The Puffin Made Me Do It

Hi! For those of you who don't understand Icelandic, I just said hi! For those of you are wondering why I am welcoming you to this blog post in Icelandic it is because I am currently in Iceland! Woop! First of all who ever said Iceland was green and Greenland was ice clearly never visited Iceland in the winter.

Leo just chuckled to himself and said he still can't get over how expensive it is here. More on that later!

Christmas for us last year( am I the only one who thinks last year sounds weird still?) was a good quiet holiday. Thankfully we didn't have to spend it at Leo's work again. We both had the day off and we loved every minute of it! Leo got a Fleecy jacket, a belt, a soldering iron, and a drone. He loves all his gifts and had decided before he had flied his Christmas drone that he wanted a racing drone and that I could have his Christmas drone…mister big britches. The battery for the drone wasn't in the packaging for some dumb reason and so he had to wait about 3 weeks after Christmas before he could fly it. When it finally did come was so excited he was singing "Let if fly, let it fly!". He got me an sd card reader for my ipad, a bridle, and some horse boots. It was all stuff that I have wanted but never been able to get. We spent the afternoon with his grandparents and then came home  to talk to my wacko family. It was goods to see everyone and talk to Kelc for a bit. Then we watched The Christmas Story. Leo had never seen it but loved it, but how could you not?

New years we didn't do much and were in bed by 10:30. Don't ya just love sleep? :)

We found out last week that Barbara has vulvar melanoma. It is a rare type of cancer but so far they aren't doing anything to treat it because she has so many other health issues. Once she is a bit healthier they plan on doing some treatments for her. Because she is in so much pain they give her plenty of meds and she was a little loopy when we visited her last time. The things that lady said are not decent to repeat here on this post :)

We left for Iceland Monday. This is a first for both of us and so far we are really enjoying it. That night, after loosing our marbles on the plane, we agreed to take an over priced taxi ride to our hotel. Luckily we had misplaced them in our bags and definitely won't be making the same mistake going home. Shortly after arriving we left to see the northern lights. We eventually did see them and Leo took some really great pictures. In pictures they are a lot more green than they are in person. In person they are more a whitish green color. We really lucked out and we saw them dancing and swirling in the sky and even change colors. Leo was so cold that his hands were sticking to his tripod and he finally believed me that tongues would stick to frozen metal poles. No testing needed (thankfully because there were no fire fighters nearby to help if he had tested). We got back to our hotel freezing and tired and finally at 2 am crawled into bed and slept for six hours.

After a strange breakfast (who eats fish soup stuff for their first meal of the day?) we were off to our first tour of the day down a lava pit! For those of you who don't know, Iceland has lots of volcanic activity going on and when some of these volcanoes erupted the top cooled but the inside was still hot and flowed away leaving lava tunnels/pits. We got to go in one and it was super duper neat!  A bit tight in places but not to bad overall. Leo's favorite part was when it got too narrow to crawl with a backpack so he rolled through it. He said it felt like a nice hard message. On our way back to the city we stopped at some fish drying farms? Or something. Leo loved and and wished we could have spent more time there! I was so excited about it I had to hold him back from contaminating the fish with is overly salivating jowls.

Once back in Reykjavik, and after a quick shop, we headed back on a bus and wards to the golden circle tour. I slept most of the time we were driving. We saw where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates are diverging, the Golden Waterfall, and a geyser that erupts about every 6 minutes. Where the plates are drifting apart is where Iceland's first democratic system was set in place. I never knew Vikings were the first people to put into place a democratic system into place. Leo loved the geyser because he had never seen anything like it before. The most exciting thing they have here in Ireland are some peat bogs and leprechauns. Believe me, you see enough short people walking around that leprechauns aren't that exciting after 30 mins or so and bogs don't really do anything neat. But put them together and get short bog people eh eh?! Now that might be exciting. Dang it Shayli! Where are you when I need you!? After that fun filled day, my lovely huh huh, his words not mine, and I then enjoyed a much needed nights rest.

Wednesday was a very chilled day we had a short adventure through the town before I had to come home because I wasn't feeling well. After resting up, we ventured back into the cold and explored a bit of the city. Eventually we got something to eat and it was even Italian! For an island that is frozen a good bit of the year they sure do have more variety than in Ireland! Leo of course got pizza and said it was better, only slightly, than his all time favorite pizza place in Ards. Afterwards I became the first North American to find Leif Ericson ;)

Our last day we spent a good portion of the day walking around the shopping street and just taking in the sights. Some of the pubs had funny signs and Leo said that the pubs there made Irish pubs look boring. 

Then, after running from statue to statue in Reykjavik, we met up for a free tour of the city. If you are ever in Reykjavik I would suggest going on the tour. It would have been really great to know his suggestions on where to go and such around the city before our last day there but now we know for next time. Now we know! We ended our day with a famous hot dog (from the stand Bill Clinton got his hot dog) and a bite to eat from a pub. Then as the tour guide suggests, I spent the last of our money on some skyr. Our guide said it was like yogurt and cheese and that he had heard it was similar to greek yogurt. I really wonder what their cheese is like because that stuff wasn't like any cheese I had ever eaten. Clay, do Icelanders know what cheese is? Maybe that's where your cheese fetish started. Two years without any cheese and I think I'd be right there with you.

Iceland is a pretty cool place, I'm so punny. We have been told that 97% of the energy used comes from geothermal sources. Iceland is pretty much a giant hotspot and almost all the houses and buildings are heated via the heat in the ground. 2/3 of the islands population lives here in Reykjavik and the rest live in villages and towns along the coast. No one lives in the anterior of the island. They call it a desert and say virtually nothing lives or grows out there. 

Overall it was a super fun honeymoon/anniversary 1/anniversary 2 :) To see all the pictures please click here. We are both bummed that we have to go back to our jobs and continue on keepin on. Leo is all out of time off and so there will be no fun trips for us in the immediate future but that's ok because we have plenty that needs paid and saved for. No updates on green card status as of yet and it sounds like everyone is doing well back home. My dad, Monsieur Cul-de-Sac, got back from another Asian meeting excursion and my lovely Madre is celebrating her birthday by being the ice queen on skates. Happy happy birthday mother dear! Ta ta ya'll, ta ta.