Epilogue/Epilblog

We have been home for three days now, and although they've been a hectic few days, we've found some time to reflect on our England, Scotland, and Iceland adventure. It was an absolutely marvelous time and it has just convinced us that vacations are good for the soul and good for relationships. To get away to where the only objective is to have fun, is just the best! It's nice to leave the stress of everyday life behind and just focus on each other and where you are in another part of the world.


Here are some of our thoughts now that we're home.

First, some awards:

Favorite:

Dinner - Me: In Reykjavik, the tortellini with Icelandic lobster
Hubby: No one favorite but he thought the food was better in Iceland than in the U.K.
Breakfast - Both of us: Edinburgh Marriott. Lots of choices, a great fruit salad, and Hubby liked the pastries for breakfast dessert.
Hotel room – We both thought the Willowbeck Lodge was the nicest place we stayed, but that’s in a different category since it’s not a hotel. For hotels, Me: The Renaissance Hotel in Alfreton, Derbyshire. For Hubby: the Hotel Selfoss in Iceland.
Bathroom – Me: the Willowbeck Lodge; bright, white, tub and shower, skylights, and beautiful appointments. Hubby: no preference, he was just happy to have a shower and a place to ponder.
Now that we’ve covered all the food and bathrooms, here are a few more favorites:
View - Me: The Glacier in Iceland.
Hubby – Every view in Iceland. He loved coming over a rise and seeing something amazing.
Day of vacation – Me: The Golden Circle in Iceland. Hubby: Tie - Golden Circle and golf at St. Andrews


Disappointments:

The Marriott in Inverness. It was certainly in need of repair and redecoration. The carpets were worn, the bathroom had mold, the breakfast wasn’t even mediocre. The lobby was lovely, and maybe there were rooms that have been re-done, but ours wasn’t one of them.
The weather in Iceland. When you only have five days, you know that the weather has to be perfect to get everything in. It wasn’t and it did cramp our style there. But now we have a reason to go back. There is so much more to see.
Traveling in Europe is expensive. We knew this, of course, before we went, and we had money set aside for our trip, so this wasn’t a big surprise, but it’s sad that because of the expensive nature of travel abroad, that more people can’t really afford to travel. There is so much of our world to see, and with the history in Europe being so significant, it’s a shame that the cost is prohibitive for many.
Our car in Iceland. After 10 days in our brand new 2007 Renault Scenic in the UK, our 2005 Toyota Avensis with 53,000 miles on it, crumbs in every nook and cranny, the big chip in the windshield, and the broken passenger door was a real disappointment.

Surprises:

The flat plains of Iceland. We both had expected Iceland to be more wooded and more hilly right down to the water. We were surprised by the expanse of flat plain from the mountains right down to the sea.
Finding family graves in the U.K. Finding the family graves in Riseley, England and Invergordon, Scotland was a big surprise. I hadn’t really held out a lot of hope for either, especially after seeing the condition of the old grave stones all over England. Many prior to 1900 were just worn away and unreadable.

Reflections on things:

Scotland: Although beautiful, Scotland is a lot like New Hampshire. The mountains, lakes, streams, and views are very similar. We really enjoyed the history there, but we feel like there isn’t a lot of need to go back. When we visited Hawaii, we knew we would have to go back, but Scotland is now checked off the list of places to visit. This time was enough. England we’ll probably go back to only because my family is there.
Iceland: We definitely would like to go back to Iceland because there is so much more to see. We only touched on the southwestern part of the island. We didn’t go to the north where we could see the birth of iceburgs, and the land to the east is supposed to be breathtaking. If we have opportunity again, we’ll go back and do the entire ring road next time.
Golf: The golf at St. Andrews was good and a lot of fun and it’s great to say that we played at St. Andrews, but honestly, we can play golf at home. We’re still glad we did it though.
History: The one thing the U.K. has is history, much longer than ours and you really get the sense of things being “old”.
What to wear: Of course, we took too many clothes! Not knowing what would be on the agenda especially during the days we visited family, I took clothes for “just in case”. I never wore the two dresses I brought, Hubby never wore a tie, and since it rained so much in Iceland, much of our hiking gear got limited use. Suffice it to say, the old adage, “Pack your suitcase, then put half of it back” is a good one. One interesting thing of note: In the U.K. with temps in the 60’s to low 70’s, all the natives were wearing their shorts and tee-shirts which to us looked silly. There were days that were quite chilly, but they believed it was summer. But in Iceland, people were bundled up with hats and gloves etc, almost like they thought it was winter already. Interesting.

On Blogging our trip:

Deciding to blog about our trip was something I thought might be fun but it really was a great idea. First, it kept everyone at home up-to-date with our trip and let you all share our adventure, but now that we’re home, we have a real travel-log of our vacation. To go back and read the early posts, I realize there are things we would have easily forgotten over time. Also, I plan to print out the entire blog and share it with Hubby’s Mom so she can read first-hand about our trip. We could never have shared that much detail after the fact. But, blogging is not without it’s downsides. First, it took two to three hours every day to get a post up and running. A lot of that time is uploading the photos, which of course depends on the upload speed of each Internet connection. Writing what happened each day takes a good bit of time too, and after just a day or two, we realized that we needed to keep a log in the car with us to write down all the things we wanted to share. That also worked well for the names of towns and road signs. Second, some nights, Hubby would be sound asleep while I was still writing. One night, I fell asleep three times at my computer and when I re-read the post the next morning I realized that there were some things that needed fixing! Blogging every day was really a commitment, but knowing that there were all of you out there, waiting for the next installment, it kept me motivated. I also loved getting your comments. Many made me laugh and all of them made me feel close to you while so far away.

So, now our vacation, and this blog are finished. Thank you all for reading and for sharing the fun we had!

A Snowstorm, a Swim, and Finally Home

We awoke this morning to more driving rain and wind and started to question our plans for the day. Our flight wasn't leaving Reykjavik until 5 PM so we thought we'd go to the Blue Lagoon to spend some time. We had a leisurely breakfast, talked to two other couples who both told us to go to the Blue Lagoon, and that we wouldn't regret it, even in the rain. So after getting ourselves together, making sure all the suitcases weighed about the same (didn't want to be overweight going home), and loading it all into the car in the pouring rain, we were off. The drive would take about an hour and half we thought, that is until we hit the snowstorm! That slowed things down a bit. We had to go over a mountain ridge and it was really snowing hard and the roads were snowy/slushy. It's September 15th! But what would a trip to Iceland be without some snow?! I quickly rolled down the window and snapped this photo.

When we arrived at the Blue Lagoon there were other crazy people there too. There were even tour buses with big groups. The tourist attraction was created because originally, the water was used for thermal energy. They had drilled down a mile and a half and hit a core of super-heated 400 degree water. It was used to heat and supply hot water to the south of Iceland and what was left over, they mixed with sea water and it accumulated in this area. The problem was people had discovered it, were bathing in it, and finally the government realized they could build a center there and charge money for the use of it.

The Blue Lagoon water is a bright blue and because of all the minerals in it, you can't see through it at all. When you arrive, you pay the entrance fee and they give you a wrist band and a towel and off you go to the locker room. Here's where I had some trouble. This whole "let's get naked in front of everybody else" thing really isn't MY thing. But I managed to get into my suit somewhat privately, and met Hubby on the outside. We thought we would have to make a mad dash for the water, but we discovered that the pool actually started indoors and there was a door outside from there. Let's remember that it's in the 30's and pouring rain at this point. So out we went. The water was heavenly! It is so warm, so full of minerals that you float with no effort, and because there is so much steam coming off the water, you never feel cold. One woman at breakfast told me not to dunk my head because I'd be fighting with my hair for two weeks trying to get the minerals out. Most of you know me, head dunking wasn't going to be an option anyway! But it was pouring rain....this was going to require shampoo once we were done.

So, after some time of soaking up the warmth and experiencing this really different adventure, it was time to head back to the locker room and the showers.....gang showers. Goodness, even my high school had individual showers! I peeked in all the showers and found one with only one other woman in it....so in I went, lathered up so fast, and was out before anyone else came in. Believe me, it was traumatizing! I managed to find a little privacy to get dressed, and then had to blow dry etc for the second time today. I suppose it was really kind of neat, but I'm not sure it was worth it for me. Too much trouble and anxiety!! Here's a photo I took through the glass window of the actual pool (it was a little creepy to bring my camera out into the water while other people were there)....it's not really a pool as such, as the water is held in my lava rock. The second photo is another pool of the bright blue water and if you look carefully you can see the visitors center in the background. It's really so beautiful and it almost doesn't look real, but it is.



After the Blue Lagoon, we headed to the airport, still in the pouring rain, for our flight home. We saw the little ladies from yesterday and chatted with them a bit, and also talked with the women from Denmark who sat next to us. She was traveling to Worcester to visit her children's au pair who she hadn't seen in 30 years. It was her first trip to the US and she was very excited.

So now we're home, I'm on the second load of laundry, I've gone through the mail, and I'm getting very tired....it's 2 AM where we came from. I plan to post one more time to this blog, with a list of our favorites etc, and reflections of our two weeks of holiday, so check back in a couple of days. And thanks for reading....it's been fun to read your comments and know that others were sharing our adventure with us.

The Golden Circle

Today has been such a fun day!! We left the hotel early to drive The Golden Circle. There are three major attractions to see along the way, and thinking we might avoid the tour busses out of Reykjavik if we went to the furthest one away first, we headed to Gullfoss(The Golden Falls). This is an amazing waterfall and Hulda Gilanson told us we had to go see it, and she was right! The first photo is of the falls, and the second photo is a shot of the viewing area, but you can see it's covered in ice! There was a path closer to the falls, but people were having a hard time standing up on the ice, so we decided not to venture out there. In the third photo, you can see me all bundled up with icicles hanging off the railings. The wind was really quite strong here so it was hard to actually take pictures because of all the spray that hit the camera. We encountered a group of young Germans here, not on a tour bus, but in five huge SUV vehicles with enormous wheels. We figured they must have been going on an excursion into inner Iceland where only those kinds of vehicles can go. We wore our hiking gear today and felt "with it" in our North Face jackets. The other brand you see here is 66ºNorth, and Icelandic brand named for the 66º latitude that runs through Iceland.


We had wonderful views of the Langjökull glacier today. It was an incredible sight! Seeing a glacier for real is really a great experience.


From the falls, we headed to Geysir, where there is much thermal energy beneath the surface of the ground. There are several geysers here, with Geysir being the largest. It used to erupt quite often but has been very quiet for years. Now a smaller geyser called Strokkur erupts every 5 minutes of so. The temperature of the water is 100ºC or 212ºF, also called "boiling"! It was funny to watch everyone stand around, cameras ready, to catch the big photo-op. But, we did it too! The place stunk of sulpher but there were places to stand where it was so nice and warm, given the cold temps today. Here are the photos of Strokkurs eruption:



There is another area of pools of hot water and one of them is just an incredible shade of bright blue due to the minerals in the water. I've never seen anything like it. This is also what the Blue Lagoon looks like only it's enormous....we go there tomorrow before we go to the airport.


At Geysir, we stopped at the visitor's center and had a cup of tea and shared some cinnamon rolls. It was interesting to watch the other tourists. Lots of Germans, French, and Japanese. Not as many Americans today, thank goodness! But we did have them in the hotel restaurant again tonight and they were just as loud.

From Geysir, we traveled on to þingvellir, a national park here. We now know it's pronounced "thing-vet-ler". It has two major significances. First this is where the plates of the earth come together with Europe on one side, and North American on the other. The plates are in motion with a drop in the crevasse of 2 cm each year. There are 100 volcanoes in this area. Also this was the site of the first Icelandic Parliament in 930 A.D. and the Republic of Iceland was formed here in 1944. There is a small church across the river from the crevasse, and it stands on the site of the former church which was built in 1018. The cracks in the earth's surface are quite something to see. There is also a good-sized waterfall here which people climbed up on the rocks to take photos of. The water from this falls runs into þingvallavatn (the lake). Here are some photos of þingvellir. Please note the one of me with my new Icelandic wool mittens which I just couldn't resist in the Gullfoss gift shop!








Here is the map of the area we covered today. You can see Gullfoss at the lower right third of the map, with Geysir just to it's left, and þingvellir just a bit more to the west. In between you can see the four glaciers in white, with Langjökull being the largest and most visible.
Now for some bits and pieces of things. First, here is the car we've had here in Iceland. It's a Toyota Avensis, and it's like a Corolla, but the there is a Corolla here but it's smaller. Same name, but smaller car than at home.


We drove down some gravel roads here, which is not unusual. Not all roads are paved. In fact there are interior parts of Iceland that you cannot drive into in a passenger car. The Avis rep told us that they do not charge for small rock "dings" in the paint because the roads are so bad. The national speed limit is 90 kph (about 60 mph) but in places it goes down to 70, or 50, and through towns it can be 30. There are also single lane bridges. Here's a shot of the gravel road we were on today:


We were surprised by the flat spacious plain that goes from the mountains to the coast. We both expected the scenery today to be treed and wooded, and a lot like New England mountains, but the plain stretches for miles from the sea to the mountains and nothing much grows on it, just shrubby growth and moss. Apparently Iceland was quite wooded once upon a time, but it has been de-forrested. There appears to be some effort to plant trees however. Here's a photo of the plains:


We saw some more animals today. More sheep, black wooley ones this time, very close to the road. And we also saw some Icelandic horses....they have very long manes. These mares were guarding their babies who were lying down. We also saw a cow and a bull in a loving embrace....very strange! Today there have been horse paths all along the roadway, like we might have a bike path at home. There are lots of horse farms here.


People here seem to have vacation homes out in the middle of nowhere. They don't seem to be by a lake or river, but they are definitely different than the regular homes. They are far apart and in communities.


We think that there is not regular trash pick-up here. All along the roads we've seen what look like dumpsters. At first we thought they were for recycling but now we realize people must bring all their trash and recyclables to these collection spots.

Every little town seems to have it's own town pool. You really can't swim in the ocean or lakes here....they are way too cold. So there are pools even in little towns.

We were also surprised by the number or large SUV's here. You'd think that will the cost of gas averaging over $5 a gallon, people would want little economical cars, but there is a demand for the big SUV's because they are needed out on the back roads. Also gas stations are not on every block....you can go for miles without seeing one, and so you have to make sure you have enough gas for any trip you make.

Tomorrow evening we fly home. We plan to stop at the Blue Lagoon on the way since our flight isn't until suppertime. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but after talking to some very nice elderly ladies from St. Louis today, they told us that there are showers and blow dryers in the bath houses and all you have to do is make a mad dash from the lagoon to the bath house in the 40º air and you'll be fine. You can rent towels there and we'll just have to have a big plastic bag for our swim suits when we're done. These same little ladies will be on our flight tomorrow.....they fly to Boston to meet a tour group headed for Nova Scotia.

Tonight at dinner, we went over our favorites, our least favorities, and our surprises and disappointments. That sounds like a post for when we get home. I do plan to post tomorrow night with photos from the Blue Lagoon so please check back.

Neither of us is looking forward to the end of vacation. I will say I'll be happy to be back in my own bed. These European beds (two twins pushed together so they have a big crack down the middle) are not great. They don't have sheets and blankets, but have "puffies"...down comforters in a duvat cover which are never long enough to tuck into the end of the bed and are way too short. How would my #1 son survive here??? Most of the time, my arms are hanging out and cold, and if I tuck in my arms, I have to pull my legs way up so my feet don't hang out! Brrrr!

I hope you've enjoyed today's photos. I took 78 pictures and it was hard to decide which ones were post-worthy. I've really enjoyed doing the blog, but most admit, it was more fun to do when the up-load speed was fast. These last two days it's taken over 3 hours to put the blog up for posting! But, hey, I'm on vacation with nothing else to do!!

Selfoss, Iceland

We had an interesting evening at the Hotel Buðir last night. We shared the dining room with three other couples for dinner. Only eight of us were staying in the hotel so they were quite empty. One of the couples was from Rhode Island, one from the UK and the other from Holland. The Dutch couple were winding up a 15 day holiday in Iceland, having done the "ring" road all around the island. By the time we got to dinner, we were pretty hungry so all our previous plans went out the window. We each got a starter (appetizer): Hubby had shellfish skewers of shrimp and scallops, with mussels and clams in their shells. I had the crusted hare (yes, the bunny!!). It was really very good, not like chicken as I expected, but more like very tender beef. For dinner, Hubby had the cod with more mussels and razor clams, tomatoes in a ginger chili sauce. I had the lamb which was very good. The big pieces that I had to cut were very tasty, although the shredded pieces of lamb were a bit gamey for me. It was accommpanied by roasted potatos, carrots, asparagus, and tiny pieces of zucchini. We even had dessert, the Skyr cake, which is an Icelandic favorite here. Skyr (pronounced skeer) is sort of like a cross between yogurt and cheesecake and can be eaten like a pudding. This was sort of a pudding cake in that it had a piece of thin cake on the bottom with a Skyr topping and cut into squares and served with blueberries and a blueberry drizzle over it all. It was very nice. We even decided to share a bottle of wine after thinking it was too expensive! Hubby brought down his standards and shared pinot grigio with me since he was having fish. Ready now? We ordered the San Angelo Banfi pinot grigio which I can buy at home at Sam's Club for $12....here it was $75!!! The reds were over $100 a bottle and the other couples all had wine, so I guess we succumbed to a little peer pressure. Maybe they just didn't know how to convert Kronur to dollars!

When we went up to our room after dinner, we realized the wind had really picked up, and it roared all night. Between the noise of the wind and Hubby's allergy nose attack at 2 AM, I was awake and read (and finished) my book all night. So today I'm working on 3 hours of sleep. But the amazing thing this morning was that overnight it had snowed on the mountains all around us. It was so beautiful. Pictures below. When we came down for breakfast this morning, we noticed a lot of leaking and puddling of water throughout the hotel. The manager told us he had never seen anything like this before. It's been quite the event!


I took a photo of a sign at the info center because it contained Puffins, and really unique bird native to this area. There were puffins at the hotel, but I never ventured outside to photograph them, so the sign birds will have to do.


We took our time this morning and left the hotel around 11 to head south to Selfoss. Along the way we saw some beautiful mountain vistas, some with snow and many waterfalls because of all the rain we've had.













At one point we came upon a mountain that had clearly been a volcano that had erupted and blown out the entire front of itself. This is an amazing picture:


Once we made the turn toward Selfoss, we could see a glacier in the distance. The photo isn't great, but you can just make out the glacier in the top left of this photo:

Here is the map of the area we're visiting now. We are east of Reykjavik which is on the southwestern tip of Iceland. You can see Selfoss on the left side of the map in the center. Tomorrow we will go to Geysir (a big geyser) top middle on the map, and Gulfoss (the Golden Falls) just to the east of Geysir, and þingvellir (pronounced thingvilleer, and the historic site of government and the place where the east and west plates come together separating North America from Europe) on the top left of the map just northwest of Laugarvatn. Tomorrow the winds are supposed to be much calmer, it will be cloudy, and about 45 degrees.

When we stopped to take the photo of the map at the info center, there was a small graveyard right next to the parking area. I can't tell you anything about it because the small sign was entirely in Icelandic, but I thought it quite unusual, and being the ancestor collector that I am, I had to snap a photo. Notice the one cross with the small cross attached to it. Mother and child perhaps? Hubby is glad we don't have any Icelandic ancestors....he wasn't eager to search through graveyards here in the cold, wind and rain!

Now we have arrived at Selfoss. Our hotel was a great upgrade actually. It appears much nicer than the hotel we were supposed to be at for the next two nights. We have a large room with good Internet access, and there is a beautiful restaurant here. The rate per night is quite good so we're happy. We decided to hunker down and not venture out this afternoon. Although the sun has come out a bit, the wind is the strongest I have ever felt. And it's only in the 30's so the wind chill is pretty low. Although we have our hiking gear and winter woolies, it just wasn't appealing. I did make Hubby come out with me to take some photos here at the hotel. We have a beautiful view of the River Öfulsá which is raging and all stirred up right now. It's brown and murky, but is usually quite blue and serene. It's angry but somehow that makes it rather interesting. The bridge over the city is a little suspension bridge. There is a quaint little church on the river right outside our window and all together, with the mountains behind it all, they make for a striking view all from the 20 feet of windows in our room. Last but not least, I'm posting a photo of hubby being blown around by the wind...it made me laugh.





We've just gotten back from a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant. We were quite hungry since we had only had a package of peanut butter crackers since breakfast. We each had the mushroom soup with crusty bread for a starter, then Hubby had the Chicken Marsala (not at all what we would have expected....didn't taste much like marsala wine, and was served with a little mushroom quieche and on a bed of peppers and onions. I had the beef tenderloin with icelandic lobster tails, served with roasted potato and the same peppers and onions and we each had a greek salad of greens, olives, feta and pine nuts served on the plate with our dinner. We each had a glass of wine with dinner, but we begged off dessert. Toward the end of our meal, thankfully, a whole bus load group of elderly Americans came to dinner with their tour guide. They were so loud and so obnoxious. It just amazes me at how inappropriate they can be...it makes it embarrassing to be an American traveling abroad. At one point, four women were sitting by the fireplace talking about underwire bras, loud enough for us to here them. Very uncouth. The funny thing is that twice now, we have been taken for Brits here. And twice, Hubby has be taken for Icelandic. We went into the gas station store to pay for gas today and two salespeople spoke to him in Icelandic...he had to speak English for them to realize he was not one of them. Also the tunnel toll taker thought he was Icelandic. We had the same thing happen in Norway. I guess we look pretty Northern European.

The wind is still whipping here...I wish I could post a sound bite. It is really unbelievable. It's supposed to die down overnight and I hope it does because it's going to make it hard to sleep. Tomorrow we're off on our visit to the Golden Circle (above) so it will be an early morning. Can't believe we'll be home on Saturday (late). The time has gone by so quickly. I'm starting to feel a bit sad that it's over and we'll soon return to our real hectic lives where we don't see that much of each other and the pressures and stresses of work/church/Scouts will take over. I love vacation! Time to start planning the next one.