Iceland 2013

Back at Oslo airport again. The flight was a comfortable one for me, as I got a seat on the empty first row of the aircraft. A lot of space, table on the next seat and working onboard Internet made the flight quick and painless. Oslo airport price level is lovely.. I just paid around 20 euros for two Pizza Hut slices and a cola. On the contrary, Reykjavik airport was surprisingly cheap. A bottle of Jura 10 year single malt whisky was 29eur, and usually it sells for around 50eur on other European airports. Had to bring one home. :)

Our apartment is now all cleaned up and everything is packed. In half an hour we should depart to the airport, return our car and board our flight back towards Finland, with four hour stopover in Norway. Last breakfast with Timo's surprise croisants is served.. And no, the Salmiakki does not belong the breakfast, it's a souvenier for our apartment owner. :)

Ok, today was an elitist traveling day. In the morning we started by driving to the flight academy and taking our already familiar white bird TF-FTO out for a flight. Today the weather was way better and we flew over Glymur waterfall and Þingvellir national park area in bright sunlight. We had three cameras onboard the aircraft, so I will upload a video of the flight soon.

After the flight we ate quick lunch at T.G.I Friday's and drove to a nearby horse farm and took a riding trip with Icelandic horses.. And after riding the evening was finished by visiting the finest spa of the country, Blue Lagoon. Floating in darkness in a +40C huge outdoor pool while small ice particles are flying in the cold air was a great experience.

Tomorrow morning we should start our trip back home. Too bad, a week has definitely been too short time for this country. I'm pretty sure I will return here quite soon, possibly next summer.

Video of the flight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AykjNzWtSCI&hd=1

The road towards Glymur waterfall took us north of Reykjavik and we drove around a fjord passing (and stopping by) multiple beautiful small waterfalls. On the way we also met some Icelandic horses again.

The waterfall was a bit further from any decent roads, so we had to leave the car behind and walk uphill on a muddy path, jumping over small streams and climbing over slippery rocks. Due to multiple stops on the way to here the sunset was already approaching, so after all we did not have time to walk up to the main waterfall. Still, we saw dozens of smaller waterfalls and fast-flowing white water so missing the biggest waterfall did not really bother us. Of course it was also raining all the time, so we are now slightly wet and muddy. I think we will have some use for our washing machine.. :)

Timelapse of the drive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edy61sCSiv8&hd=1

Breakfast by Mia eaten, now off to the waterfall Glymur. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymur

As the weather forecast for tomorrow did not look good enough for flying, we added a quick bar visit to our program for tonight. Seems like Reykjavik nightlife is quite active, there was a lot of people out in the streets even if the weather was quite rainy and cold. We just checked out three different bars, took a beer in each of those and returned back home. Let's see what we should do tomorrow.. Probably we will go out to Þingvellir for some photographs and maybe for riding Icelandic horses. Here is the mandatory picture of sleeping Timo also, which occurs in our every travel blog at least once.

After the two travel days this morning was spent sleeping, we only got out of the apartment around 3pm. We drove to check out the nearby sights, the waterfall Gullfoss and geysirs. In the evening some pizzas were made, and we also visited the nearby thermal bath for a while. During this weekend there is a Reykjavík Winter Lights Festival going on, so entrance to the bath was free and there was a pool party going on, with some music and strobe lights. Was fun in pouring cold rain. :)

Timelapse video of our drive to Gullfoss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAugOGb2L_o&hd=1

Geysir Strokkur erupts, Mikko photographing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_96hmp3V3RI&hd=1

Timelapse video of yesterday is ready, driving through half of Iceland in a couple of minutes. Still photos were taken every 2 seconds, so the normal road speed of 90km/h is 4500km/h on the video. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hmrV89cFrs&hd=1

Back in our apartment in Reykjavik now. After the sunset the weather become quite horrible for the rest of the trip. It was raining snow, water, we were driving in clouds, on iced roads and everything in between those. For hours we drove through the endless-feeling southern coast, without seeing anything but the road as it was totally dark.

I think I broke quite a few traffic laws, driving slightly overspeeding on the center line of the road. As there is absolutely no traffic (two hours easily passed without seeing a single car) everyone seems to practice the same style, driving on the center line and only moving to their own lane when there is other traffic.

Funny that the Icelandic road number one was at some point a gravel road, and all the time it was really narrow and all the bridges were so narrow that only one car could pass the bridge at a time. By the way, we had a GoPro camera on the windshield taking a picture every two seconds, so expect a short timelapse video of today's trip.