28.07.2015 / Baby ducks have hot feet and Irish moss is way better than the best mattress

After a rich breakfast in our lovely accomodation with home made bread and cakes, fresh eggs and real hot cocoa for Kjell, we decided to climb up the hill behind our house.

On our way up, we met a girl who asked us if we would like to see one-day old new born baby ducks. We held one in our hands and who would believe that they have incredibly hot feet?! So cool, so cute!!

For about an hour, we climbed up and the nature, its rocks, the wild growing colorful flowers in the middle of the vast landscapes was just undescribable. The Irish moss is so soft. When you lay down on it you never want to get up again...

We built our own family stone pile as you can see them everywhere - obviously built by trolls.

When we took a deep breath, looked in all directions and did see nothing but pure nature, we felt solidly grounded. This was the moment we were looking for during this vacation. Leaving all the stress, the noise, the mobile phones, the iPads, Playstation games behind us!

We left 'Sel' to head down South along the coast side to Vik. On our way we passed  Selfoss and went for some grocery shopping. Food and especially eating out is quite expensive and we wanted to go for some picnics on our trip - as long as the weather would stay good. 

The landscape was changing and we passed quite a vast landscape with its own charme. This was a perfect scenery for a science fiction movie.

We stopped at Keldur - a manor farm and now museum with old turf houses and a church. A moment to think of how lucky we are to live nowadays in comfortable houses.

Luckily enough, it only rained a few minutes when we were driving. Whenever we got out of the car the weather was just perfect with the sun shining at 14C. 

We could picnic on the road and towards the evening arrived in Dyrhólaey cape where we drove up a serpentine 120m high to perpendicular cliffs with a black sand beach.

The evening we arrived at our next accomodation close to the harbour town of Vik. It was rather unspectacular. Nice and friendly hosts, clean rooms and again, very very cosy beds to sleep in.

Again, we went to bed early - despite the sun still shining around 11 pm ....

27.07.2015 / On the road... Extreme "Fossing" and being splashed by a geysir....

Aaaargh, I lack time to write my posts! Which is an incredibly good thing actually. ;-) 

Well, we are on the road now for the second day. We packed our stuff yesterday morning and waited for more than one hour for Europcar to pick up Jens. Only after I called Icelandic Farm Holidays they showed up within 5 min. We could have walked to the rental office and would have probably gotten a better car than the one we are driving now. We ended up with a Kia ceed and after two days of driving are trying to get another car in the next days... the tires, the clutch... hmmh would not pass the TÜV in Germany.... We'll see in the days to come.

So, after we had left Reykjavik yesterday morning we drove to the Pingvellir National Park. The weather was perfect and even the crowds of people did not bother us. I had to take a picture of the public toilet with the probably best view ever....

We strolled around this stunning nature and then went on to check out the well known Gulfoss Waterfall. On our way there we passed many smaller ones - beautifully fitting into this wonderful nature.

 

Gulfoss was amazing though crowded with people. We arrived with the sun shining and this created a lovely rainbow above the falls. Beautiful picture!!!

Next stop was the Geysir area East of Reykjavik. Funny to see all the steam coming out of the ground. The Stukkur geysir explosion was really a highlight. Unpredictable in time and height. Kjell was enjoying standing into the direction of where the steam would go. The smell of it was extreme though and we did not mind getting soaking wet. 

By the way, I forgot to mention the water in Iceland. Honestly, no need to buy any water bottles as this truely is the purest water you can get out of the tab BUT in some areas where it does not come out of the mountains straight away, there is a really strange smell of the sulfur when you rinse your face. Sulfur actually smells like rotten eggs. Even though you know it does not hurt, it kind of troubles you. One gets familiar to it, though. 

After the Geysir sight (the real 'Geysir' by the way only errupts after an earthquake, last time in 2000 where it went up to 70-80m), we went on road #1, the so called ring road around the Island, to head to our first arranged accomodation.

'Sel' was in the middle of nowhere and this was just perfect. A wonderful old farm house, the sleeping rooms and the breakfast place kept in old style, was located right at the bottom of a rather small mountain. We were warmly welcomed by the host in a cooking apron and asked whether we would also like to join the three meal course he was just preparing. We enjoyed salad with slices of delicious goose and as a main course we had cod with sweet mashed potatoes and vegetables. Delicious!! 

The place was lovely and can be highly recommended. We fell to sleep straight away.... 

26.07.2015 / Being Prudence K. for a day...

We had a wonderful rest and slept long this morning in our stylish room with large beds and soft sheets. When I woke up I finally took the time to go through our voucher documents and suddenly realized that all the docs were for a lady named Prudence K. !!! Ok, she had booked a more comfortable car and high classed hotels and for a second Jens decided that I would be renamed to Prudence for the rest of the trip... Harpa, our lovely host was so kind to call the emergency hotline of our agency and two hours later we got the correct docs. 

Town House is a lovely place to stay at. Harpa is a wonderful lady spending a lot of time in making you feel comfortable. She gave us many interesting tips for Sightseeing Reykjavik. In the common kitchen we met a couple from Denmark and a young couple from Belgium who have already been travelling for 6 months through SEA and Europe. This is why we like to book rather small and private stays 

rather than in Hotels where people are paid for being friendly.

Around lunch time we went to check out Reykjavik. It kind of reminded us of small Kopenhagen. We had lunch and our first Icelandic beer in a small student Café, climbed up to the known Church Hallgrimskirkja, strolled down to the harbour where Kjell played on a quite natural playground, went into the Harpa, the famous Opera House and back, totally exhausted to our Town House.

We fell asleep straight away, still so tired and fighting with the 2hrs time difference. ...

Our "Town House" in Reykjavik

Hallgrimskirkja Reykjavik

"Harpa", the Opera House in Reykjavik

25.07.2015 / Off we go....

What a stressfull departure day. Getting the last things packed, buying a six-pack of sox and a few more sd-cards for our cameras we went on the Autobahn for our ~2 hour ride to Berlin. ... and got stuck in three traffic jams causing brief moments of panic. We ended up in time in Berlin and went into a small Italian Restaurant for a Pizza. For the last time some food WE knew before entering the mysteries of Icelandic food traditions. 😄 After a good meal a new shock struck us: In general, when leaving Berlin by plane we always travel from Berlin Schönefeld Airport. For some strange reason, I quickly had a gut Feelings to re-check the tickets and realized that it would be Tegel this time. So, where to park the car? Would we still have enough time now? We paid in a rush, hurried to the car, just to find ourselves stuck again for getting on the road because of a running event in the middle of Berlin City. My pulse went up as "millions" of skater passed us... 

Fortunately, they let us pass during a small slot and 30 min later we had parked the car safely and took the bus to the Airport...

Incredibly enough, and those knowing Berlins' grumpy bus driver: This one did not request me to pay the ticket but just waved me through. That was truely coming close to a miracle! 

Check-in was funny! By random generator Kjell was picked for a body check... You could literally see his face falling. 😳 And I only thought about all the rusty nails, dirty metallic stuff that he in general collects in his pockets on his way home from School.

The take-off was one of the worst I ever had. Due to heavy storm in Germany we kind of slipped sideways into the air. How to assure your kid that the pilot knows what he is doing when your heart is pounding heavy? Anyway, we made it and were picked up by a lovely man from Icelandic Exploration to drive us 45 min into the Center ok Reykjavik where I had booked 2 nights. During the trip it was interesting to listen to his hints and ideas about Iceland.

I love the language with its difficult pronounciation!!

Harpa, our host at Town House, welcomed us warm-heartedly and around 3.30 am cet we finally fell onto the fresh and cosy beds!!.... 

A wonderful start of our 11 days in Iceland!!

24.07.2015 / Making a long time dream come true....

...we' ll be flying to Iceland !!

As experienced Asian backpacker, I really thought that spending some time to plan the trip and the accomodations myself would be fun. As it always has been.

But I was so busy this year with my job and other use- and senseless topics that all these incredibly long and difficult City names of Iceland totally got me confused.

So, beginning of the year I started to look out for a company to organize us a self-drive tour including proper accomodation.

We ended up with Icelandic Farm Holidays and in the past weeks had a very friendly mail exchange with the ladies. So far, I can say that everything seems to be well prepared.

We will start in Reykjavik and go against the clock along the Circle. We will stay each night in a different town, checking out the sights and restaurants.

So, tomorrow is the departure date! We are all excited.
All bags are packed, we'll be wearing layers and tried to minimize our stuff.

Next post will be from a different time zone.... :-)

And, as I did not mention it before: Please forgive me using wrong wordings and mixing up the meanings in the English language. I am not a native speaker and quite far from perfect. 😉