Beat the Heat

This has been a cold summer. For much of July it rained cold rain and on top of that I haven't seen a day's worth of sunlight in weeks...and I certainly haven't tanned....in a year or so! So naturally, I thought it would make sense to venture even further north, to ICELAND!

Yes, we went to the land of Vikings,

Glaciers,

Cool money,

And strange meats.

Oh, and the Blue Lagoon of course.

The Blue Lagoon is actually amazing. It's a large natural hot springs. I couldn't get over how blue the water was.

The Blue Lagoon was definitely relaxing, however, it really only takes 2-3 hours to enjoy it in it's entirety. Had we known this, we would have rearranged our excursions because we had way too much free time in the city of Reykjavik (population of 110k).

We ended up having lots of time to explore the nightlife that Reykjavik had to offer. On our bar hopping excursion, we some how ended up in a gay bar.

This was one clue that gave it away.

We also found a really great Mexican restaurant where we had nachos and fajitas. It was actually a lot closer to TexMex than anything I had experienced in London!

Look at this attitude.

Much happier looking after a nice meal of Mexican!

Icelandic culture is definitely edgy and modern.

The big excursion that we did during our trip was called the Golden Circle where it took you around some of the most popular Iceland sights.

Here is a massive waterfall (Gulfoss waterfall).

Pretty scary getting up close!

Same with the famous Geysir.

Pretty crazy!

And the divide between the Americas and EuroAsia.

Overall the trip was quite relaxing, and we had tons of free time. We had plenty of time to practice our photography skills (fried ice cream above).

We also have proof that the sun does set in Iceland in the summer. Reykjavik does not get the extreme 24 hours of daylight and darkness in summer and winter that some of the more northern parts of Iceland get. We witnessed beautiful sunsets at around 11pm. However, it never gets completely dark during the night. Even at 3 or 4am the sky was still a dark blue colour, and the sun did rise quite early.

We ended the trip enjoying a nice massive breakfast at a nearby cafe. Where this odd looking creature overlooked us!

I would definitely recommend Iceland for once in your lifetime. Just be sure to plan your excursions right and remember that you don't need too much time in Reykjavik! One of my biggest regrets of the trip is not seeing the glacier lagoon, but unfortunately that was a 14 hour excursion. It looks amazing though! To save time you can easily do the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport and there are plenty of packages that let you do it.

Coming up, I'll update you on my lovely English weekend complete with a proper English wedding!