697. Iceland 2.0 | Blue Lagoon, Icelandic Horses, Wow Air

During the final two days in Iceland, we visited the Blue Lagoon and went Icelandic horseback riding. They were two things we wanted to do on our first trip but didn't get a chance to. I really loved the horseback riding! Blue Lagoon was a nice experience but it is an over-priced tourist trap (with everything together it was approximately $200 per person). It is something to do if there is time in the schedule but I don't think I would do it again. I heard that the other natural springs in Iceland are nicer and more worth it to visit.


Starting the day with breakfast at our usual spot (Sandholt)

We booked a few hours of horseback riding with Islenski Hesturinn. We went around beautiful volcanic landscapes. As I was too nervous to take any photos during the ride (in fear of falling off)..I don't have any of the scenery unfortunately. The guides took some photos and said they would be sending the photos to us soon though.





Here was my horse, Graumann!


After the horseback riding, we got back into the city in time for dinner. We went to a Danish/Scandinavian restaurant called Jomfruin. During our first trip to Reykjavik, we didn't get a chance to eat here (since we didn't reserve and they were fully booked on the night we went) but I really wanted to. I like Scandinavian cuisine. So this trip, I was excited for a chance to eat here. Unfortunately we ended up being very disappointed in it. I ordered a schnitzel and it was WAYYYY too salty. My boyfriend said his was the worst meal he had in Iceland lol. I guess my expectations were too high for this place.


The following day, we visited the Blue Lagoon!



It was nice and relaxing being in the very warm water, surrounded by extremely cold temperatures.




Dinner at Geiri Smart that night. The food was delicious but I remember being extremely sleepy since we ate pretty late lol.

I'm sure you know by now about the abrupt closer of Wow Air. We had booked with them for this trip and the airline shuts down the day before our departure back to Toronto. It created a lot of stress for a few hours. We found this out the morning before visiting the Blue Lagoon, so we had limited time to frantically search for alternate flights/routes back home (entrance to the Blue Lagoon is pre-booked and timed so it's not flexible). At the last minute before catching the shuttle bus to the Lagoon, we were able to book tickets to fly to Edmonton, then back to Toronto the following day. We wasted a couple thousand dollars due to this but I guess it will be a memorable experience lol. As I always try to look for the positive in any situation, I know this could have been a LOT worse. For example if we were to find out the airline shut down while we were at the airport already, or flying that day. I heard a lot of people were stranded at the airport. The airline didn't announce their closure at first - the flights just kept getting "delayed" while people were waiting for it, then they eventually find out the airline shut down. Also if we didn't have the option to fly to Edmonton we would have had to spend way more on booking a last minute flight.

Leaving Reykjavik was pretty hectic though. At the airport at one point, their security system shut down due to the high volume and I was stuck in the customs line for awhile wondering if I'd miss the flight to Edmonton. Everything worked out though and we had a really nice seat on the flight.

There really isn't anything to do at all in Edmonton. The streets were very deserted and pretty sketchy. We stayed at the Fairmont MacDonald downtown and spent the majority of our time there at the hotel. We had breakfast with the Anaheim Ducks (well not "with" them, but some of them were there eating as well as they had a game against the Edmonton Oilers that night). After one night there, we flew back to Toronto.

& that concludes our second trip to Iceland! Even with the horrible Wow Air experience (for the second time)..and not seeing the Northern Lights again..I really had an amazing time!!

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | BLOGLOVIN'

694. Iceland 2.0 | Waterfalls & Glaciers

As a gift for my birthday, my boyfriend took me to Iceland again. It was our second time there in three months. The first time was for the Christmas holidays before going to Europe last December. I had an amazing time there despite some bad luck we had (really bad weather, not being able to see the Northern Lights, & another bad experience with Wow Air). This time we visited places we were unable to on our first trip; the South of Iceland, the East of Iceland, the Blue Lagoon, and Icelandic horse-back riding.

Here we were flying over Toronto on the way to Iceland..on board a now non-existent airline, Wow Air. They caused more issues for us than I want to write about on here lol. The airline ended up shutting down a day before our flight back home (more about that in a future post). It's kind of ironic that we booked the tickets for this trip partially with a voucher we received from them in order to compensate for our last bad experience, and now this happened.

Age of Ambition: I was reading this book on the flight over. I really love it so far..it's really interesting and pretty funny in some parts. I bought it many months ago and only managed to start reading it now. That's part of the reason I like flights; being about to catch up on my overdue reading.

One of the many inconveniences of Wow Air flights was that they landed at 4:45am in the morning in Reykjavik. So we had many hours to kill until we were able to check into our hotel room (that day we managed to get our room at 12:30pm). So we sat around for hours the first morning, waiting.

After we got our room, we took a nap for several hours then went out to dinner at our favourite restaurant there - Kaffi Loki. They have the best fish there!! Afterwards, we just walked around the city a bit and then went back to the hotel for an early night.



Breakfast at our hotel the next morning.

The first couple days of our trip, we joined a tour to visit the Southern and Eastern parts of the country. It was an overnight trip that spanned two days. The first day, the weather was the worst I ever experienced. There was literally non-stop (pretty heavy) rain all day, very windy and very cold. Less than halfway through the first day, we were completely soaked already from top to bottom, and had to stay uncomfortably in wet clothes all day. I never experienced that before lol. It was quite an experience. So the photo above was from the rainy day at Seljalandsfoss waterfall. We came back to this spot the next day. Here you can compare how it was on a nicer sunnier day (you can even see a rainbow!):



Back to the rainy day:


This one is called Skogafoss


Then we visited the Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach.


It was soooo cold and rainy/windy here I didn't manage to get many photos as I thought I was getting frostbite.



This was my favourite place from the trip: Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon. We ended up coming back again the next day in nicer weather though.




We also visited Diamond Beach. I really liked the contrast of the ice against the black sand.


In the evening we stayed at a hotel somewhere in the area and spent part of the night trying to dry our completely soaked wet clothes using a hair dryer. Unfortunately the skies were not the right condition to see the Northern Lights.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | BLOGLOVIN'

684. KEF to BCN to LCG (& our experience with WOW Air)

We are currently sitting at the airport in Barcelona. It's now 5pm and we've been here since 8:30am this morning. The last couple days consisted of waiting at airports for our flights. So in the beginning when we made our bookings, we booked WOW Air to depart Reykjavik early morning to arrive in Barcelona at noon. Then our next flight to La Coruna would be around 3pm. It was the ideal flight schedule.

Then a couple weeks ago we received notice from WOW Air that our flight to Barcelona got delayed. Well it got 'delayed' until the following day (roughly 19 hours after our originally scheduled departure!) and they would not tell me what the reason was. Our new departure time would be 3am in the morning to arrive in Barcelona at 8:30am. Then here in Barcelona there was no 3pm flight available for La Coruna anymore so we now have to take the 8pm flight. Meaning 12 hours stuck at the airport. We also had to pay extra for the flight change to La Coruna as we needed to reschedule it to the following day. It was a very frustrating experience and as a first time customer of them, not a good impression of WOW Air at all. Our entire schedule these days got messed up and we also had to pay extra to accommodate the changes with the other airline. With no compensation from WOW. I guess this is what happens with low-cost airlines lol however with their ridiculous fees for luggage it ends up not being very low cost at all (extra ~$150 per check-in and carry-on bag).

So on our final day in Reykjavik yesterday, we just spent the day around the city before heading to the airport around midnight. Every day for breakfast we went to a bakery cafe called Sandholt. Yesterday I got this spätzle. It was delicious!!


The sky finally cleared up and we were finally able to take some nice shots by the water.


Then we went to Joe & The Juice to work for a few hours.

At night we decided to go back to Kaffi Loki where we had gone a few days before. We both had our favourite meals of the trip here. I got the "Fish of the Day" both times which was steamed codfish, sweet potatoes and salad. My boyfriend had the mashed fish. The portions are very large. I would recommend this place if you visit Reykjavik. They are located directly in front of Hallgrímskirkja Church.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | BLOGLOVIN'