Today I had a leisurely morning with breakfast at the hostel and trip planning for when I get into mainland Europe.
Then I took an afternoon tour of the Golden Circle, which consists of Geysir, which is a place with natural hot springs and geysers, Gullfoss, which is a giant waterfall, and Þingvellir, which is a national park and the site of a rift valley where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
Geysir
This Geysir went off every 7-8 minutes.
Gullfoss
Þingvellir
I spent most of the tour hanging out with my new friend, Michael, who I met at the hostel bar last night.
I have a confession to make. I’ve been avoiding paying for lunches by taking extra hard boiled eggs from the hostel breakfast and saving them until lunchtime. Food is insanely expensive here- I got a mediocre dinner at the hostel last night that cost about $27.00. So I figured, since I’ve been saving money by not really having lunch except for hard boiled eggs, and since mediocre food is expensive- I might as well splurge on some expensive AMAZING food.
So Michael and I went out to a sushi restaurant called Sushisamba in Reykjavik and had a 6 course Icelandic feast. I figured I may as well try some local food while I’m here. I swiftly became one of those awful people who takes photos of their food.
Shots of Brennivín, which is Icelandic Schnapps
Smoked puffin
Pan friend arctic char
Coffee and lime infused grilled minke whale and Reindeer mini burger
Grilled lamb fillet
Of course, in typical fashion I ate dessert before I remembered to take a photo of it. But it was white chocolate skyr panna cotta, and it was delicious.
Tomorrow my bus picks me up at 4 AM, and I arrive in London around 11 AM. I’m not ready to leave Iceland, but I’m excited to get back to some more summerly temperatures.