Iceland Day 3

I feel like this is gonna be a long post. When I was going over everything we did on day 3 in Iceland I really don't know how we did it all!

We were up early around 7:30, got ready, and headed down to eat some hotel breakfast buffet. This time we were one of the first people down there. Mwahaha, take that Hilton Nordica!

Around 8:30 or so we were picked up for our Golden Circle tour by Go Travel Iceland.


We drove for a couple of minutes and then stopped in this weird little town. I'm not sure why we stopped here. TKO and I figured the tour company must have had a deal with the wool shop to bring in tourists. The "town" was about 1 block and was deserted. There was a wood shop, a little pub, and this giant ear hanging on the wall.

After about 20 minutes we headed back into the van and stopped at some gorgeous lookout points.


We took a walk through the historic site, Þingvellir, where we could see the mid-atlantic ridge (Eurasian plate on one side and North American plate on the other). Þingvellir is also where Parliament was established. You can still see the remains which was pretty cool.


Our next stop was Iceland's most famous waterfall: Gullfoss. It was really beautiful, and once again pictures don't do it justice. At one point we were looking at the waterfall from the highest point and everything around us was totally white. It felt like TKO and I were completely isolated -- so crazy!

Who is that loser posing like she's on the red carpet??

After a little while we walked over to a nearby restaurant/cafeteria to warm up and eat some lunch. I ordered some all-you-can eat lamb stew and had two huge bowl fulls. It was so good! And now I want lamb for dinner...


When lunch was over we headed back into the van to make our way to the Haukadalur Valley to see "The Great Geysir." We didn't see Geysir erupt and I wasn't too upset about it. The tour guide told us if the Geysir erupts while we're nearby we have about 30 seconds to run as fast as we can before boiling water falls onto us. No thanks!


A few interesting facts about Geysir:
- the English word Geyser derives from Geysir, so all of the geysers in the world are actually named after Iceland's Geysir.
- Geysir's eruption height is actually taller than that of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. For some reason I was really surprised by this!

We spent some time walking through the valley. I even got to dip my hand into this non-active pool! It was warm and felt kinda slimy. Can you sense the "eek" on my face?


There was one geyser that erupted every few minutes. Even though it became somewhat expected I was startled every time. It was no Geysir but the eruption was still pretty tall! Note the people standing next to it:

After an hour or so we headed into a gift shop for a few minutes then boarded the van once again. We made a quick stop to play with some horses on the side of the road. Icelandic horses are short, stocky and have long hair. They are known for being super docile and these horses definitely lived up to the description. I was obsessed with this white one!! Look at its white eyelashes...so pretty!


I tear up a little bit whenever I see the picture below. We had a real bond.


Next stop was a "secret" waterfall known as Faxi. Our guide said it was pretty unknown because it's off the beaten path. I am choosing to believe him on that one and think we saw something pretty special :)


Next, another natural phenomenon: a gigantic implosion crater called Kerið. This thing was SO big but you can't tell in the picture. In the warmer months when the water is not frozen they actually host concerts here and the singers play on a barge in the middle of the lake. So cool!

That was the last stop on our tour and we soon headed back to the hotel. It was a long day but we definitely wanted to make the most of our last night in Iceland so we quickly got ready and headed into the city. We stopped first at Cafe Paris, a cute little casual bar. We ordered some beer and a cheese, prosciutto and olive plate. We were really hungry at the time but didn't know we were in for a big, awesome meal.


I had read about the Fish Market on TripAdvisor before we left and really wanted to hit it up. We decided to go for dinner and got there around 9:30. The place was packed! The host apologized to us and said the only place he could sit us was at the sushi bar overlooking the kitchen. Ummm, yes please! TKO and I are both huge foodies so this was awesome. The view looked into the entire kitchen, not just the sushi area, so we got to see all the behind the scenes action. I felt so weird taking pictures of them cooking but I couldn't help myself.


While looking over the menu we were brought out an amuse bouche of salmon (I think) tar tar on a crispy cracker. Yum.


They also brought out a loaf of bread with some chipotle-mayo-tasting sauce on the side.


We decided to get two appetizers to split: the crab legs,


and the langoustine salad.


I could have easily taken on the crab legs by myself because I'm a crab leg monster. These were so good and were cooked and presented in such an interesting way. I wasn't crazy for the langoustine -- it might have been my least favorite part of the meal.

For our entrees TKO ordered the salted cod, which he loved.


I ordered the lamb and owned that plate. The lamb was cooked two ways, which is hard to see in the picture. I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved it!!


For dessert we went with this deconstructed cheesecake on the recommendation of the chef. It was tasty but definitely not what I was expecting.

After dinner we toyed with the idea of going out but decided to head back to the hotel instead. Iceland supposedly has a pretty crazy nightlife but neither of us was feeling the house music.

Will be back for the last Iceland update!

Shin splints

I used to get shin splits during the start of every season of high school track. Shin splints are not fun, and there's not much you can do for them except lots of icing and perhaps buying new shoes.

It may be time for me to get new shoes. Yesterday I decided to run home from work. It was absolutely gorgeous out and I wanted to take advantage of the new light DST has given us. It was about 3.5 miles from work to my apartment but I struggled through it. There were a lot of traffic lights so I didn't do too much walking, but I was jogging pretty slowly. Oh well. I think this work-home route could be a really good thing. My goal can be to first run the whole thing without stopping, then to try to cut down time so I'm back to my normal speed.

Anyway, my shins have been kililng me lately. They've been pretty bad during zumba classes but the run yesterday just did them in. So now I'm sitting at work and icing them! Seriously.


This is what happens when I'm alone in my office.

Last night I finally made Pulled BBQ Crockpot Chicken! I've been dying to make this because it's just soo easy. I don't eat bbq flavored things too often but for some reason this just sounded good.

Pulled BBQ Crockpot Chicken:
- 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1.5/2 cups of your favorite bbq sauce (I used bone suckin' sauce)
- 1 large white onion

Throw everything into the crockpot and cook on medium for 5 hours. Once the chicken is cooked it should pull apart super easily!



Today I had the chicken on a bagel thin. Like I said, I don't ever eat bbq things so I didn't know if I should eat this warm or cold or whatever. I went with room temperature which was a good choice. It was weird eating a sandwich with nothing but chicken on it. What do people normally mix bbq chicken with? It was so sweet I couldn't imagine putting veggies or cheese on there. I'll need to do some research because I have a TON leftover.

I have zumba tonight and class was suprisingly good last week so I'm hoping for the same tonight!

Iceland Day 2

So on our second day in Iceland we woke up around 9 or so to get ready for a long day. We were getting picked up from our hotel to go on a 12 hour tour that would include some fun stuff. We got ready and headed down to breakfast , totally forgetting that breakfast ends at 10 each morning. Woops! Forgetting about the breakfast time restrictions seemed to be a recurring theme for us.

We decided to just eat as much as we could before they took the food away and I ended up with a pretty decent breakfast. No pictures, but I had some fruit, cold cuts, and a few different pastries (I love hotel croissants).

Around 11 we were picked up by Icelandic Mountain Guides in a little van. There were about 8 others in our group. I don’t know why I was so tired but I fell asleep anytime we were in the van (this happened during the whole trip – anytime we were in a moving vehicle I was asleep). We drove for a little while and then stopped at a gorgeous lookout point.

It was cold here!

We hopped back in the van and drove until it was time to stop for lunch. We ended up at a little rest stop and both TKO and I opted for some cheeseburgers, fries and coke light…which sucks. After lunch we got fitted for our crampons and I found some decent hiking boots since I came to Iceland unprepared. Then it was back into the van for just a bit more driving until the glacier.

After some really bumpy driving we finally arrived at the glacier! The van parked and we got all ready. I was scared of being too cold/wet so we wore lots of layers. When we started it was sunny and I was actually a little bit warm. We grabbed our ice picks, posed for a few pictures, then walked for about 20 minutes until we got to the foot of the glacier.

I felt like I was on a different planet! Seriously, they should film movies here. The whole thing was just really breathtaking..pictures don’t do it justice at all, but here are some anyway.

The hike itself lasted about 1.5-2 hours and wasn’t strenuous. Our guide made sure we stayed in a single file line so we didn’t fall in any surprise crevasses! We stopped a couple of times to pose in a little cave and to drink from a little pool that had formed in a valley. I didn’t actually drink because I was too cold to take my glove off. Someone’s a pansy.

While we were on the glacier it went from being sunny, to raining, to snowing and when we finished it was hailing. Iceland is so weird. So we were basically soaking wet when we finally returned to the van. Luckily there was extra room so we were able to drape our coats over every available space.

Next on the list for the tour was a lobster soup dinner! On the way to the restaurant we made a couple of stops at waterfalls – the first being Skogafoss.

One thing I really liked about Iceland is that I felt like they weren’t totally exploiting the natural phenomenons. Of course there were occasional guest shops, but this waterfall (and the other we stopped at) were both just in the middle of nowhere. This has a public restroom near it but that was it. There was no cost to see the waterfall, but I’m curious at how they pay to maintain the restrooms/walkways. It was a nice surprise

The next waterfall was so cool because we could actually walk up behind it—it was magical. Here we are in front of it and a shot from behind it.

And finally, it was time for dinner and Iceland’s famous lobster stew. We stopped at an adorable little restaurant outside the city. After being cold and wet for about 8 hours it was sooo nice to get inside someplace so cozy and warm. We sat at long wooden tables and they brought out baskets of bread and pots of stew. TKO and I pretty much dominated an entire pot and I easily took almost half of the bread on our side. We were hungry!

After dinner we went on a search for the Northern Lights. Although this is supposed to be a terrific year for solar activity, we just weren’t in luck. This was definitely one thing I was looking forward to the most, but you can predict a natural phenomenon so I wasn’t too upset. We were really hopeful because the night turned out to be semi-clear and there had been some solar activity. We ended up on a beach to look for them. It was SO dark you couldn’t see anything around you! I was afraid TKO was going to lead me into the ocean or some Icelandic sea creature was going to eat me. Even though we didn’t see the lights we saw some seriously gorgeous stars. So at least we got that. And now we have an excuse to go back!

We hopped back in the bus and drove back to the hotel for about an hour and a half. I’m sure I was asleep the whole time. Once inside we set an alarm for the morning and fell asleep to the sounds of the classic “Scary Movie 2”, which was the only thing on TV in English!

Stay tuned for day 3.

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!

March

Aaaand it's March.

Aghh! I'm terrible. I've been so busy since getting back from Iceland that the thought of updating makes me squirm! Did I even say I was going to Iceland on this thing? Well if not, I left on Wednesday the 22^nd and came back that Sunday. Work’s been insane and last Saturday was TKO’s birthday so I was barely on my computer. I’m SO looking forward to this weekend. I need a Saturday of staying in bed and watching movies!

So what have I been up to the last few weeks? Hmmm, I’m doing fairly well with my Diet Coke challenge, but not as well as I’d like. As for reading 26 books in 2012 I am still pretty much on target despite a few obstacles, the biggest being my kindle got stolen. I was pretty inconsolable about this for a while but some helpful people made me realize that everything is replaceable and sometimes shit happens. So that’s that.

Last Thursday Kathleen and I went to a free comedy show that was being taped for Comedy Central. It was pretty good, but the comedians were super racist and clearly upset people, making for some awkward moments. Probably not something I would have paid for but I had a couple of laughs, so it’s a win!

TKO’s b-day this weekend was lots of fun and full of food. On Friday we went to Bukowski’s and had some good beer and food. I got a gourmet grilled cheese which was pretty tasty. On Saturday we went to breakfast and I ate pancakes for the first time in like 10 years. I want to like pancakes because there are so many fun homemade varieties but typically I’m not into sweet desserts. Maybe my palette is a changin’. Saturday night we met up with his family at Salts, a really cute/slightly fancy restaurant in Kendall. This was an amaaazing dinner. I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want his family to think he was dating a freak. We started with burning hot bread, an amuse-bouche soup, and then I got another leek/almond/lobster soup. For my entree I ordered the sweet potato ravioli with mushrooms, walnuts and lots of other stuff. Here's the birthday boy with his dessert:

On Sunday we had brunch once again at Eastern Standard, which is becoming one of my favorite spots in Boston. I ordered a couple of drinks and a burger which hit the spot. Obviously it was a very gluttonous weekend, but TKO is a foodie like me so I think he was very happy!

What else? I am afraid of these upcoming races. The 5k is in a month and I can just comfortably run 2 miles (at a much slower pace than I’m used to). I don’t know why this has been so hard for me. I haven’t worked out on the weekends at all. I attempted to make a 7-week workout schedule last week and have already missed 5 days of it. I guess this is why people start working out in the morning. It’s really tough to say no to doing things/seeing people after work. Maybe I’ll need to give it another try…

I’ve been really sucking at time management lately. I feel like I’m not able to balance all of the things I want to do (and have to do) and so have been failing on all fronts. This is a pretty depressing thought and I really need to get my act together.

This post was kind of a downer huh? Stolen kindles, racist comedians, missed workouts. Gah. Anyway I plan on doing lots of Iceland recaps and am even going to write them in advance while it’s still fresh in my mind. Hopefully I’ll be back with some better updates. Byeee.