Good morning from Keflavik! It is a beautiful day today and we plan on taking it easy – I am a little sore from being jostled around yesterday on our flight and with transportation (despite the nice wheelchair at the airport) so we decided to just go on a shorter drive around the Reykjanes Peninsula to see what Iceland is all about! This drive actually includes the area where the recent volcano eruption occurred, which cut off access to the town of Grindavik and the much touted Blue Lagoon. First, we had breakfast which was in the hotel lobby/restaurant area and was pretty close to a standard Marriott breakfast. They had gluten free Cheerios which took me by surprise as in Canada Cheerios are not allowed to be marked gluten free. So I passed on them and thought I would look them up later when we went to the grocery store to get some lunch items and drinks. They also provided some very nice brown round dinner roll type bread for me with seeds on top! It was delicious! The yogurt they make in Iceland is very thick and also quite good – reminded me of the yogurt that Fayzeh makes, however it was a bit sweeter.
However, before we went on our drive, I had a surprise for Andrew! Near the airport was the Iceland Rock and Roll museum – why not continue the trend started in Ireland and visit this museum too! So off we went to see about the rock and roll musicians from Iceland – which I could only think of one – Bjork. Once there – Andrew did recognize a few more names – he listens to the radio way more than I do! It was interesting learning about music from a country that really the North American music scene does not have that much influence from – they have their own awards shows now in Iceland and often participate in European events.
Now we started on our drive towards the Blue Lagoon and Grindavik. As you will see – there was a lot of moss and rocks on the ground and then it turned into a lava rock field as we got closer to the Blue Lagoon. Also at that time the highway changed to a temporary road that routed us to the Blue Lagoon and then down the slope to Grindavik. It was VERY obvious that Iceland had done a lot of work to make the Blue Lagoon which is their biggest tourist attraction available to be accessed. There are busses that transport people to it from both the Keflavik Airport and downtown Reykjavik and back each day, along with the people who rent cars. Due to reviews of its accessibility, we did not visit the Blue Lagoon – I had something else up my sleeve instead! Once we drove around the Blue Lagoon area, we drove up a hill and from the summit we could see the road ahead down to Grindavik that we were going to travel. Still a temporary road until we got close to the town and the houses. We drove around the waterfront, however there was not much to see so then we continued on our path to the south and around the south west part of the peninsula and then we stopped at a grocery store for some goodies prior to going back to the hotel for the evening.
Now back at the hotel, I was FINALLY able to get hold of the company that hosts my website and work out the issue with why I could not upload pictures very well. On top of there being an issue with my website, the wifi at the Courtyard, despite being on the Enhanced Plan, was extremely slow! The hotel was good and did call their support agency however they told me that it was operating properly. When I went down to the front desk to check the speed in the lobby of the hotel and to see if it was different, there was another person down there working on their laptop. So I asked him how he was finding the wifi speed and he told me he was barely able to work it was so slow. Glad it was not just me experiencing the issues!
Tomorrow we are going to see what the weather forecast is when we get up. The weather here changes SO FAST that I was warned to not make final plans until each morning. We will heed that advice!
Here was our drive today:
