Spring Break Iceland - Part Two

Today started last night, actually. Jon and I had dinner and went to bed wicked early, only to be woken up by the phone ringing. The front desk was calling us to let us know that that Northern Lights were viewable! This was one of the things that we were hoping for, so we didn't mind at all to be dragged out of the complete dead stupor we were in. I didn't even know it was a phone that was ringing, I was so tired from our lack of sleep the night before and the long drive. We rushed to the window to see....nothing. Well, not nothing. We both noticed a band across the sky of sky that was less black than the rest of the sky. Was that it? We have no idea. We set our alarm to go off twice more during the night to get up and check, but neither time did we see anything.

This morning we got up late (ALI got up late, Jon always gets up early) and had a delicious European hotel breakfast of bread, cheese and coldcuts - yum! I miss those. Then, we headed out in search of the car repair guy. We found him easily, but he told us he didn't speak much English. We pointed out the tiny crack in the windshield and he said "no problem!" YAY! Sadly, he meant that the tiny crack wasn't going to prevent us from driving (Umm..no shit.) but that he couldn't fix us. He did happily assure us that the crack would only get bigger. Fantastic. Next we headed to the grocery store to pick up some bread and cheese and fruit to satisfy our lunches on the road. Iceland is kinda sparse nowadays and it's better if we know where our next meal is coming from. While we were there, we phoned the Sixt guy to break the news about the windshield, but he said (wrongly) that it wouldn't be expensive to fix. Ah well, what can you do?

Next we went geocaching there in Hofn out by the harbor, which we would not have done otherwise. The cache was a quick find, and we did some hiking and some sliding on the local frozen lakes before heading out of town.









We then headed out and decided to stop by a building that looked like a long stack of books that we had passed the day before. We had discovered it was a museum of sorts and decided to spend some time walking through. It was all about the life of the most famous Icelandic writer whose name I can't even write here because it starts with a letter that isn't in the English alphabet. Anyway, kinda boring, but check out the cool outside of the building!

Next was Jokulsarlon, the famous lake of icebergs. All the icebergs were pretty, but also covered in snow, hiding what is likely some gorgeous blue ice. However, we did stumble upon a few seals just chilling out. Before heading out from here, we decided to break some trail through the snow and head to the beach. Yes, the Icelandic beach! There we found one of the coolest things we've ever seen. The beach is covered in black sand and littered along the whole beach are basically icebergs ranging in size from golf balls to boulders. They glittered like diamonds and it was just breathtaking. Trying to incorporate the video of these things in the blog. Will try next post.

After that, we move along to Skaftafell, which is a big park that runs along the glaciers that are oozing out from the mountain. We hiked for about an hour and a half to get to the base of the glacier, which was a pretty surreal experience.

Sun was getting low, so instead of a 3 hour drive to our next planned area, we opted to stay locally in a hotel where a double room looks like this picture. They also have Wi-fi...that doesn't reach our room, so I'm sitting in the freezing lobby listening to a couple of Japanese dudes argue over souvenirs. BUT, our room has a big window and the sky is looking clear, so it will all be worth it if we see some REAL Northern lights!!!