Icelandia

Again, I tagged along on one of Dylan's work trips. Dylan, Kevin, and I...basically the three musketeers. But how could a person pass up a trip to Iceland? I'm not always so happy that Dylan is on the road a lot, but I sure do enjoy reaping the benefits of all his travel. We stayed at a cool Hilton in downtown Reykjavik and zoomed around in a funny looking Toyota.

After getting my bearings straight, we headed into downtown for lunch. After we ate, we were just in time for the gay pride parade. The city was very festive. It was pretty fun. Other than that, we just walked around, visited the photography museum, had a cup of coffee, and stayed warm. Iceland, as expected, is cold! Even in the heat of the summer. It's not as picturesque as some other European cities, but it's also much newer, and still pretty cute.

The view from the executive lounge, where we took full advantage of the food, drinks and coffee available to us!

A Parliament Building (?)

A really cool place with a ridiculously long name.

The next day, we took ourselves on the Golden Circle Tour in our own car, which included visits to the national monument Pingvellir (the start of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge), the geysers called Geysir and Strokkur and the massive Gullfoss waterfall. Everything was super cool, but the waterfall was incredible. That just about took us the whole day, and other than happy hour and dinner, that's all I have to report from this pretty awesome day.

Pingvellir

Geysir

Gullfoss

It's massive and breathtaking

Tectonic plates shifting apart at Pingvellir

A good travel trio!

On Monday, we stuck to our schedule of going to bed very late and then waking up late, so we got a bit of a slow start. It was back into downtown for Dylan and me, where first we hit the Phallic Museum.  Yes, you read that correctly. A giant collection of animal penises, which we heard was a "can't miss" attraction for Iceland, so we didn't miss it. It was amusing. I'm glad we went. Then it was off to our whale watching tour. It was a bit of a boat ride out to the feeding area, but it paid off because we had a humpback whale hanging around our boat for a while. Apparently humpbacks are not as commonly seen as other whales, but much cooler to see, so it was a good trip. Dylan then followed his guidebook to a little hole-in-the-wall place to get some lobster soup. We re-grouped with happy hour in the lounge and then found Kevin for our trip to the Blue Lagoon. It was so cool. The water temp was about 100 degrees, and these girls came around with mineral face masks for everyone. Dylan of course brought his GoPro, so we got some fun footage, and then we capped off the night with a late dinner at the Lava restaurant on-site.

Whale members

Suited up!

After our dip in the lagoon

Creatures of the Blue Lagoon

Whale boat

Humpback tail!

See ya, Mr. Whale!

It was just after midnight, and we were planning the next day's events when we received word that instead we should pack up to head home the next morning. The news was welcome, as my arrangements to get home became about 1000% more comfortable, and I also missed my little guy, though I could have totally done one more day in Iceland. Here we are at home re-grouping and enjoying being back. I am taking a day to get back in the groove, then it's time to line up appointments and commitments and get Gavin back to see Dawn and the gang!