The Conclusion

Sigh. Avoidance is a coping mechanism, right? But it doesn't fix anything. It just delays the inevitable. The inevitable being that this dream came true, but now is over. It was one month ago today that we returned from our trip. One month ago at this moment we were checking into our hotel in Boston before flying home the next day. And now it is the last day of the year.

Our last day in Iceland was as special and magical as every other day that we were there. We had been invited to spend the afternoon at the Blue Lagoon, including a floating massage for this tired mama and dinner for us all at LAVA after having a long soak in the water.

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures while in the water (you do not want to drop your camera or phone in that water), but just trust me on this: It was fantastic. Warm water, steam, a waterfall. My floating massage was unforgettable. I can't think of anywhere else where you can get a massage in warm water while hail and snow pelt your face. We were so well taken care of by Edda and Omar, who were so incredibly sweet and nice. Omar even brought his little girl in to meet us before he left for the night. They had closed off an entire changing area just for us, and had candles lit and towels, robes, and shoes for us. And there was more cake (!), as well as fruit, tea, and chocolates. I can't get over how great they were us. It was so, so special. We saw a helicopter there, which we found out later was Jay Z and Beyonce. I can't imagine that they got better treatment than we did, because we were treated like royalty.

Driving out to the Blue Lagoon. This is about 1:30 in the afternoon.

Pull over to take a picture, turn around to see a cave!

Make sure you wash all your parts before going in! All your parts. All. Your. Parts.

Kevin took these two photos from inside the restaurant, so sorry about the refection in the window.

The wonderful, sweet, and beautiful Edda who invited us to this incredible day at the Blue Lagoon.

And, well, that's it. I hope that you enjoyed coming along on our trip with us. I can't believe we went. I can't believe it happened. We had done a lot of reading about Iceland and have been drawn to the country for a long time. But being there was just as awesome as we thought it would be, yet even better too. Even though the Make a Wish thing was a disaster, it actually was a blessing, a huge blessing. 

This whole wish came true because of the kindness of people all over the world who were touched by the story of our girl. Love and kindness made this dream possible. We met people and had experiences that we might not have had otherwise. We have made new friends in Iceland who we hope to visit again as soon as possible. 

Thank you all for believing that a wish can come true.

Winding Down

Well, my darlings, 'tis the season — the season for getting caught up in doing other things and neglecting your blog followers. I am so sorry! You know how it is. There's school and work and laundry and vacuuming and preparing for Christmas. Corbin had an orchestra concert Monday night (he plays violin, for those who don't know). Now that he's in high school we have to make sure the whole tuxedo is ready, shoes clean, then scarf down dinner and run out to the school.

We aren't the type that make a zillion Christmas cookies and decorate every room in the house. We also only have a few people to buy gifts for so it hasn't been too ridiculous, but we missed Thanksgiving and by the time we got back, Christmas preparation was underway. I'm going to do a separate post on our Christmas decorations because we bought a few things while in Iceland and we have adopted the tradition of having loads of candles (even more than we usually have).

So, by this point in our trip, we were on our last few days. We left a some days with nothing pressing to do, which ended up being a good thing. After such a mild November, on Sunday, November 30, Iceland was hit by the first of a series of big storms (which are still ongoing!). We took the time to drive around a bit, look at houses, and we had to go see the Christmas goat outside Ikea. The 6-meter-tall goat has been placed in front of their Ikea since 1966, but it has not always stood long enough to see Christmas due to, umm, fire and, not surprisingly, wind. So we figured we had better get a photo while it was still there!

Here is something that you can file under "only in Iceland": As we were driving out of the city, I got a text from Snorri, the manager at our hotel. 

"Looks like you're not staying in. You just passed us on the road out of town. Enjoy."

I figured it was our gigantic Yukon XL that gave us way.

"Mostly the careful driving of Papa Fierce. A local in that car would go 120/hour and never indicate."

Things like this made me deliriously happy that we were being looked out for. I love that about these people. Love them, love them, love them.

We drove out to Kjalarnes. We had seen photos of this pretty little church and wanted to see it in person. It is very close to the water, as you can see, and by this point, the wind was incredible. Close to 50+ mph and spitting rain. So we took these shots from inside the car!

Because of the crazy weather and the prediction that it would get worse, we went to the grocery store so we wouldn't have to venture out for dinner. Plus we were out of Appelsín. And Malt og Appelsín. And we needed more skyr (pear was my favorite) and licorice and chocolate.

So Kevin made us omelets and we sat in our living room and listened to the wind howl around us. 

Because our room was exposed on three sides, we really were in the midst of it. The pictures below are taken from each of our decks.

On Monday morning we found out that the wind had taken down the national Christmas tree, a gift from Norway for the past 50 years. There is now an Icelandic Christmas tree standing in Austurvöllur Square for the first time in half a century. Here they are taking the poor, broken Norwegian down.

 

We spent the rest of Monday just taking one last walk around town and taking pictures of things we wanted to remember.

 We met up with some friends again, this time at Stofan. We could have stayed there all day, it was so cozy and the company was wonderful.

But we had to leave and meet Rakel from the Hotel Borg. She had offered to have us stay at the Hotel Borg for this last part of our trip, but we ended up staying at the Kvosin Hotel since we changed plans and came back to Reykjavik a night early. Rakel had prepared a very nice bag of gifts for our family, including a little box with a piece of Eyjafjallajökull in it! 

 Even though we didn't stay at the Hotel Borg, which is absolutely gorgeous, they very kindly bought us dinner that night at Nora Magasin, which is right next door. You'll remember that this was where we had our first dinner on our very first night in Iceland. They had decorated for Christmas while we were away.

Well, maybe part of my delay in keeping this blog updated is that we are nearly at the end of our trip here. If I'm done posting and reliving the trip, then I have to face that the trip really is over. Sigh.

Up next: Our last day in Iceland and our visit to the Blue Lagoon.

Ahem. (clears throat)

"Oooh. My. God. OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod. Look at that! What is that? Pull over! Did you see that? Turn around! Take a picture! I want to pet those mossy rocks!"

That's pretty much me in the car. This was a looong day because we started out in the dark and drove nearly 4 hours one way to go see Jökulsárlón, a glacier lagoon that flows right out into the sea. The day also started out with Pippa throwing up. I figure she can throw up in the car as well as she can at the house, plus these things pass quickly with her. So we put her in the car with a bunch of towels and off we went. Within a couple hours, she was suddenly perfectly fine, just like that. So I'm awfully glad we went on with our long drive because it was beautiful. It was worth every kilometer past mountains and more waterfalls and this beautiful shelter built into the entrance of a cave, which are unique to this part of Iceland. Say that word out loud: Rútshellir. Ding! Sounds to me like root cellar.

To give some perspective to those of you who live in more densely populated areas: This is One. We laughed at our Garmin GPS, whom I named Hildy, because as we were driving along, she would occasionally awaken to say, "Continue…on……One." As if there was anywhere else to go. One is The Ring Road, the road that goes all the way around Iceland. It's the major "highway," at least as you might compare it to one of our major interstates, like I-70 or I-95. And here's Kevin taking a picture from the middle of it on a Friday morning.

It's fuzzy like a kitten!

See those blue bits coming between the mountains. It's part of the glacier.

And we drove and we drove and we drove, and suddenly there was this. Jökulsárlón. Gorgeous. The colors and striations in the ice were amazing in their variety. Some of the ice is translucent, some transparent, other parts were totally opaque, but all seemed to glow from within. Look at the colors. (I need to remind you here to click on the photos to make them bigger.)

We are so lucky to have seen this in person. It's hard to take it in, to look around know that we were watching parts of a glacier float out to the ocean. It was just beyond anything any of us had ever seen.

We had our fish soup by the lagoon and drove back to the house. "Zzzzzzzz" is what I said on that part of the drive. Oh, and we listened to the radio. Bon Iver comes on after Lady Gaga. And then an Icelandic version of "Islands in the Stream." Wow.