Thursday, October 11th, 2007
Katie was too excited about being in Iceland and having an Internet connection (looser!), so she was up and working on planning their day in Iceland. She downloaded Skype and made a few phone calls to get their day sorted. She got Avis to pick her up, while Dermot enjoyed our continental breakfast- and she drove back to the hotel in their blue Toyota Yaris.
Since Dermot hauled his clubs, he went to play Keilir Golf Club south of the city on the water. Katie did some touring learn more about Iceland’s history and how Iceland uses geothermal energy for space heating. Katie’s first stop was the Perlan to get the awesome views of the city and to visit the Saga Museum. Katie learned that many of the first settlers to Iceland were from Ireland, which explains why many Icelandic people have red hair. The museum was very interesting, as well as scary since all of the exhibits were real life looking wax statutes. Not to mention, one of them …..was breathing!! Considering Katie was really the only person touring, and the lightening was low… she almost had an accident in her pants. Then Katie thought she was on candid camera. Then she realized it was hooked up to making a breathing movement every few seconds… it was scary.
After the museum and other dilly dallying, Katie picked up Dermot and they were off to the Blue Lagoon.
Iceland has many paved roads, that with little warning turn into gravel roads. Needless to say we had quite an adventure driving through the black rocks and half paved roads to arrive at what we felt was the worlds biggest hot tub. Our $30 entry/per person (man, this country is a RIP!) got us one towel, a little packet of lotion and access to the changing room/showers. This was not for the faint of heart, as many believed their birthday suits were their swim suits…. We enjoyed the thermal hot springs immensely, including the ‘free’ mud masks. After several hours of soaking, we showered and made our way back to our hotel. We attempted to see more of the island, but due to our lack of GPS and seriously sad map, we decided to head to Reykjavik for our ‘last supper’ at “three overcoats.”
We were adventurous and tried the puffin (similar to a penguin), which tasted like sushi and Icelandic lobster. Both could never live up to their insane price tags, but were glad to have tried it and it was definitely worth the experience.
Day 60: Left Iceland in a bit of a ‘tissy’ (as Sully would say)