The Log Dog Blog: December 2018

This was our third trip to Iceland…in 2008, we spent nine days there and drove all around the island, and in 2015, we spent four nights in Reykjavik, with the highlight being visiting the Blue Lagoon. We really love Iceland and dream about living there for a few months when we retire.

When C got an email about cheap flights to Reykjavik, we decided to go because we really have the freedom to just go places this year with me not being restricted to a teacher schedule. Every year of my career I lamented not bring able to take advantage of deals because we always needed to fly on the weekends and the sales are typically for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I only ever got three personal days, so we had to be very choosy about using them and being able to just go whenever we want this year has been amazing! I know one thing for sure: I am not going to enjoy returning to that restrictive schedule!

We flew out of Dulles and did not have pre-check because IcelandAir does not participate in it, so we had to go through regular security and it was not the best experience. Typically when I go through the 360° scanner, my thick messy bun sets off the alarm and they have to check my hair. A little ridiculous, but I get it. However, I always ask them to put new gloves on because I don't want my hair touched with gloves that have already touched who-knows-what. This time, I stepped out of the machine and they didn't say anything to me and the female agent just started touching me. Ummmmmmmmm, NO. I recoiled and asked her to put on new gloves and her response was to sigh loudly and say, "Next time, tell me ahead of time!" What?!? What next time? What ahead of time? You didn't even tell me I set off the machine or that you were going to touch me. Such an aggravating experience.

The flight there was great; we did our usual window and aisle seats and hoped no one was assigned the middle seat, so when the door closed and the aisle was empty and no one was between us, I was super happy! Yay! It was my second red-eye flight in three nights, so I was very grateful to be able to sleep comfortably…I had just come back from Las Vegas, which is three hours behind east coast time, and I was heading to Iceland, which is five hours ahead of east coast time and I was very tired because I had just gotten off my previous flight 38 hours earlier. Jet lag is no joke.

Other than just enjoying the city, we had one goal: the northern lights. We hadn't seen them on either of our two previous trips and we were very hopeful. C had found an app that tracks solar activity and predicts the likelihood that the northern lights will appear. We watched that app like hawks in the days leading up to the trip and it looked like we might luck out, which left us even more excited about this trip than we already were!

Obviously the weather at the end of November/beginning of December is cold. And windy. And there are limited daylight hours. In other words, exactly what I like! There's only about five hours of daylight and seeing as I am convinced that I was a nocturnal creature of some sort in a past life, I honestly love it. Winter is hands down my favorite season. In an ideal world, I'd live somewhere very far north October through March and somewhere very far south April through September. Sunshine is beautiful and I love to visit sunny places, but as far as living goes, I hate the heat. Where we currently live, I pretty much spend at least five months of the year going from one air conditioned interior space to the next. I hate the heat. HATE it. I don't necessary love frigid temperatures (about 40°F is my sweet spot), but given a choice of 90°F or 0°F, I'll take 0°F every time. So the weather we experienced on this trip was absolutely wonderful in my opinion. I have been asked countless times why we don't move to Florida since we love Walt Disney World so much and my answer is always the heat. No thanks.

One of the things we also like about Reykjavik is that we feel incredibly safe. There are places not far from our house where I don't feel safe walking around at night and we've certainly traveled to some places where we are on high alert when we are out and about. This is not the case in Iceland. I've never once felt like I had to hold my purse extra close or be sure to hold on to C for protection. I've had to do that leaving hockey games when I've worn the visiting team's jersey because I've been afraid! I'm not naïve; I understand crime can happen to any one at any time in any place. But in Iceland, I feel about as safe and secure as possible.

Sometimes when I write a post about a trip, I break down the days, but really, we just spent our time on this trip wandering around and enjoying the city. We did not visit the Blue Lagoon again, even though we loved it last time; it is pretty pricey and since we had such a fabulous time there a few years ago, we did not really feel the need to go back (plus, we're kind of frugal about stuff like that – happy to pay to do it if it's something we are really eager to do, but not willing to frivolously spend money otherwise). We stayed at a Hilton hotel right in the downtown area, which was great because we could easily walk everywhere! Last time, we stayed at an awesome hotel, but it was further away from downtown and we had to take a taxi to get to the places we wanted to see.

One highlight of the trip was a big band Christmas concert we attended at Harpa Concert Hall. I say it was a highlight because it did not quite turn out to be what we thought. It was narrated by a guy who had hair that stood straight up about six inches all over his head and he wore a white lab coat. Every single word was in Icelandic, so we didn't understand anything, including the science demonstration that took place using a ping pong ball and a hair dryer in the middle of the show. Of the many songs that were performed, we only recognized a few (Jingle Bells, Blue Christmas, Little Drummer Boy); the rest must have been traditional Icelandic songs. It was a comical and surreal experience! However, the musicians were very talented and music certainly does transcend language barriers! Still, we kept looking at each like, "What is happening right now?" It is not a concert we will soon forget.

However, the greatest part of the trip was that WE SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS! The third time really is a charm! The app C was using predicted that our best chances were on Sunday, so we bundled up and walked down to the water. It was ridiculously cold and windy, and we stayed out as long as we could, but there was surprisingly a lot of light pollution from the streetlights along the road beside the water and we didn't see anything. Disappointed, we went back to the hotel to warm up, and C kept checking the app, which was predicting about a 30% chance of the lights occurring. We recalled that the hotel had a rooftop terrace, so after a couple of hours, we decided to go up there and take a look just in case. Well, there they were! We were so excited and I was literally jumping up and down – partially due to excitement and partially to keep warm! We had a much better view from up there and the lack of bright lights interfering with our vision certainly helped! No one else was up on the roof with us, so it felt super special and is an amazing memory from this trip! If you're hoping for photos, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed because I didn't take any. It was absolutely one of those times when I wanted to be present in the moment because it was so magical. I hope we have the opportunity to live somewhere that they regularly occur someday!

As with any of our trips, there is always more we wish we could see and do and the time to pack for home comes far too soon. We once again lucked out on our flight home and had an empty middle seat, and because we have Global Entry and did not check any bags, we were through the airport and in our car in no time! I'm pretty sure the middle seat being empty both there and back has less to do with our luck and more to do with the fact that we flew on a Thursday and a Tuesday!

I realized that I took 20 flights between August 14 and December 4. 20 FLIGHTS in less than four months! Since I don't travel for work and am not a professional traveler (I wish!), I think that's pretty impressive!

We are always looking ahead to our future adventures and we've got some good ones coming up, but this was a really fun and relaxing trip and we will definitely return to Iceland again!

Getting There / Arrival