For my tenth birthday, I received an amazing present – we were going to Iceland! I was overjoyed because it is such a cool country. We packed our bags and flew there with extremely high spirits and smiles on our faces.
When we came, it was crazy cold. We were ready, though, and we had our super-warm clothes on to protect us. Even though it was around 3:00 PM, it was already dark. Why? Because it is on the top of the world! We rented a car (the dealership gave free hot chocolate!!!), drove to our house (very modern and great view), dropped our stuff (unpacked), and went into the city (Reykjavik).
The first amazing of Iceland that we saw was the Hallgrimskirkja (Hallgrimur’s Church) which is an amazing, humongous, beautiful, cool, 250-foot-tall church. When we went inside, we were greeted by beautiful organ music, beautiful stain-glass windows, and candles. We lit a few candles, because who doesn’t like to light candles? We stayed there for a while, decided not to go up the bell tower, and came out.
Outside the church, we came to a statue of the legendary Leif Eriksson, the Viking who is now widely believed to have been the first person to discover the American continent, beating Columbus by five centuries (get rekd Columbus!) which is what I tell everyone. This guy, to me, is the real deal! After taking a few – wait, who am I kidding; a lot – pictures, we headed out into the actual city.
We walked around for a while. It was all decorated and cheerful and beautiful. Eventually, at around 4:00 PM, we went to have dinner and came to a place that we would return to at the end of the trip. The food was really good, especially the reindeer soup (gasp!) which was absolutely amazing. The food was hot, and it warmed us up quite a bit. We headed out with bellies full and spirits high, and ended the day with a smile.
We woke up at 10:00 AM, ready to start a day full of adventure. We decided that the first place we would go to was Geyser Place (a nickname that I invented). We came there just in time to see something magical – a geyser erupting! The geyser is called Strokkur and erupts around every 7 minutes. There is another one called Geysir, and the word Geyser would not exist without Geysir. It erupts not very often, and we didn’t want to wait that long, so we watched Strokkur. The eruptions were very beautiful, and again, we took many pictures with the erupting geyser. A shame Geysir didn’t erupt;)
We came to Þingvellir (pronounced Thingvellir) National Park, which is the place where the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia meet. Iceland is the only country that has 2 tectonic plates on it, and we were there to witness it! We stopped at a big crack in the ground. We walked INSIDE it. Evan called it “the tectonic temple,” which is a very fitting name in my opinion. Basically, we were not on a continent; we were in between! It felt epic and looked epic too. We admired the place, took many pictures, and moved on. Did I mention it feels epic to be in between continents?
It was getting dark, and we decided that we would go to one place and head home. Iceland is famous for its hot springs, so we decided to try one out. We drove to a hot spring called the Secret Lagoon. The guy at the counter told us that we should only go into the main pool because the other ones were boiling, which was crazy. We got into our swimsuits and went out into the cold not-really-night. We stopped being cold when we touched the water. It was so hot! It felt like it was getting artificially heated! In reality, it is heated by the volcanic activity underneath the island. It was like nothing we had ever experienced.
The next day, we decided to go to the Northern Lights museum. We learned all about the northern lights – the cultural connections, the way they are created, and much more. We also learned that in the photos that you usually see of the Northern Lights, it needs special equipment, plus it isn’t as vivid in real life. It dimmed our spirits a little bit, but not enough to stop us from going on an epic AURORA BOREALIS HUNT!!!
At night, we got into our car and drove who knows where into the Icelandic wilderness, just searching for any green glimmer in the sky. Once we thought we saw one, but when we drove over there, it was a false alarm. Another thing that was amazing was the night sky. There was no light pollution, no air pollution, and the sky was very clear, so we could see the stars very clearly. Plus, because we were on top of the world, there were stars ALL over the sky. We could see Ursa Major and Orion and Scorpio and many others. It was so beautiful.
Suddenly, the aurora borealis appeared in front of us. We drove onto the side of the road and feasted our eyes on this green miracle. We had spent more than an hour driving more than 125 kilometers searching for it, and finally, we had found it! We even dragged an extremely sleepy Evan out of the car to look, and he went in shortly. Mom, Dad and I stayed out in the freezing night watching. It was blurry like the museum said – not as vivid as in the photos of the Northern Lights we saw. It was still amazing.
On the last day of our stay in the beautiful country of Iceland, we decided to go to a famous waterfall called Gullfoss. It is a humongous waterfall with multiple levels. When we drove in, we heard the immense sound of the water crashing down on to the rocks below the waterfall. When we came closer to the waterfall, we saw that the water was this beautiful shade of light blue, and the mix of the grey rocks, the white foam and the blue-green water was very beautiful. We took many pictures, walked around the park that was surrounding Gullfoss, and drove back.
It was an amazing birthday vacation. I would love to come back someday.