Hannah & Felix - Around the world 2015: Iceland

Stop 6: Iceland - where mountains turn into glaciers and stones into elves

Reykjavik

The time has come - we have arrived at our last stop, Iceland, which also means that the 10-days-countdown for coming back home has started. Being caught between excitement and sadness for the soon end of traveling, we started exploring wonderful Iceland which was already stunning at first sight out of the airplane window. Luckily, we were well-equipped with a long list of things to do and insider tips from Lilja (thanks to Artus for connecting us ;) ) as well as personal advice from Henry in Reykjavik (thanks to Lilja for connecting us with Henry ;) ). Upon arrival most of our energy went to adjusting our bodies to the cold wheather of Iceland at windy -1 degrees (turns out everything in life is relative as the Icelanders where pretty happy with the current "heat wave"). We took a first walk at the seaside and warmed ourselves with hot chocolate, coffee and waffles - definitely one of the good things about winter time. We were also thrilled when it started to snow that night - our first snow this year :) the next day, we started with beautiful wheather and went on a citywalk tour led by a history graduate from Iceland. The concept was pretty much the same as in Sydney. It took us 2 hours and was our first experience of how fast wheather can change in Iceland. We went from sun to rain, to sun, to snow-rain within every 5 minutes. The Icelandic saying "If you don't like the wheather, wait for 5 minutes" absolutely makes sense!!! We learned a lot about the history of Iceland including the first settlement by the Vikings, as well as elves (in the form

of stones) that still hinder building projects today and can only be removed through negotiations with the help of an elve expert. Although it still happens today, the younger generation is no longer really believing in elves - we have to disappoint you here ;)

After being half-way frozen, we met Henry for another hot chocolate and waffle and enjoyed some more first-hand insights into Iceland and had a Pylsa (hot-dog) at the famous food truck where Bill Clinton used to eat :)

The next day, we started again with beautiful wheather that let us enjoy the solar eclipse as well as the view from the top of the church. You will see in the pictures below how much the scenery and atmosphere of a place changes with the wheather here in Iceland. As of tomorrow we will be driving around Iceland with our own rental car, chasing glaciers and northern lights! Let's see were the wheather takes us day by day :)

Arriving in Iceland - magic :)