Without further delay, faithful readers (read: my stepdad and now Marie Bucciero), I bring you actual travel blogging! We have left America, and I am blogging from a campsite kitchen in Rangaping Eystra, Iceland, a stone’s throw from a waterfall (seriously). Let’s look back on how we got to Reykjavik.
I must first begin, back in America, with a shout out to our sweet families. Rich’s mom and stepdad drove from Philadelphia to DC and back to offload a few last items for us in our last week, and my mom and stepdad flew to DC to deliver us to the BWI airport and then drive our car back to Tennessee. We so appreciate you.
Day One: Travel to Iceland and Dinner in Reykjavik
Our flight was fairly non-eventful. We flew Wow Air to Iceland on a flight that left at 12:45 AM. We were pretty anxious so we got to the airport at 7:30 PM and spent the next three hours in the BWI lounge, courtesy of our travel credit cards. Having a place to crash with free food and drinks was a plus, especially considering that Wow airlines was the opposite of luxury- not so much as an in-flight water and the seat was about as comfortable as sitting on a bicycle. We did our best to sleep through the flight and landed in Iceland at 10:00 AM.
From the airport, we picked up our SUV and tent. I am sorry to report that the tent-on-top-of-the-car fell through, and we ended up with a regular SUV with nothing on the roof and a rented tent. We then headed to the Bonus superstore, Piggly Wiggly’s Icelandic cousin complete with cheerful pig mascot, where we picked up groceries for the week- peanut butter and jelly, coffee, pasta, and hot dogs. We eat a little better than that at home, but we are gone for a year and Iceland is super expensive.
For our first night, we ate dinner in Reykjavik- fish stew, an Icelandic specialty. Iceland, not shockingly, is cold, and despite the fact that we were wearing every warm article of clothing we brought, we needed some hearty comfort food to thaw out. It was delicious, as is most food covered in bearnaise sauce.
We then headed to our urban campsite to set up our “5-minute” tent. Let’s just say that setting it up decidedly took longer than 5-minutes and, as I may have mentioned, Iceland is cold. The words “camping is terrible” may have been uttered as well as “You have been camping– why don’t you know how to set up the tent?” But we figured it out, exchanged high fives, and quickly climbed in to fall fast asleep.
COMING SOON- Days Two and Three: The Blue Lagoon, Thingvellir National Park, Haukadalur Geysers, Gullfoss Waterfall, Kerio Crater Lake, and Lots of Icelandic Horses and Anti-Social Sheep