Iceland: Final thoughts

 Some notes about Iceland and our journey:

We are driving a small white SUV called a Dacia Duster. It has manual transmission and is one of hundreds of Dusters all over Iceland. It is not unusual for 7 out of 10 cars in a parking lot to be Dacia Dusters and the majority of those are white. Here is ours living up to her "duster" name!

The Duster has a scoring system called "Eco score". It gives you points, XX/100 depending on how you drive. It considers Acceleration, Anticipation and Gear Shifting. Of course for me this is a challenge. The best score we managed in a month was 83/100. Apparently we do not shift in the optimum manner.

Let's take a minute to talk about cold ❄️ toilet 🚽 seats. I have never lived where it is cold so this is new for me. I am NOT loving it! If I lived here you can be sure the toilet would be heated!!! This is not luxury, it is necessity!!! Brrrrr!!! 🥶 (Don't tell me to turn the heat on, the room temperature is fine...)

I would recommend Iceland to anyone who wants to experience nature at its finest. 

I should warn you, it is super expensive here. We have been buying groceries for our breakfast and lunch and then eating out only at dinner. Two burgers, one order of fries and a beer are about $75. A 12" pizza is $35. The only relatively cheap thing is Icelandic hotdogs (which are made of lamb and beef and are very tasty) which are around $6.50. They are shorter than a foot long but longer than a "standard " hot dog. No chilli but they have onions and other toppings available. We knew this $$$ going in but it is still shocking!

Vegetables are not available at restaurants. We are looking forward to getting home and having broccoli, green beans, etc. we have had some small lettuce/tomato salad. Potatoes/fries get old after a while. 🥦 

In general restaurants have pretty limited menus. What they do here is all very tasty - burgers, arctic char (fish), lamb, fish & chips, pizza. Here in Vik we tried Black Crust Pizza. Delicious 😋 

The weather. I really was scared we would end up getting rained on every day while we were here. I knew the temperature would be 45-63° F (7-17°C) the whole time. We were soooo lucky to have beautiful weather while here. We dealt with some high winds at the beginning and some rain in the last few days but overall it was good.

The driving here was challenging. You constantly had to watch for sheep 🐏, bike riders 🚲, crazy curves, one lane bridges, blind curves and hills, some dense fog and gravel. There were almost zero STOP signs, only Yield. I hope I remember how to stop when I get home. 

Language challenges: long, complicated names you can neither pronounce nor remember. The great news is everyone speaks English. 

Things I lost: I lost one hair tie. This is actually not too bad, I brought three with me. I lost my sunglasses 😎 with lanyard. No idea. On the glacier tour I noticed that there were five pair of sunglasses in the drink holder. I asked and sure enough, they all had been left behind. AJ was kind enough to let me have a pair. We left a shampoo behind somewhere.

We went to twelve thermal baths. This is one part of Icelandic culture we fully embraced! The best ones were not always the most expensive. We kept our bathing suits and quick-dry towels in the car at all times, you never know when you will see the hot pot sign.

As far as drinking and driving: you don't! Iceland has a zero tolerance policy. Also, alcohol is very expensive and only available at the state monopoly stores called Vinbudn. To save the 24% tax on wine and beer, we shopped at the airport duty free shop upon arrival. Never bought that much at the airport duty free, ever. However, for our 4 week trip it made sense.

Also interesting is the small variety of wild animals. We definitely did not have to worry about bears, wolves, snakes, moose or other critters.  There are some arctic foxes and reindeer. However, we saw neither. We did see an awesome variety of birds. If you are considering a trip to Iceland, bring your binoculars.

Among some interesting new learnings: Iceland experienced a mini ice age starting 600 years ago. The glaciers actually progressed/grew and pushed farmers off their land as late as the 1800's. How crazy is that?!? Since then, the acceleration in the rate at which they are receding is alarming.

In the end Iceland has been incredible! We have enjoyed going all the way around and experiencing all nature has to offer.

That's all,

Sheri and Carsten