Keflavik, the airport that serves Reykjavik's international flights is almost one hour out of town. Surrounding the Keflavik Airport for vast miles beyond where the eye can see - is - absolutely nothing. The terrain is brown, treeless, almost flat, barren, and rocky. The view from the sole road looks like the moon.
If you don't happen to be blinking at the moment and don't miss it, you can see a small white road sign with red letters that says "Blaa lonio" and points off to the right. Fortunately, as Alex was driving, I had been madly rifling through the tourist brochures and knew from ONE tiny reference that "Blaa lonio" is the Icelandic name for what is advertised as the Blue Lagoon. It is a really cool place and we were looking forward to finding it!
To call it a hot water spring is lame. It is a spa and an edgy, upscale geothermal pool of sorts. Again, these descriptions fall far short.
When we turned off the airport highway and onto the access road to the Blue Lagoon, we saw plumes of white steam pulsing through the air. Those columns of steam emanate from a commercial plant (harnessing the geothermal energy from the hot undergroung water?). The road winds past that plant and around into a parking lot marked by four flagpoles. The gently rolling rocky piles obscured the view into the entrance. Even after we parked the car and walked up the path, the mystery persisted. Suddenly, we arrived at an architectually exciting, boxy, horizontally slatted building in front of us. And, to the left was a small lake of sorts, except that the shores were sharp brown rock and the water was the color of milk, slightly tinted with antifreeze, and almost flourescent.
We rushed into the building to escape from the biting cold wind. At the entrance desk we paid a fee for access, towel rental and plastic bracelet with electronic chip for the storage locker. Alex and I agreed to meet in the lagoon after passing through our respective changing rooms.
In the women's locker room, I had to take off my street shoes right away. Attendants make sure everyone follows the routine. I put my clothes and purse in an empty locker, hovering the chip-enhanced bracelet over a sensor to program the bracelet for that particular locker. (Later, I discovered I didn't hover long enough, was locked out of my locker and the attendant had to get the master chip to let me in).
Even though I had put my bathing suit on, I was told that I had to take a soap shower - no bathing suit allowed.
Finally, I stepped out into the cold air and onto the patio to the lagoon. Stone stairs lined with railings lead into the lagoon. I quickly stepped in. A layer of steam floats on the surface, obscuring the view into the lagoon. The sun was shing brightly, so it wasn't eerie. The water felt kind of like the Dead Sea - slimy, salty, minerally. I met Alex in the water, along with the "family" in our group who we kept bumping into at just about every stop in Iceland.
Alex and I swam across to the other side, to get to the pots of white silica, which are provided to smear on your face for a ten minute masque while you float around in the hot bath. We paddled all the way around the perimeter, to see all the nooks and crannies of the lagoon. One area was roped off for massages. The attendants stand in the water and work on the client who is floating on a raft. Wow. That looked cool! There wasn't enough time for a massage but it's a definite come-back-to!
The Blue Lagoon was our last scavenge of the trip; and from there, we drove to the airport.
In Iceland, the rules were different in that we were allowed to rent a car.
We had arrived at Hotel Borg at 4:30 in the afternoon yesterday and had one hour until our meeting. Alex and I walked out to get money at an ATM, get something to eat at Cafe Paris across the street, and find out where the tourist office was located.
At the meeting, we were told that we had until 4:00 PM Friday, when we were to meet at the gate at the airport for our 5:00 flight to Boston. That left 22 hours in Iceland, if we didn't sleep or eat.
The second the meeting ended, everyone bolted. Almost everyone ran upstairs (to their rooms, to call for rental cars, which were apparently delivered to the hotel). We made a beeline the two blocks to the tourist office, which was going to close in 15 minutes. We asked about rental cars. The lady at the desk advised that we take a taxi (waiting outside the door) to Budget's office at the bus station, but they close at 6:00. We got there in time to rent a small Hyundai Getz and to get directions for the Golden Circle. In the few minute cab ride to Budget's office, we skimmed the scavenge list and gleaned that we needed to get out of Reykjavik and focus on the geological formations. The guy in the Budget office gave us a map to the Golden Circle - the leading attractions. All three spots were on our scavenge list, but we hadn't figured that out yet. Budget Man said it would take about four hours to do the three things quickly:
1. Pingvellir (our scavenge was "world's first parliament building"; and it is the North Atlantic ridge, where the continents of Europe and America drift apart),
2. Geysir (thermal water jets - and where the word comes from), and
3. Gullfoss (a huge waterfall).
Clearly, we would have to start early in the morning. But first, how to use the remaining time in the evening?
Noting the bonus challenge of attending the symphony, we drove to the ticket office. But, bleah, we just didn't feel like it. We had just attended the Royal Danish Ballet the night before - top rate.
The lady in the symphony' ticket office, when asked, confirmed that over 200 seats were empty and the performance was in about one hour. So, instead of buying tickets from her, we peppered her with scavenge questions. Well, hey! It wasn't like anyone was banging down the box office door.
She was quite helpful in answering some questions and for telling us the locations of the restaurants and in deciphering the mandatory food challenges we hadn't figured out.
Svid is head of sheep (yuk).
Reykur lax is smoked salmon (OK)
Bloomor is like Scottish haggis (no thanks)
Hrutspungar is sheep testicles (no way).
We decided to substitute a public swimming pool for the symphony. Similar genre to the Blue Lagoon, but not nearly as swanky. We chose Laugardalslaug, one of the bigger ones, with a lot of amenities. At the pool, we bumped into the "family" - two teams travelling together - grandma, daughter, grandson and boyfriend. Very nice people; and they invited us to join them for dinner at Perlan, in a large rounded observatory that is the tallest building in Reykjavik. But first, we zipped over to the Reykjavic Art Museum to catch the walls of black curtain installation
Perlan was almost full.
We had a lovely dinner at Perlan, the revolving restaurant on top.
At about 10:45 we left the restaurant, stopped by to snap a pic of the Sun Voyager sculpture along the shoreline, and went to bed by midnight.
Even though we had set our alarms for 6:00 AM, we were both up by 5:30. We checked out and were in the car by 6:00. We looked for Sandholt Bakery (not open yet; didn't wnt to wait) and settled on a 24 hour store nearby. We were able to buy breakfast and some water and snacks for our lunar landscape trip. We did two scavenges in the 24 store - Skyr (delicious, thick yogurt) and Appolo brand licorice. We would have gotten both anyway, even if they weren't scavenges.
We got on the road and headed out inland to the Golden Circle. Throughout the day, we kept bumpimg into various teams. Mostly everyone was huddled, shivering, racing to get back in the car, out of the wind.
I wore 5 things on my top: t-shirt, silk sweater, ski underwear shirt, hoodie fleece sweatshirt, and windbreaker/raincoat (plus gloves and a neckie!) Iceland is cold today.
...But am anticipating a WARM arrival in Boston!