Lagoon, we hopped back on a bus which took us to the city of Reykjavik. The following are some of the photos taken on the bus.

Once we arrived at lodging, the rest of our day was pretty relaxed, and since it had been about 30 hours with no sleep, after getting some food at a local supermarket we got some good rest!

Hope you enjoyed these first updates! Happy day!