The Plane, the Golden Circle and the Bumble Bee

It was such a busy day. We boarded our Icelandair flight at 8pm and we set out for our adventure. The flight was full and uneventful except for the baby who cried in front of us for at least an hour or two. We both tried sleeping but we did not do too well. Thankfully the sun was shining in Reykjavik when we landed and it was awesome. The sun kept us awake! After getting our bags we headed to the rental car place for our tiny new ride. It is tiny and cute...I guess.

A Hyundai i20 (if you were curious)

The Golden Circle
One of the most famous tours in Iceland is the Golden Circle.  Here is the route we followed (and so did all the other tours from Reykjavik! We ran into the same people over and over again. I'm so glad we have a rental car!

Thingvellir National Park
Our first stop after picking up a MiFi (internet pack) was to the Thingvellir National Park...part of the Golden Circle Tour. This National Park is the sight of the first Parliament in 906 AD. It is also a spot on the Almannagjá, the continental drift between the North American and Eurasian Plates. Basically Iceland is breaking apart. Hence the earthquakes and volcano spewing ash. There was a very nice waterfall called Öxarárfoss. Here are a few shots from the beautiful National Park.

The Bumble Bee
There was this bumble bee that loved me.  We stopped at three different places in the National Park and bumble bees were at all of them. They were attracted to me. At one point Eric was laughing as I ran in circles to get away from them.  Next stop was the Geysir area...and another bumble bee!

The Geysir

The Geysir area reminds me of Yellowstone. There are geysirs everywhere emitting steam and it smells! The Stokkur erupts every few minutes. It is like Old Faithful. This is the only one that still erupts. The other ones just steam. After Geysir we stopped at the café for food. It was pretty terrible food and cost a ton. Oh well...Here is Stokkur:

 

The Gullfoss

After we went to Gullfoss, the most popular waterfall in the country. I hate to compare it to something in the US but it Iceland's version of Niagara, They even compare it to Niagara on the sign, They say this one is more powerful. It was very impressive, we did not see the rainbow as it was cloudy when we got there. See:

The Kerið

On our way back to Reykjavik we stopped at the Kerid...the crater. This was the only place we had to pay to see. It was $3...yep, we used dollars. It was not that exciting either so that was a pity. Here is what we saw:

Reykjavik

We finally made ​​it to Reykjavik and our apartment. The owner was great. He showed us around and gave us helpful advice. Even he provided a cell phone to take with us around the country ... I wish I had know that before I paid for the MiFi!   It is a nice studio apartment and when I say studio, I mean studio...it used to be an artist studio! There are no windows but there are lots of skylights and it is huge. And the location is right on the shopping street but our unit is behind the main unit so we do not get the loud street noise which Reykjavik is known for. It is awesome! I love it.

Updated 9/9/14 to fix numerous gramatical errors. I was having trouble with blogger trying to translate this page over and over and was messing up the wording.