Lobster Soup & Silica

Whew! What a whirl wind of things we've done in Iceland.  We had the famous lobster soup, experienced our first hostel, went grocery shopping, and went hiking....and got lost....a lot.....

Our host, Oddur, told us to go to this hole in the wall place (aren't those the best kind?) , called Sgjdiosfjdiofsdnf - at least that's what it looks like in Icelandic.  So we ordered some lobster soup, bread, Icelandic butter, potatoes and shrimp kabobs.  They must of had a spectacular grill because that's the best shrimp and potatoes we've ever had.  The lobster soup is to die for. It was fully worth the 1250 krones, or $11ish, they didn't skimp on the lobster and there was so much cream in it our chance of a CABG increased by at least 5%.   After walking around downtown more, we got a three day bus pass and just rode around the city for a few hours.  The architecture here is very modern, and simple-but its a very young country so that makes sense.

Saturday was our day to hike Mt. Esja, it started off simply enough. We had planned to take the city bus out to the hiking center, hike, then take the bus back. The key to this whole plan was the bus system... Unfortunately for us it is mostly in Icelandic and thus looked like gibberish to us. We made it onto the first bus without a problem but then took the wrong bus back into the city. We made it out a second time only to find out that we had to wait an hour for the next connection. So we stopped in your friendly neighborhood Subway! We made it onto the connection and then proceeded to miss our stop by about 3 miles (an hour walk). So then as you can imagine we walked for an hour to the hiking center and we finally started our hike up the mountain. 

Then begins the hike - we took a peek at the maps, but they were all in Icelandic soooooo we just walked away.  We had heard from our host that it splits into two paths, one longer but easier and the other shorter but steeper.  Well, we had to make up for time and chose the short path!  It waas beautiful, the landscape changed so much from pine trees to open fields with goats and lava rock boulders.  The view was imppecable.  As we kept walking, the trail we were on was taking us down and down towards the parking lot.  Since we wanted to go up, we saw a road in the disance that led up and decided to hike up that.  Shane kept wanting to go "off the beaten path" and "make up our own trail" while Stephanie kept yellling "We are NOT making our own path, in Iceland, on a mountain!) Well, we kept following this road until we realized we were REALLY off this path, because we saw it in the distance.  So we hike accross this field, to the path we were supposed to be on, and decide to hike down.  We got to the bus station at the bottom, and realized we had an hour and a half to wait!!  Then it starts raining....then the bus comes by....then the bus passes us....then the bus stops on the highway and backs up to pick up these sopping wet Americans jumping up and down waving their arms.  We get on the bus, connect to another bus, pick up our stuff at our hosts house, get back on another bus, connect to another bus, walk thirty minutes to our hostel, check in and pass out.

Today we went to the Blue Lagoon. We arrived at the Bluee Lagoon without any stress or bus problems (amazing right?). The lagoon was absolutly amazing, the water was the perfect temperature and you could go into different areas that are either warmer or colder. Next to the lagoon you could use the two steam baths or the sauna We spent a good 4 hours in the lagoon just laying around and putting different scrubs on our faces, it was haven. All in all Iceland was a great start to our trip, our only regrett is not renting a car andd touring the golden circle. If you ever come to Iceland you must take a tour either of the golden circle or a glacier walk.