Iceland Day 1

And so begin the Iceland updates!

I left work on Wednesday night a little bit early to head home and finish packing. On my way home I stopped in a little market to get a soda (I was excited and wanted a treat). I ended up leaving my kindle on the counter for about 10 minutes. When I went back someone had stolen it. Great way to start a vacation right?

TKO’s brother drove us to Logan airport and we got some dinner. I LOVE eating dinner in airports. I have no idea why. It’s not that the food is especially good, I think I just like the whole atmosphere and I love the feeling of already being past security and not feeling stressed out. What can I say I’m a weirdo. I got a pub burger and a glass of wine to try to make myself sleepy. The flight was only 5 hours but had a 5 hour time difference. So we’d be leaving at 8:30 and getting there at 6:30 AM (1:30 AM our time). Of course I didn’t sleep at all on the plane and ended up watching Harry Potter instead.

Around 6:30 or so we arrived in Iceland!!

We went into the duty free shop to buy some alcohol and candy, then hopped on a shuttle to our hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Nordica, which was a really nice hotel! I haven’t stayed in many European hotels but it was surprisingly roomy. I forgot to take pictures of our room but here’s the gorgeous view out of our window:

We crashed for a couple of hours as soon as we got to the hotel (which would have been about 4 AM our time) and woke up at noon to get ready and go into town. Downtown Reykjavik was only a 15-20 minute walk so braved the rain and headed out.

We were pretty hungry so we found a little cafe to eat in. I ordered this delicious salami sandwich and TKO ordered an egg and salmon sandwich.

A little Icelandic chocolate for dessert!

After lunch we spent the day exploring. We stumbled upon a pretty incredible graffiti park,

and went into a little bar called Olstofa for our first Icelandic beers.

This bar was so cute and had been recommended by my sister when she went to Iceland a few years ago. Unfortunately we got there at 4 pm and it was totally empty. I would have liked to go back but there just wasn't enough time.

Next we walked down to the pier to check out the gorgeous mountains and the Viking boat sculpture that TKO had heard about.

The view was beautiful but it was pretty cold here! The weather overall was pretty tolerable. We experienced EVERYTHING: sunshine, rain, snow, hail and sleet. Normally that type of weather would piss me off but I think since we were prepared it just wasn't that big of a deal.

We spotted the famous Hallgrimskirkja church from a distance and headed up the hills to get a closer look, stopping quickly at an outdoor WC. Normally I wouldn't mention a bathroom break but this thing was so cool! It would sterilize itself after each use for like 3 minutes. TKO and I have been discussing how to get these things in Boston and trying to figure out a way to avoid it from becoming a homeless person’s bedroom. Iceland had no homeless people. At least not that I could see!

The church was beautiful. It was supposedly designed to mimic the lava flows of Iceland’s landscape. I would have liked to go inside but the church was closed. Still, it was really striking from the outside.

And finally it was the best part of the night – dinner! We had gotten many recommendations to hit up Islenski Barrin and decided to make it our first real meal.

We were both surprised when we walked in and the place was super casual. I don’t know why I was expecting otherwise. Iceland is famous for it’s unique dishes (especially different proteins) so we both decided to put our fate in the chef’s hands and order from the “Icelandic surprise” menu. TKO went with the 3 course meal – it would be an appetizer, entree and dessert chosen by the chef. I went with the tasting menu – 3 small appetizer portions and 3 small entree portions.

We started with some fish stew which was pretty interesting, but delicious! It really just tasted like a bunch of different fish mushed together, and definitely wasn’t soupy. Strange, but good!

TKO ended up with the meat soup for his app and the foal (pony) for his entree.

The meat soup was soooo good. I wasn’t crazy about the foal.

I loved my meal! I’m a fan of having little separated tastes of everything so this was right up my alley.

Clockwise starting from the top left: salmon tar tar, pickled herring, cured minke whale, seared minke whale over wasabi potatoes, salted cod over barley, and leg of lamb over mashed potatoes.

The leg of lamb easily stole the show for me. I had no idea I liked lamb so much!! TKO was crazy about the salted cod and neither of us were huge fans of the herring or cured minke whale. The whale steak was pretty good though – kind of reminded me of a surf an turf meal because it felt like eating beef and fish together.

For dessert TKO was kind enough to share his apple cake with cinnamon ice cream and skyr (Icelandic yogurt).

This dessert was awesome. This is not what I’d usually look to order but it was sooooo good!

After a fantastic dinner we headed back to the hotel. We were totally wiped out and I crashed as soon as I hit the pillow. We had a big next day ahead of us!