What an epic road trip! Learned so much, but here are 5 things from the top of my head…
1. Iceland or Mars? - Iceland was beautiful, wild, and untamed. We drove around lush, green mountains in the South, then made our way around a complete grey area of black sand nothingness, passed by glaciers and hundreds of waterfalls, and then worked our way up North ~ which looked like my dreams of the North Pole.
2. Unpredictable weather - I learned about this before our trip and completely underestimated it. One minute it was sunny, the next minute it was hailing. Woke up in the middle of the night to see snow fall for the first time. The cold Icelandic wind enhanced all the crazy weather. One day we were hiking and it started to hail. The strong wind bashed the hail to our faces … ouch!
3. Sleeping at night - There was no night. Well, at least when we went this time of year. The sun set around 11PM, but there was still plenty of light after that… it never really got dark. The sun then rose at 3AM… so plenty of light to go on adventures! I had my handy eye mask to help block out the light at night.
4. Major gas stations were awesome … like N1! Great stop for clean/private bathrooms and delicious Icelandic hot dogs ~ Pylsur! They add crunchy onions and special sauces to their hot dogs. We even bought some at the local grocery store and cooked it in our camper van. It also wasn't uncommon to find a gas station with sit down restaurants inside them.
5. Something in the water - The hot water from the faucet smelled of sulphur. I heard the reasoning behind this was because the water was heated using geothermal energy. The hot water that poured from the faucets and shower heads came directly from water springs located one of two kilometers beneath the ground with dissolved sulfur compounds.
All in all.. Iceland was AMAZING! A trip like nothing I've even been on. I took a ton of pictures, but figured that sharing through video would be easier. Here's our trip in a nutshell:
Music: one of my favorite songs by Sigur Rós called Inní mér syngur vitleysingur
