Day 1 - Reykjavik and around

We landed safely in Iceland at 5:15 am - pretty uneventful flight.  The stewardesses were just as pretty as the plane - dressed in pink -perfect buns, perfect makeup.  I don't know if they were nice as I
did sleep most of the way - I was asleep before we had left the tarmac in Montreal!  Wasn't a great sleep, but sleep nonetheless.

Woke up to see that it wasn't dark outside - kind of odd to look at your clock, see that it's 11:00pm and it's still light.  Not like broad daylight, but the sky is blue, the horizon a beautiful red, pink and orange.  Wake up again at midnight and it looks like it's noon! Bright sunshine!  So weird!

We did a few things today - left the airport and made our way to get our car - a 2 minute shuttle ride - waited for the shuttle for about 15 minutes - it would've been faster to walk!  Our car is a white Chevrolet Captiva.  Some sort of SUV.

We made our way to the hotel, thinking we could get our room, have a nap before starting our adventure... no luck so we drove to the Bridge Between Continents.  It's a small footbridge that spans between the two tectonic plates.  The plates slowly separate but I'm pretty sure we don't have to start worrying just yet.  There wasn't much to do here - except walk the 100 meters to the bridge, cross the bridge and come back.  You could also walk underneath and pretend you were holding it in the air.  It was freezing and raining so this was a 10 minute outing.  On to the next thing!

We drove to Reykjavik and visited this Grotta - a lighthouse where there were tons of Arctic terns - Sophie was in paradise! The birds were pretty ticked off and were "attacking" us - a little scary if you ask me!  Their chicks are old enough to fly away - they are just lazy... We also saw some oyster catchers, common red shanks and some other shore birds as well.  Pretty place.  You have to watch the tide though- you could be stuck at the lighthouse until the tide comes down again... that would not be fun!

After walking around this nature reserve, we made our way to a beautiful church called Hallgrimskirkja - a Lutheran church.  It is beautiful!  Very plain, but gorgeous!

We had booked a tour to visit an island and see puffins.  Well, let's just say that if you've never seen a puffin, I guess you could be satisfied.  If you saw puffins in Newfoundland, this was a total bust.  There were not that many puffins, and you saw them from far away.  I guess we can say we went for a boat ride!  We did see puffins, gulls, one cormorant, and fulmars.  I was a little disappointed but whatever.

For lunch we ate lamb soup and bread in a quaint little place called Cafe Babalu.  Lunch was quite yummy but expensive at 16.00$ a bowl!!!  Ouch!

So far Iceland is a pretty desolate place.  Black lava rock everywhere.  Moss is growing in some places, no trees.

The highlight of the day was the Blue Lagoon - Geothermal bath... Ahhh that felt wonderful after a very long day!  Will add photos tomorrow. Time for bed - early rise tomorrow...