Iceland day 9

We stopped at a grocery store to grab some breakfast and I snapped a picture of all this yarn because I have seen rows of yarn like this in most of the grocery stores in Iceland. Unfortunately I'm not much of a knitter, otherwise I might have gotten some. 

We did the "golden circle" today, which is the three main stops people visit in Iceland. Basically three places that are relatively close to Reykjavik. The first one as a national park, which I only have pictures of on my actual camera so I can't post them here. The second was Geysir. The Geysir to name all other geysers wasn't particularly active while we were there, but it's neighbor sure was: 

This is the original Geysir: 

Gull foss waterfall. This waterfall is giant. But even more giant are the crowds of people swarming to see it. After being so isolated during most of our Iceland journey we HATED all the crowds. Te waterfall was nice to see but we preferred having smaller waterfalls more to ourselves. 

On our way back to Reykjavik we stopped at this little waterfall. This is the actual color of the water. It was breathtaking to see in person. And we enjoyed the lack of crowds. 

We spent the next few hours in Reykjavik, but I forgot to take pictures. Our last stop was the Blue Lagoon. Yes it is full of tourists and yes it is overpriced, but man oh man was it fun! 

This is a horribly blurry picture (because of all the steam I think), but they had a drink bar that you could swim right up to. 

So mark enjoyed a cup of Krap at the blue lagoon (if you zoom in on the picture you can see that's what the drink is called). 

The sun started to set when we left (at around midnight). Perfect ending to our amazinf trip!

Iceland day 8

This morning we officially left the westfjords. But not before driving past at least one more fjord. 

We stopped at this little dairy farm called Erpsstadir. We had read that the ice cream there was amazing, and it was!! Mark had blueberry ice cream and I had chocolate banana.  Both were delicious. 

But the real treasure were these skyr-konfekts. 

The outer shell is a thin layer of white chocolate. 

And inside is homemade skyr (which is a sort of yogurty-cheese product that reminded me of cheesecake). Uh-maze-ing. 

Seriously. I had to send mark in to buy a pack of 6 more after we had each eaten one. They were that good. Here's a picture of the farm I snapped as we drive away:

Next we stopped in Stykkisholmur. It was a quaint coastal town. Part of the movie Walter Mitty was filmed here, but it was actually the part where they were supposedly in Greenland. 

The interior of the church there:

View of some houses from behind the church:

As we were driving from there to our next stop, Mark saw a sign for the shark museum and insisted we go. He has been so excited to try one of Iceland's delicacies: fermented shark. This was his chance. After explaining the process of shark fermentation, we were given the chance to try it. The shark meat is the little white cubes. There was also bred and schnapps you could try it with. We went for the bread. 

Mark with his sample of shark meat:

Look how happy he is!

He tastes it:

Not a fan. Seriously, he hated it. I ate mine with the bread, so I didn't hate it, but I wasn't about to eat another piece. 

We got to check out the shark meat drying station outside after we tried it. Basically they cut up the meat and leave it to ferment for a few months (during the winter, so it doesn't rot). Then they hang it to dry for some more months the shark meat is actually poisonous if you eat it without fermenting it first. Which leads me wondering how anyone even decided to try to ferment it. It used to be earn more back in the day, but now it is more of a delicacy. 

We stopped at a hot dog stand shortly after and Mark DEFINITELY preferred that to the shark meet. So did I. 

Next we visited Kirkjufell (the mountain) and kirkjufellsfoss (the waterfall). Mark set up his tripod in the "danger zone" to get the perfect picture. 

Our poor car took a real beating in the westfjords. Luckily Iceland has free ca washing stations at most gas stations. But until we stop for one, it sure makes it easy to spot our car!

Next we went to Snaefellsjokul national park. We LOVED it. It has a glacier, and volcano. I can't remember when, but the volcano erupted and left behind a beautiful lava field. On the coast are several beaches that cut into the black basalt rock, which made for some beautiful color combinations. 

Notice that the colors are the same as my outfit: blue, black and gray with a hint of cream. 

We went all the way to the edge of the peninsula because supposedly there is good whale watching there. But we did not find any whales. Just this brightly colored lighthouse. 

Then we went to the southern edge of the peninsula and found this bird cliff and sea arch:

After the national park, we drove to Budir to see this lovely little black church. Again, Iceland just gets me with its colors. 

Then we found a camping spot. We made dinner and ate at around midnight. Notice the sun is starting to set in the background. 

I think the sunsets must be more visible in the south, because we didn't see any in the westfjords or along the northern coast. But the colors were quite beautiful.