Eric and I had the chance to explore a small city located 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Kefavik, Iceland is definitely the furthest north I'd ever been and not a place I'd ever thought I'd get to spend any amount of time. Both Keflavik and the capital Reykjavik are frequent fuel stops for the jet when going to Eastern Europe or the Middle East. Usually we are there in the middle of night during the snow, gail force winds and driving rain. We picked up our passengers in Las Vegas and their final destination was Lebanon. It was too far for the pilots to fly the entire 14 hours there, so my crew got off the plane in Iceland and handed the plane over to another crew who would take it the rest of the way. When we landed around midnight, this time was no different! When we got off the plane, it felt like we were walking into a hurricane. By the time we got to the car that was taking us to our hotel, we were soaking wet.We stayed in a cozy hotel with the thickest down comforters I had ever seen. Eric had stayed the night in Keflavik once in December and said it was absolutely frigid. I'm sure those comforters come in handy most of the year. We settled into our room and decided to go see if there were any restaurants or pubs open at 12:30am. Keflavik is 7 hours ahead of California, so it was just about dinner time on our clocks. We headed to Paddy's Irish Pub a few minutes down the road. It was cozy inside with candles lit all around. Although they didn't serve food, it was nice to get out of the driving rain. We sipped our beverages and listened to the patrons speaking Icelandic to each other in conversation.
The next morning, we woke at 8am and had a mission. To get to the famous Blue Lagoon spa. We had to be really determined to go to this spa because the weather was horrible. It would have been so much easier to stay in the cozy bed, protected from the wind and rain but we figured we may not have a chance to go again. The lady at the front desk informed us that the bus was coming at 11am to take us to the Blue Lagoon, but we had to wait outside and flag it down when we saw it. Here is Eric taking one for the team and standing outside in the cold rain:
A video would have been better, I was almost surprised the roof didn't fly off the building with how windy it was. We finally boarded the bus that took us on a windy road to the lagoon. We knew we were almost there when we saw the glowing pool of water next to the road:
Once we arrived at the spa, we grabbed our towels changed into our bathing suits and headed out to the lagoon. We dipped our toes into the hot, steaming water and jumped in. It was a comfortable temperature especially because it was so cold and windy outside. We explored our way around the lagoon, spent some time in the steam room and applied the goopy silica mud to our skin. The Lagoon's water composition is not found anywhere else in the world and comes from holes as far as 6,000 feet deep. It travels through porous lava which increases its mineral content and has blue silica which is an antioxidant. My skin has never felt so soft!
After our short day at the spa, we headed back to the airport to catch our Icelandair flight back to New York. While waiting in the terminal, we noticed some interesting lights hanging from the ceiling. Upon further inspection of the lights, we realized the coverings are actually gutted fish with light bulbs inside. How chic!
We grabbed what we think is a dark chocolate candy bar made in Iceland. We weren't sure though. Eric told me he'd give me $1,000 if I could pronounce the word on the wrapper; unfortunately I didn't even know where to start:
Although our trip to Iceland was brief, the Blue Lagoon was definitely worth seeing. We are back in L.A. already and our last two days almost seemed like a dream. We left on Thursday morning and got home in time to sleep in our own bed on Friday night. Our upstairs neighbor asked what we had been up to since we last saw her on Wednesday night. I thought about telling her about our trip to Iceland and going to the spa at the Blue Lagoon, but I'm sure she would have thought I was joking since she just saw us leaving home about 48 hours before.
