Our hunt for aurora borealis was not too successful, we just saw some really weak ones which were mostly visible to cameras but not really to human eyes. Anyway, night photography outside the city was still fun and the sky herre was unbelievable. I can't remember seeing so many stars for years if ever.
Now some much needed sleep....
Our first hours in Reykjavik have been spent by settling ourself in here and everything has went surprisingly well so far. Actually way too well, everything has happened exactly on the agreed minute and without slightest problems.
We took our rental 4x4 at the airport, drove to the apartment and met the owner there as soon as we arrived. The apartment is a really cool penthouse in the downtown Reykjavik, with more than enough space and equipment for us. We moved our stuff in, grabbed some food from a grocery store and drove to a shopping mall to get some necessities such as swimming suit for Mia for the hot springs and a couple of beers for us. Just like Sweden they only have 2.2% beers in normal grocery stores and we wanted to taste some local brands in the evening. :)
Now we are back in the apartment, I cooked some pasta and everybody is just spending time editing photos and relaxing after the travel day and the sleepless night. Later in the evening our plan is to drive north of Reykjavik to the uninhabited areas for photographing aurora borealis which should show up in the night.
Tomorrow is the day I'm really looking forward to, as in the morning we will go to the local flight school and borrow their aircraft for some flying. I will have to pass a one hour flight test with their instructor first and after that we are free to use their aircraft.
Seems like Reykjavik City airport is a really busy general aviation airport. On a beautiful day like today there has been constant general aviation traffic above the city, most of the time you can see one or two Cessnas on the sky. :)
Funny how this trip totally differs from the normal traveling style of me and Timo. Luxurious apartment, year 2012 car and so on.. Not to mention the aircraft. :P Also, first seeing the snowy and iced coastline of Iceland I was not sure if our vacation spot selection was correct, but.. After just a couple of hours in the country I can say we can definitely exchange our usual palm trees to this for a while and this week will not be enough time. :)
This winter we do something different instead of flying to the warm countries: Four photographers go to Iceland and I will once again try to write some small blog entries every day, together with photographs of the beautiful country.
Me, Timo, Mikko and Mia met at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in the early morning today, and for everybody last night was basically sleepless. Despite the coma everybody is looking forward to the trip, expecting to have a great week there. Our 4x4 car should be waiting for us at the airport, and tomorrow we should also get an aircraft to use from a local flight school. Now onboard a Norwegian 737, ready for takeoff.
