Where bucket lists become real life

Not even kidding this place is full of bucket list experiences, sites and activities. After our few days on the southern coast we headed to the capital - Reykjavik. This city is seriously so cool, especially at christmas time. It was decked out in christmas stuff from head to toe. It also has super cool viking stores everywhere! We walked around the city the first day we got there and toured the famous cathedral, souvenir shopped, met some locals (they speak english and are super nice!) and dressed up as some vikings. 

Ok now story time to explain the creepy cat - The icelanders have a crazy tradition each christmas. Look up "yule lads" for more correct details but anyways as we were walking around we realized in each store there were these little statues or ornaments of these elf looking guys, so we asked one of the locals what they were. Icelanders believe that the 13 days before christmas each one of these elves/trolls come down from the mountains and either give gifts to the good children or potatoes to the bad children. If the children continue to be bad the cat and the mother of the elves will come in the night and eat the children! How terrible?! If I was an icelandic kid I'd definitely be on my best behavior! sheesh. Anyways the troll that is coming that night is plastered all over the city so the children can prepare. Kind of cool. That night we stayed in a hostel and it sucked. This one guy right across from me was thee loudest snorer Ive ever heard! I wanted to kick him so hard. Ya know when you're laying in bed at 3am and cant fall asleep because that guy is getting the best night sleep ever and he's letting everyone know it ugh I was just laying in bed angry. Thats what I get for getting a bed in a hostel though. Luckily he was out partying the other nights so I was able to fall asleep:) Thursday was our chill day. We relaxed all day in The Blue Lagoon. Pricey but so worth it. Complementary mud masks and drinks. 

These face masks kill me! We would see people through the steam of the water and they would look like killer monkey people with the masks on haha. 

We spent all day here, seriously. 10am to 4:30pm. Also the guy that gave us our wrist bands asked where we were from. The minute we said "utah" he asks "oh are you guys mormons?" Apparently he was in the book of mormon play in Reykjavik. Small world and it was cool to talk to him for a little bit. That night we did our usual northern lights hunt and we were successful!! 

Not a totally good photo, but so so cool. The feeling is crazy to see them. I guess I didnt realize they were legit until I was actually right under them. As I was researching iceland in preparation to come I knew that I wanted to see the waterfalls, the northern lights, swim in the blue lagoon and I wanted to snorkel silfra. Well my friends wanted to do all of the above besides snorkel, so I just moved on and figured I wouldn't be able to do it. I was laying in bed while still on the southern coast and I realized I had to find a way to snorkel. I would probably only come to iceland this one time so why not? I planned out a way to possibly do it without inconveniencing my friends too much. I went and asked some questions to the tourist stop shop in town the next day and BAM! full send... bought the excursion for a crap ton of money, but it was awesome!! So Friday morning, my friends were nice enough to wake up earlier than usual and drive me an hour to Thingvellir national park. This national park is split by the tectonic plates. On one side you are standing on the north american plate and the other is the eurasian plate. I got to snorkel in between the two plates in freezing cold glacier water. EPIC! I was in a group with a couple from Georgia, Australia and a guy from China. Oh and my tour guide was an awesome lady that is from Portugal, but moved to iceland to dive for a living. So cool! It was so much fun. We wore a layer of thermals and wool socks, a suit that they gave us and then the dry suit. We then had to shove our heads through a hood, wear gloves and flippers. We walked over to the dock where we hop in the water. When I stepped in it felt so weird. The suit feels like it is suctioned to your body and you don't feel coldness really at all. It was about a 45 minute swim through these plates. The water was so clear and between the water being fresh glacier flow, and cleansed by the lava rock and algae it was totally drinkable. And it was dang good! I would take my snorkel off and just take a drink. By the end of the excursion my toes were painfully numb, but other than that I was totally good. We then walked back to the vans, changed out of our suits and had some good cookies and hot coco. Such a rad way to start the morning. No fish or really anything to look at - just really cold water, in a cool location and nothing below you except the depths of the earth. 

While I was snorkeling the crack of silfra, my amazing, adventurous friends took a nap in the parking lot haha. They picked me up and we headed off to finish the golden circle. The Golden Circle is a famous road in iceland that has a ton of famous sites. Our next stop were the geysirs!

I know I would boil to death if I jumped in these hot pots, but it was really tempting.

We walk up to the geysirs and its the funniest thing having people just circling around these holes holding up their phones for the longest time waiting for it to burst. And then you always see the people that wait forever and the minute they put their phone down it explodes haha. We were headed back to the car and walk by one of these... right as it explodes and boy we were in the splash zone! We get sprayed with this rotten egg water and it was just glorious. Hopped back in the car and headed to our last stop of the trip:( GULLFOSS! A crazy huge, beautiful waterfall. 

So So pretty and WINDY! We headed home and saw the northern lights one more time. Saturday morning we packed our bags and stopped in at a local bakery and oh man... best cinnamon roll EVER! not. even. kidding. instead of icing on it it, the whole top was covered with powdered sugar and it was the best breakfast. We soaked in the last morning in the arctic tundra and then returned our rental car and hopped on the plane. At this point I was pretty ready to get home to better weather and just in time for christmas. Except Icelandair SUCKS! 7.5 hour flight and they offered us one drink. ONE DRINK! thats it. No complementary pretzels or crackers... so that cinnamon roll was the only thing I had until 10 o'clock that night in Denver. I had a dang good burrito at Madi's fav local place. Me and kels stayed the night at Madi's and then caught our flights home sunday morning. Love traveling with my friends and experiencing new places. Learning new words (Icelandic is veryyyyy hard), eating local foods, seeing the most amazing things the world has to offer. Its all awesome and I love every minute of it... even if I froze my bum off. Im ready to head back out somewhere new, but Im really trying to save my money for now - we'll see how long that lasts. Well another adventure down and plenty more to go. Iceland was quite rad, but Id recommend going in the summer months unless of course you want to travel cheap, like me:))))

and to end this beautiful blog here is me with an icelandic horse. And just an FYI they eat these fellas.