To the Land of Ice

Hey guys, guess what? Ray and I are at it again. This time we just touched down in Iceland. It is 6:20am local time and its still very dark outside.  It's also a wee bit rainy, making it quite hard to see anything out the windows of the bus.  We flew over here on WOW Air, you know, the one and only bright pink planes.  I must admit that I totally loved flying in a pink plane.  The flight was about 8 hours, plus an additional 1 hour delay once on the plane, but overall it wasn't all that bad.  There must be something about flying when I know that I am going somewhere far. Usually I complain on flights that are only 2-3 hours.  But for whatever reason, the longer flights do not seem to bother me.  Or maybe I'm just too excited about where we are going that it makes up for it.  

The Keflavik International Airport was quite cool, felt a bit like walking through an REI, with lots of wood and wooly, warm sweaters. Also, I must take a minute to comment on the bathrooms, since I have never seen a bathroom so nice in an airport, ever.  They didn't look like much at first glance, but when you walk into the "stall" you realize that every one is a full on room, with tons of space and a sink equipped with soap and water, of course, and to top it off, hand dryers.  Oddly enough, the soap, water and dryer was all in one. There was also a crazy looking bird to greet you when you entered which made me laugh.  Currently, we are on a bus driving into Reykjavik, which is about an hour drive from the international airport.  Thank goodness for wifi on the bus! It is so windy that the moonroof on the bus keeps popping open, making a jarring, crashing noise, followed by the driver having to pull over and stop in order to slam it shut again.  

In preparation for this trip, many people asked "Why Iceland?" To which I answered (and always answer when anyone ever asks why I am going to any place) "Why not?" Unfortunately, this will be our shortest trip to date, due to lack of time off from work, but we're going to make every moment count.   Being that we had limited time, we knew we needed to pick a place that was secluded, in the sense that it wouldn't be an easy drive to somewhere else once we arrived. Iceland is an island so no easy car ride to another place, check! Because you all know, that if we are in one place that is near another place, we'll go there.  Being on an island would limit our wandering behavior.  We also wanted a place that we wouldn't spend days getting to and from like Australia or New Zealand.  Although, those places on on the list, it just wasn't feasible for this trip.  Originally, we thought Cuba would be our destination, but with the whole  Zika craze, we figured we'd skip it this time. Iceland just seemed to fit all of our criteria! 

Next, I like to take a moment to discuss what I am most looking forward to, like we usually do at the beginning of every trip we take.  Its hard to narrow it down since I am super excited about pretty much everything, but here goes.  First, I am really looking forward to spending some time in Vik.  It is a small town about 2- 2 1/2 hours from Reykjavik (at least I think so being that we haven't driven it yet) and it is known for being a black sand beach. I do not have black sand in my collection yet, so this is a necessity! It also has large, basalt columns like we saw when we were in Northern Ireland at the Giant's Causeway. Super cool if you ask me!! Second, I am spending some time this trip meeting up with some OTs here.  I will be meeting and visiting some people at a mental health clinic, a primary school, one of the local hospitals and even taking a trip up to the northern coast to meet with some faculty and students at the University of Akureyri, which is the only university that offers occupational therapy studies.   I am so stoked to see what the practice of OT is all about here! OT for Life!!  Thirdly, I am super excited to go scuba diving in the Silfra fissure, the channel between the North American and Eurasian continental plates.  The water is cold, to put it lightly, so dry suits are required.  This will be my first time diving with a dry suit. Typically, I prefer warm water diving where wetsuits are optional, but this is  definitely a bucket list item! Lastly, I can not wait to see the Aurora Borealis.  I was fortunate enough to get to watch some live streams over the past few months, but seeing them in person will be a whole different game.  Some people could actually see them from the plane at one point, but we happened to be on the wrong side so we didn't see them. Fingers crossed we get to see them, and hopefully see them a few times.  

Ok, I take back my previous comment about it not being cold.  We just had to switch buses and now its cold. A whopping 45 degrees......Brrr! Just a small change from the 90 degree weather we left in LA.  Off to pick up the car and spend the day in putting around Reykjavik. It's definitely nice to be back traveling and blogging again.