24 Hours In Iceland: Happy Hour, Gorgeous Scenery, Freezing Cold.
So... we didn't really have any set plans for the first evening except we got a rental car and I had this hope of going directly from the airport to the Blue Lagoon. However, due to our lack of planning, the only time slot available was for 8pm and was quite a ways from or hotel. Such a bummer, but we took it as we had $200 extra to spend exploring Reykjavik for the evening.
After checking into the hotel, we decided to walk along the ocean that was outside of our hotel.
We meandered up towards the city streets and found an Irish pub, the Irishman Pub, that had happy hour (I know, shocking right?). Found some good Icelandic beers for about $8 a piece which was a steal considering they normally ran twice that price. Plus the beers were actually pretty good! Our bartender was very nice and offered some insight on what it was like to live in Iceland.
From there we continued to walk down the street and stumbled into another bar, Vedur, for a drink before dinner. It was happy hour there too, but my "happy hour" mini cocktail cost $12. Yikes! Now, we have been places where drinks are expensive, but was a bit more than I like to spend on mini cocktails so switched to a cheaper beer option for my second drink.
We wanted to find a budget option for dinner so Dan used Google and discovered this all you can eat soup place, Icelandic Street Food. While you could get a regular bowl for $12 all you can eat soup, we opted for the bread bowl which ran about $19. There were a couple options, I opted for the shellfish soup and Dan opted for the lamb stew. The third option was a fisherman stew which the server recommended saving for last. I tried that for my second bowl and was glad I did! It was sooooo incredibly filling (good, but filling). I really wish we had taken pictures of our food and of our first evening out in Reykjavik, but unfortunately we didn't. We were so wrapped up in savoring it all in! We had such a great time exploring Reykjavik, it was such a cute little city!
We walked back to our hotel for the night and had plans to get up early the next morning. But jetlag/traveler fatigue definitely set in so we didn't get out and about until 9am the next morning. While I was showering Dan ran to the grocery store to grab breakfast and lunch to save time and money while on our quick tour of Iceland. We had delicious muffins for breakfast, Dan had a banana, salmon/crackers/cheese for lunch and a bottle of water. It ran us approximately $30 but did save us a bit of money. Side note, the tap water smells and tastes faintly of sulfur aka rotten eggs, which was quite interesting. I kinda figured after my shower I and the whole plane home would smell like rotten eggs, fortunately it didn't.
We drove to the west coast of Iceland, first stop was to the Seljalandsfoss Waterfall. It completely blew us away with how beautiful it was! It was so very cold though! My hair froze from the water spray haha! The walk behind the waterfall was also very slippery so make note to wear tennis shoes as we saw a lady wearing wedge shoes completely biff it on the sharp rocks. Btw, check out this picture just below. I asked this super cute old lady to take it of us and she took her sweet little time taking it to get the "perfect shot". I think she did quite well!
Another side note... I somehow had the only mosquito in existence in Iceland find me on the way back to our car. I have always known I'm a mosquito magnet, but really for the love?!?
Anywho, our last stop was to Reynisfjara, the black sand beach. On our drive, the wind really started to pick up. I'd known that the weather had forecasted snow so we tried to make it a quick visit (and we also had spent way more time than anticipated at the waterfall). While walking out to the beach we got blasted with 50+mph winds! Little ice pellets started beating down on us too while we were out on the beach. This is the point in our trip that I really regretted not having colder weather clothing, but was so hard to justify the carryon only space we had in our packs for only 24 hours of super cold... So it was hard to fully appreciate the views because of the extreme cold. And I also couldn't even feel my fingers to take many pics on my phone lol. Looking back at the few pictures we took, I would like to go back on a nicer weather day to check it out. The crazy thing is that some people will do anything for that perfect gram picture... we saw a girl in a sleeveless prom dress taking pictures out in that frigid weather! Now, that's dedication I don't have but can fully appreciate haha!
Side note on car rental and gas prices. We got a one day rental on a small fuel efficient Honda and ended up driving approximately 230 miles. Gas was roughly $10 a gallon so we spent just under $100 on gas (yikes!). The rental car cost about $50 for the 24 hours. So if you're renting a car plan accordingly on those prices.
Arriving at the airport was bittersweet. Sweet because we would be home to our dogs again. But definitely bitter as those 16 days we spent on this trip were full of such amazing memories. We met so many kind people, we at so much great food, had such great wine, saw such great sites. Thank you again Iceland, Portugal and Spain... you are beautiful.
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