Last Christmas, my sister asked me if I would be interested in accompanying her and our mother on a 60-day trip to Europe as part of her big graduation celebration. The planning began in mid-January, and I ended up being the primary researcher as Kathleen was busy with her last semester in college. She had several stipulations around which I had to plan our itinerary, including a stop in Germany in late June and as many AirBnB accommodations as possible. For five months I researched relentlessly and came up with a plan that would maximize our travel budget while not strapping us into a strict minute-by-minute schedule.

It all started with Justin and I hitting the road at 2am on a Wednesday morning, headed to Colorado to watch Kathleen graduate from college. We spent a few days there with some friends and family, burning burgers and sporting sunburns, and then the big day arrived: our parents officially became parents of three college graduates. (Only two more to go!)

She was anxious to fly out the same night she graduated in order to maximize her time off before her first assignment, which was a little bittersweet for me; this was the first time in a while that we’d gotten the whole family together. Plus it was really hard to leave this guy behind for two months:

But after a party full of amazing Chamorro food and a whirlwind packing session, we were on the road back to Denver, about to embark on a trip of a lifetime. It started out with a red-eye, because that’s Kathleen’s style.

Yes, when you put me on a red-eye flight to Boston, I shame you by posting pictures of you sleeping on the floor of the Denver airport. That’s my style.

We had a full day in Boston, during which my friend Stephanie gave us a grand sightseeing tour, patiently explained the subway to us, and politely did not comment on our constant yawning. The true tragedy is that we didn’t have enough time for Boston, but that’s okay because Justin wants to go for longer than a day.

Then it was time to break out the passports. We were flying IcelandAir and using their stopover program, wherein if you book through them, you can “layover” in Iceland for up to seven days without having to book a separate ticket to continue on to your destination. In our case, flying from Logan International to London Heathrow meant we were able to stopover in Iceland.

As an added bonus, IcelandAir flights are pretty luxurious. There were several free movies and TV shows available, Icelandic Glacial water was handed out as you boarded the plane, and each seat came with a pillow and blanket. You could even book your Flybus ticket right there on the plane. (Flybus tickets are necessary, since the airport in Keflavik is about 30 minutes outside of Reykjavik… Unless you know someone who can pick you up, of course!)

Yes, that’s a picture of us on the Flybus, and yes, I really was this excited to be on a bus in Iceland. This picture was taken just after midnight, and I know it looks like it’s dark outside, but…

This was our view to the north! At midnight! In Iceland! That’s right — we traded the ability to see the Northern Lights (only visible from September to April) for the midnight sun! It really threw us off, especially with the late landing, and we didn’t go to bed until 3am.

We forgot to set alarms for the next morning — I think? Actually I think Kathleen hit snooze on hers and I just slept right through it, and we woke up just before noon which was disorienting and upsetting. It’s not exactly how you want to kick off your first full day of your two-month trip across Europe, but we forged on.

It was Sunday, so we went to church.

Well okay, we didn’t *go* to church since we got our wires crossed and slept in until noon, but our first stop in Reykjavik was Hallgrímskirkja, the distinctive center of the city. For just 600 ISK, we were able to go to the top of the tower (in an elevator! such luxury we would never know again!) and get a panoramic view of the city.

Possibly the hardest part of touring Iceland was getting used to the currency — it’s unnerving to pay hundreds of anything for a cup of coffee or a pastry! But in this case, we paid about $5 USD to get to the top of the tower, and as I said, it was totally worth it for the elevator ride alone.

Also worth it? The view.

I honestly wanted more time in Reykjavik just to walk down streets and stare at the buildings. I marveled constantly at the stark architecture, the flat facades and the uniform windows, which contrasted with the colorful roofs and paint finishes. Everything in Iceland is built to withstand the extreme climate, and I think there’s beauty in that.

We got coffee at Reykjavik Roasters and then we broke out the maps. We pretty much looked like this for about five days, but I’ll revisit that when I do my post on England.

Then we wandered around the city by bus, trying to hit the interesting attractions as best we could.

The great advantage to Iceland is that it’s very tourist friendly, especially to English speakers. Nearly every restaurant, shop, and road sign had English translations, so in all it was pretty easy to get around. The only thing that had no English translations was the bus system… so we got on the wrong bus a couple of times.

I took this picture of the bus schedule for reference, and it’s pretty funny in hindsight that we struggled with this so much. We also had some memorable moments on the bus, including a rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “I Really Like You” sung at the top of the lungs of several teenage boys.

This was taken from Saebraut looking north. It was very windy but that didn’t stop some Icelandic people from jogging along here in shorts and tank tops.

The Sun Voyager is a sculpture located in Saebraut. It’s an ode to the sun, a tribute to voyages and explorers.

And for a long time, we just walked along the bay, enjoying the bracing wind and the bustle of the city.

It was a good way to both adjust to the time change and to immerse ourselves in Icelandic culture, as we ate at a local pub and then headed back to the shared AirBNB, where Mum went on to try to be a matchmaker (“Oh! My daughter just graduated from college and she’s single!!!” … okay it wasn’t that obvious, but it felt like it to us) and we planned our next day’s adventures.

Can’t really beat that sunset.

The next day, we decided to rent a car on a whim to drive out to some places along the southern coast that I had found during my months of research. We hit the road, got very lost for about an hour and a half, then found our way back to Reykjavik and started over again in the right direction.

It was all worth it when we got to Skógafoss.

Fun linguistic fact: “foss” is the Icelandic word for “waterfall.” We figured that out pretty quickly… and it will come up again in one of my England posts!

In the pictures above, you can see the viewing deck at the very top right of the fall. Have I mentioned my crippling fear of heights? Well I have one, but I wasn’t gonna let that stop me from an amazing view.

STAIRS. So many stairs in Europe. I’m already missing that elevator at Hallgrímskirkja. This is why I came home with monstrous calves.

You can’t see my white knuckles in this selfie, but trust that they’re there.

The top of the fall looking down, as well as the stacked rock phenomenon that we encountered all over Iceland.

This is the view to the south from the viewing deck. You can see the river winding out to the sea along with the little restaurant where we’d eaten lunch (the one with the red roof). The green field to the left was full of sheep, which was our first experience being so close to them, but definitely not our last. You can also see our car, because it’s parked out there, but I couldn’t tell you which one it is now.

If you climb over the fence at the top of the waterfall and continue walking along the river, you are walking along Waterfall Alley.

I sat here and played “On Top of the World” in its entirety. Lame? Yes. Worth it? Totally.

It’s crazy that we chose Skógafoss on pretty much a whim, and ever since we got back from our trip, I’ve realized that it’s become a sort of destination for people going to Iceland. It’s definitely an attraction I want to experience a second time, and I would also like to do a true hike along Waterfall Alley.

Our next stop was Vik, a beach with black sand. It was cold and windy, but harsh and beautiful. Up to that point, that was the coldest five minutes of my life.

After we couldn’t bear it anymore, we headed into the gift shop and I snapped a picture of this guy:

We found out the following day, about half of the population of Iceland believes in “hidden people,” as in elves and trolls.

We drove by several such waterfalls and we pulled over to take pictures of a few of them, this one was at least a mile back from the road and those power pole should give some concept of just how tall this cliff is.

My travel companions conked out on me on the ride back to Reykjavik, but that was fine — just look at this sunset. And by “sunset,” of course, I mean… look at the sun getting kinda low in the sky.

Our last full day in Iceland was dedicated to a bus tour. Here’s my first big piece of advice: Don’t be too proud to do bus tours. Kathleen especially was pretty sensitive to “doing touristy things” but there were times that I was adamant about being tourists. I didn’t want to miss out on fundamental attractions just because we were too focused on finding off-the-beaten-path attractions. In this case, I’m very glad that I campaigned so hard for a bus tour, and I would do this one again in a heartbeat.

That morning our AirBnB was at capacity, which meant around 15 people were waiting to use two bathrooms (and only one of them had a shower). That plus our ongoing battle with the bus routes made us almost late for our Golden Circle tour, but we made it just in time.

We lucked out on our tour. There were only about 20 of us total, which meant everyone could have a window seat. Our tour guide was enthusiastic and full of knowledge of the history of Iceland as well as the folklore (which is how we found out about the hidden people).

We learned about their innovations in energy conservation and how they use the geothermal areas to heat their homes and provide power. This is also when I learned, a day after driving around Iceland, that it’s actually quite dangerous on the roads, especially on the steeper inclines.

It was crazy how much the cloud cover could dramatically change the feeling of the landscape, too. When the clouds blew away, the sky was a stunning deep blue, but when they’re present, they reflect the low sunlight and give everything a stark glow.

This was one of the warmest stops on the entire tour, probably because there was very little wind.

This is the lake at þingvellir (pronounced “Thingvellir”) National Park, where the tectonic plates are moving apart at a rate of a few centimeters per year. The lake really is that blue, and it stretches on for miles and miles.

You can see in the pictures above that the pathways lead us right into the ridges between the tectonic plates, it was surreal and amazing.

þingvellir was a center of culture, where the old Icelandic leaders would meet to make decisions on treaties and alliances, and where thousands of people gathered to celebrate Iceland’s independence from Denmark in 1944.

From þingvellir we went to the main attraction: Gullfoss. It’s the most popular waterfall in Iceland, and it’s gorgeous.

As you can see, you can walk all the way out to the edge, but even standing far up on the cliff, we were getting misted by the falls. Combined with the gusts of wind, we were the coldest we had ever been.

Those are the faces of two very cold but thrilled ladies. Seriously, it was beautiful and totally worth the trip and the cold.

The last stop on the Golden Circle tour was the Stokkur geyser, which erupts every 4-5 minutes.

There’s not a lot to say about how fun this one was, it was a relatively quick stop for how iconic it is, and if we weren’t on a bus tour, I might have spent more time exploring the area.

Our last top was a very informative stop at an ancient church in the middle of nowhere. I retained very little from this stop, and this starting my trip-long disinterest in churches, ruins, and graveyards besides their architectural attraction and the way they represent their respective eras. My travel companions, on the other hand, purchased heritage passes in the UK to explore abbeys and ruins, so you could say we have some opposing traveling habits! But I’ll get to that in another post.

We had plans to go to the Blue Lagoon the next day before our flight to England, but those were nixed so it’s on my list of things to do when I take Justin to Iceland. They have a great program where they do shuttles to the airport and keep your luggage locked up, so it would’ve worked out great for us, but it just wasn’t in the cards this time.

I bought these socks in the Vik gift shop out of necessity, as I didn’t bring any socks tall enough for my hiking boots and they ended up rubbing my ankles raw. This started my sock collection, I bought at least one pair in each country we visited, all of them tall enough to wear with my boots! And once again — you can’t beat that sunset.

I highly recommend Iceland! All of my friends have asked me “which was your favorite country?” and while that’s an impossible question to answer, I’ve been using the opportunity to tell people about the stopover program. It’s truly worth it if you’re flying into one of the big cities in Europe.