We’re Baaaaaack!

We arrived in the Land of Fire and Ice this morning and will be spending three glorious weeks exploring the northwestern parts of the island. We were last in Iceland in 2022, and never stopped talking about going back and visiting these parts of the country.

I am relieved to report that all of our luggage arrived this time, and we didn’t need to try to survive without all of our creature comforts, like warm coats and hair conditioner. But more importantly I did not have to make an emergency run to buy grocery store granny panties.

It wouldn’t be a trip to Iceland if we didn’t see our favorite Icelander, Hawk. And this time we will be piling into the Hawk-mobile along with his lovely wife Hadda, and their amazing dog, Garpur (translation: Hero dog). I’ve been working hard at the gym (#blockfitness) so that I can get in and out of the van with some semblance of coordination and intention. With tires over 36” and another 6” in lifts, every squat, lunge, and RDL that I have been doing for the last 3 years will be desperately needed. If I can’t enter and exit this vehicle gracefully, then I’m going to resort to just laying on the floor and rolling out the door and hoping I land on a soft party of my body.

Hawk has promised to debut his new photo pose, “The Aristocrat”, so that should be exciting. I look forward to seeing Peter perfect that move, and more importantly how he determines which situations warrant such trend-setting treatment.

But for the next couple of days, we are on our own, and right now we are just trying to make it through the day after sleeping .5 hours on the red-eye. Why can’t there be a daytime flight to Europe? I really, really want to know. I would love to arrive without feeling like I have 30-years of attic-worthy cobwebs in my brain and legs that that are screaming “WTH! No way lady, will we take one more step after sitting for 18 hours, especially loaded down with 60+ pounds of crap”.

True to tradition, Peter found us an exceptional place, Fish Company, for our first meal. Finding the restaurant was the first time we lost one another on our 24-hour odyssey to get here. We made it 1/2 way around the world, through 2 busy airports, only to lose one another on a quiet street corner in Reykjavik. Unbelievable.

The restaurant had two set menus: one fish and one meat. As we debated the merits of ordering the “Gourmet Feast”, or as I mistakenly referenced it to the server the, The Meat Festival, (I’m jet lagged people, come on!), at a fish restaurant, we eventually exhausted ourselves and Peter ordered the Fish Festival. Thank god the dessert course was just made to resemble fish, and didn’t actually have fish in it.

After Peter finished his meal, he commented, “Well, that was a lot of fish”. I reminded him that he did order the Fish Festival…in a restaurant called the Fish Company. So I guess they met expectations.

The server again looked tortured when I asked him what the dessert looked like for the Gourmet Feast. I suggested crème caramel shaped as a lamb chop? He just turned and walked away.

Now let’s talk practicalities. When you go back to a place you’ve been before, all kinds of random memories resurface. I remember the last time I was here, Iceland felt like a place of extremes – fire and ice, pristine bathrooms with flush toilets in the middle of nowhere or nothing at all, etc. While I’m on the subject of bathrooms, I was pleasantly reminded how cozy the buildings and rooms are. Everything is heated by geothermal energy so it’s a constant warm soft heat that isn’t blasting you in the face through an overhead vent. But then you sit down on the toilet, and it’s like sitting on an ice cube tray that has been in a sub-zero freezer for a decade.

You may be wondering, “where are Cat and Mark?”. They are heading to Greenland for an adventure that looked too …..well….adventurous for me. I mean camping may never be in my future, and wilderness camping on ice is definitely out. They are hardy people. We will be meeting up with them next week to continue the Icelandic adventure.

For now, we are just trying to keep our eyes open for a few more hours.