Arrived in Sweden!

At last we left Iceland on a 7:40am flight which meant we all had to wake up at 4am or so. It wasn't too bad but we were starting to get adjusted to Iceland time. The flight was less than 3 hours and we arrived at Arlanda around 12:30pm.

However, I just don't seem to have luck with rental cars here in Sweden. When we arrived the rental place was packed and the ticket machine was broken so we had to stand and wait for 30 mins or so for someone to replace the paper and then people were just rude and didn't take a ticket in the order they arrived. I am just glad we were relatively rested and such so I figured we could wait a bit if people were so impatient.

Oh and of course, I forgot to tell our banks about our travels so every card that I tried set off the fraud alert and blocked the transaction. One of Fredrik's cards worked (the Swedish one) and then we got our car. The nice thing about the rental was I could pick out the exact car that I wanted and it turned out to be a very good choice for us. Much better than last year! :)

Our Volvo V70 stick shift. I love it but it is painful to be in the car with Fredrik driving. It doesn't come natural to him!

Iceland Apartment

Here I am with about one week left of our vacation and no hope of ever catching up on my blog posts. I am still posting about Iceland!

I forgot to take photos of our apartment before we unpacked so we quickly took some photos as we were leaving. It was a decent place to stay for under $200/night and I would rent another apartment in Iceland again. Next time, I might pick an apartment that was one of the stops on the FlyBus so we don't have to walk 2 blocks with all our luggage and being super tired.

Our apartment was on the second floor and right at the landing where the column is.

Þingvellir National Park

Our third and final stop on the tour was something I found rather fascinating. I had no idea about the history and uniqueness of this area before coming here. Our tour guide gave a short speech about this area but I missed the first part because we all had to go to the bathroom when we arrived. However, I read the signs and loved learning about Þingvellir or Thingvellir if you don't know how to pronounce the Icelandic letter "Þ".

This was the site of Iceland's first Parliament in 930 AD and marks the beginning of Iceland as a nation. Iceland was settled some 50 years earlier by mostly Norse and Celtic people and soon there was a need for settling disputes and establishing laws. This is the place that they selected due to a number of reasons. It was a central location for many settlements and it had plenty of firewood, grazing for the livestock and fresh drinking water.

I thought one of the funniest comments from our group was, "Why are there no buildings?" I guess maybe it was a fair question because when someone tells you this is a "Parliament" you think of a grand building like many other countries. Well, I guess in 930 AD things were rather rustic (duh) and they never bothered to build anything as nature did a good job of providing for them. I loved our tour guide's answer of, "Well, the Icelandic people are rather hearty and they can handle the harsh environment."

The other really neat part of this area was being able to stand on top of the Eurasian plate and look down on the North American plate. As the tectonic plates move away from each other, the land in between falls away and creates these straight cliffs and flat valleys. Plus, the view was simply amazing.

One of the things we saw on our way to Þingvellir was one site where they filmed The Wall in Game of Thrones. I believe the structure at the bottom is the remains from the filming of the gate into The Wall. Much of The Wall was CGI (like the massive height) but I can see why the show makers picked this site. 

Geysir Geothermal Area

The 2nd stop on our tour was at the Geysir geothermal area and I found it to be like a mini Yellowstone which we visited a few years ago. It had the familiar smell of sulphur and pools of hot water. It even had it's own version of Old Faithful called Strokkur which is not as big but you also don't have to wait as long to see it erupt again. Strokkur erupts every 8 minutes or so and you can get a good splash of water on you too if you stand close enough.

I thought it was interesting that the word "geyser" originates from the Icelandic word "geysir" which is the name of a single Geysir in this area. It is a little confusing because "geyser" is such a generic word for us but for Icelandic people, it means a particular geysir named Geysir!

After going through the geysir area, we stopped at the little cafe and souvenir shop to eat a small snack and did some window shopping. The kids got some drinks and candy while I had mushroom soup which was actually quite good considering it was in a pot in the buffet. We didn't have much time to do more than glance at a few items in the shop. The most common items were made of wool which I am allergic/sensitive to so it didn't really interest me anyway.

The top photo is the beginning of our walk through the geothermal area. Off to the right is Geysir and the bottom is Geysir up close. It wasn't active and hard to take photos with all the steam. 

Gullfoss Waterfall

Our first stop on our bus tour was the Gullfoss waterfall and it was pretty impressive! It was also very cold even in the middle (end?) of summer here. Most of the days were in the low 50F or around 10C but at the falls it seemed quite a bit colder. There was a small walk down to the falls and you could walk up right next to the impressive 105 foot or 32 meters drop. There was another path that went to a viewpoint above the falls but we didn't have time for that path.

When you first approach the falls it looks like it is falling into the middle of the earth! We tried to capture the beauty of the falls by camera but it was hard due to the mist generated by the falls. I uploaded a video that might be a better representation of the majesty of Gullfoss.

The top photo is the path walking to Gullfoss and you can see where the falls are by the cloud of mist directly ahead of us. The bottom photo is the path down to the falls where another road is. 

On our Way to Golden Circle

Yeah, so I am still behind on my posts but hopefully I will catch up at some point. I blame my husband who just bought a new camera for this trip and is taking 1000's of photos for me to sort through.

This is our third and last day in Iceland and it was not nearly enough time to do everything we wanted. I guess there is always next time! Today we all woke up at a reasonably normal time and barely made it out the door in time to find a place to eat breakfast/lunch. We didn't have time for our light breakfast in the early AM because today we all slept in!

Again we walked down the main shopping street (Laugavegur) and we ended up finding a little French bistro that served brunch. Sounded like a perfect solution to our late morning start! Both Fredrik and I had an "English Breakfast" with scrambled eggs, sausage (more like a mini hot dog), bacon, baked beans (how is that "English"?), Icelandic black pudding (yuck), tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, fresh fruit, and orange juice. It also came with a huge basket of pastries like croissants, pain au chocolate, bread, jam and butter. We ordered another basket of pastries for the kids and shared some of our meals with them. I am not sure we needed the extra basket of pastries though but the kids devoured the basket of goodies. My husband and I were quite pleased with the breakfast even if some of the items were questionable. There was plenty of food to fill us up!

Our "English" breakfast brunch which was quite delicious. It was a place called Le Bistro and I would definitely recommend it. 

Whale Watching in Iceland

Soon it was time to board our boat. It was a decent size boat and can hold 130 passengers but it didn't feel like there were that many people. However, most of the seating was taken so maybe there were at least 100 people on the boat? There was an area you could sit outside on the top and two levels inside where you could sit. We chose the middle level right above where it says "WHALE WATCHING" on the boat. There were some snacks and drinks that you could purchase but since we just ate lunch and brought our own, we had no need to purchase anything on the boat. We left the harbor and it took about 45 minutes to get to the spot where the whales were feeding. It was quite amazing!

Our boat Andrea and some little sailors.

Before Whale Watching

I got behind again on my blog posts. I am recalling this a week after we went on this tour. Hopefully, my memory is still good! I had to split up this day into two blog posts. So many photos!

Today we woke up at a decent time but since I slept a little after we got back from the Blue Lagoon yesterday, I went to bed very late. I was the last one to wake up but we were all out of the apartment by 10am. We had just enough time to walk down the main shopping street (Laugavegur) and do a little tourist window shopping while we tried to find a place to eat lunch. We settled on a little cafe that seemed to be busy and the menu looked attractive enough for all of us. I had a yummy green salad with freshly cooked chicken breast, the kids shared an order of fish and chips while Fredrik had a burger. It was pretty good and we were all pleased with the meals here.

TOP: We are walking down Lanugavegur and took a photo of a road where we could see the water. BOTTOM LEFT: Just strolling down Laungavegur. BOTTOM RIGHT: A typical tourist shop that we only did some window shopping.

Blue Lagoon Spa

This is the same day we arrived in Iceland but it feels like a new day because we napped. I made everyone wake up at about 2pm (7am our time) because I was determined to make it to the Blue Lagoon Spa today. We had a bus transfer scheduled for earlier in the day but I emailed to reschedule it for later but forgot that they wanted us to be there 30 mins before the scheduled time. I should have said the time to have the bus come get us and not the time I would be there. My fault but it was fixed as we caught the next bus and still made it to the spa on time.

We have arrived at the Blue Lagoon Spa! It is a man made lagoon which is a side effect of the geothermal power plant's run off and the water is renewed every day.

Arrived in Iceland

Well, today was pretty awesome all considering. We arrived on time in Keflavik (Iceland's airport), cleared customs, picked up our luggage and made it to our bus without any problems. We arrived around 7am Icelandic time or about 12am our time.

Keflavik Airport and a view from our bus on the way to our apartment.
It is about a 50 minute bus ride from the airport to downtown Reykjavik. 

Off to Iceland

I just was looking back at the last post here and I stopped in the middle of our trip to Oregon. I just ran out of steam posting I guess! So now ... here I am at 5:30am ... the only one awake and thinking ... what should I do? Hmm, maybe start blogging again? Yeah. That is a good idea. The only problem is that I usually do this at the same time I am going through my photos so I can remind myself what we have done. Well, Fredrik bought this new fancy camera and I don't know how to get the photos off of it yet. Hmmm ... bugger. Here goes nothing!

How far back should I go? Well, there was an exciting thing that happened on the way to the airport on Thursday July 30th. We left in plenty of time because the Blue Angels were scheduled to practice at the same exact time we would be driving to the airport. They close down one of the floating bridges so they can practice for the air show at Seafair this weekend. This causes traffic of course as all the bridge traffic gets redirected to the freeway we will be traveling on.

So, we are on the freeway and yes there are a lot of cars and it gets REALLY slow at the I-90 interchange. Expected. Well, as we are sitting there waiting in the sea of cars on the freeway ... all the sudden a tight formation of the Blue Angels appears right before us and zoom off to the east over the bridge. Unexpected! Good thing we were already at a standstill because if not, I might have ran into someone. Whew! Of course, there was no time to snap a photo!

There was nothing else really noteworthy on our plane ride. No one slept as usual. We forgot the melatonin at home even though my husband ran to the store late last night specifically to pick some up. I have a short video of the northern lights that displays at night in our airplane. That is pretty much all for today.

 

Seaside Day 5 - Tillamook

We decided to spend the day at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It is about an hour drive from our condo. We had lunch, did some shopping, did the tour and had some ice cream. I bought a scarf since it has been so cold and Fredrik bought a "Man Cave" sign. Oh and we bought some cheese too. More to come since this was just part of our day!

On the way down to Tillamook, we stopped at a viewpoint. 

Linnea wanted to take photos on this trip. They were interesting!

Linnea took a lot of photos and these were our silly faces. 

After lunch, Linnea the cow made an appearance.

Linnea driving the Loaf Bus.

Lots of cheese! Linnea took this photo of the big blocks of cheese (called fourties because they weight about 40 lbs) and they are on their way to be aged. 

Another Linnea photo of the assembly line. The big blocks of cheese are cut into smaller blocks and then wrapped up and ready to be shipped all over the country. 

Linnea took this photo of the vats they used to use to make cheese. They still make smaller handcrafted cheeses in these vats. 

After the tour, we went outside to eat our ice cream. It was quite cold even though the sun was out. 

Seaside Day 4

Today the weather was starting to improve and the sun was out most of the day. We went shopping for a new kite for Linnea and she picked a Griffin. We also decided to visit the Seaside Aquarium and just missed them feeding the seals. The kids (ok, mostly Linnea) played with the hermit crabs and then we ate lunch at Shilo Inn. We returned to the aquarium for the 3pm feeding and that was a lot of fun if not a bit wet. Then we spent more time at the beach flying Linnea's new kite and Davin kept on digging in the hole he started the day before. 

Family photo

Seaside Day 3

We had a lazy day today. The weather was pretty stormy and didn't look like it would be any fun out there. We played games, watched movies and just took it easy. I like these kind of days. At the end of the day, the sun came out just in time for the sunset and a double rainbow appeared. The kids also decided that they wanted to swim in the pool at night so they could experience the cool lights that change colors. 

Sunset

Seaside Day 2

Today the weather was not great but that didn't stop us from having fun. It was mostly cloudy and maybe 50 degrees out? With the wind, it felt a lot colder. The kids insisted on starting off the day in the pool. It was cold outside but the pool was nice and warm. I stayed in the condo and let Rebecca watch the kids at the pool. After lunch we headed out to the beach to fly some kites and build some sand castles. Turns out, Davin likes to dig big holes in the sand. We also found out later that there was a huge Velella (cousin to the jelly fish) die off and thousands were on the beach. It was quite bizarre but glad I found this article that explained it all. We ended the day eating burgers, buying candy and a trip to Funland which is the local video arcade. 

Kids in the pool with Rebecca watching

Seaside Day 1

We had a pretty good drive from our house to Seaside and it only took us about 5 hours. We stopped at Costco in Federal Way to eat lunch and then it rained, sun, more rain, more sun, rain again, etc. until we got to Seaside. We had a choice to wait for a better room when we checked in so we went to eat dinner at Pig N Pancake which ironically is the same thing we did when we were here two years ago! I like the decor in our condo much better this time around but the layout is exactly the same as the condo we had two years ago too. 

Rain, sun, rain, sun...

Friday at Stenegård & Thunderstorm

We weren't sure what to do today but all we knew is that we should stop by the tourist agency and ask them! I knew Vicki & Paul wanted to go for a hike in the woods but I thought it would be best to wait for them to arrive and have them ask since I didn't know exactly what they were looking for. We saw the same gal who came to evaluate our house and she gave them some great tips on hikes. One of the trails started at Stenegård and that worked for us since we weren't interested in joining them (Fredrik's foot is still sore to walk on) but we could wait and have the kids play until they were done.

The horse carriage ride.

House Cleaning Day & the E4

We didn't do much today but do some projects around the house (like the new blinds in the living room!) and clean the house in preparation of my friend and her husband to arrive. She lives near me back home and we met in a business networking group. Well, I was surprised to see she was planning on being in Sweden during the same time we were! They were visiting a friend who lives just south of Stockholm and they seemed to be up to the challenge of driving up to the Swedish countryside. They ran into a lot of construction which slowed them down so it took them a bit longer to arrive than they anticipated.

My friend Vicki and her husband Paul. I got to enjoy one of my bottles of wine that have been sitting here at the house since I got here. I don't like drinking alone. 

Jarvzoo Photos

It took me several days to find the time to sort through the hundreds of photos that Fredrik took at Jarvzoo. If I didn't mention it before ... this is a fairly unique zoo which has only animals that live in Sweden. It is a nice nature walk as well. I will have to find a way to share more photos later but for now ... there is this blog!

Wolves!

Jarvzoo & Tooth Fairy

So, today was the day we planned to visit Jarvzoo which is a small zoo located right here in town. It is fairly unique in that it only features animals that live in Sweden. It is also a bit of a nature walk since you walk through the forest on these wooden paths and view the animals in their natural habitats. I am not in the mood to go through our 300 photos that we took of all the animals but I will post them soon. We saw a lot of animals and if you go early then you can see them feed the animals (which helps make sure you see most animals).

Do you spot something missing?