Iceland, Day 1

A sleep schedule would be nice. The last month has been spent with ridiculously early mornings to catch some of the first flights out of the airports and as much as I’m loving this trip, I cannot wait to come home and get sleep on a regular basis. We got up before 0230 in order to get everything together and check out of the hostel before grabbed an Uber (half the price of a taxi) to the London Heathrow airport. What was supposed to be just over an hour long drive took just over 45 minutes. We got to the airport so early bag drop hasn’t started for the airport yet, but we were able to weigh and get the tags for the bags ahead of time so when it does open we’re ready to go. Once the bag drop opened, it took us less than 2 minutes to get the bags set and ready to go. Technically our bag drop for our flight didn’t open for another hour, but due to the recent chaos that’s been happening at airports around the world, they took any bags for any flight immediately. Security was also super quick, less than 5 minutes from start of the line to grabbing the stuff from the bins at the end of security. We sat around and waited for our gate to be posted. We had breakfast at a restaurant in the airport (no, they aren’t as expensive as the ones in the states are. They aren’t too badly priced) and then took turns walking around a little. Once the gate was posted, we headed straight over. We got priority boarding only because we checked another bag. They said the flight was at capacity and that if anyone wanted to check luggage at no cost that we should just come forward and then we get priority boarding. We went ahead and checked one of my other carry ons and boarded the plane almost right away. Plane went off early and we landed early, which was nice. Once we got in, we went through boarder control and then grabbed our bags. We got to the rental car area and we got a free upgrade. Since Blue Lagoon entry didn’t start for several hours, we headed up to Reykjavik to get our shopping needs out of the way. We stopped at several small shops and just about finished up what we needed. Then we headed straight to the Blue Lagoon, where we had our luxury spa day. We started off with a small tour of the place, and then we were introduced into our private changing room. We prepared ourselves (there’s a whole process to go through before you can enjoy the geothermal springs) and then went to the main lagoon. Pictures aren’t allowed in the private lagoon, so we went to the main lagoon to get our pictures and our free drink before heading back to the private. We grabbed a small snack (we hadn’t eaten in almost 12 hours by then) and then we enjoyed our private lagoon swim time. After enjoying the hot springs (I refused to go into the cold ones), we did our “Ritual” which was a whole process of salt scrub, algae face mask, and silica face masks to end our time in the lagoon. We went back to the private changing room and showered completely, including our hair (which was very unhappy with us, despite the absurd amount of conditioner we had put in it throughout our time in the water). We changed and went down to the gift shop (which has no actual “blue lagoon” logo clothes, so I’m unsure where people seem to be getting them cause I wanted one). After shopping, I put all of the stuff into the car before heading to the LAVA restaurant for an Icelandic cuisine dinner. The beef and lamb was delicious and was truly a great experience. I would go back to the Blue Lagoon in a heartbeat. After all that, we finally headed to our hotel (3 min drive from the lagoon) and checked in. We got all settled in for the night. Unfortunately northern lights are not likely throughout our time here, which just means I will come back in the winter (yes, I know I hate the cold, but it’s worth it with everything to do). Tomorrow is our day trip around south Iceland and I’m hoping it’s a good day to see everything!