I found myself back at Keflavik airport, right on time but still sooner than I’d hoped.
Check in was, as has been throughout Europe, simple and quick. In all honesty, I don’t quite remember the details, as I’m writing this out just over a week later. I had my new duffel bag for my checked gear, which worked simply and easily… Once that was done, I flew through security and was eating an Acai bowl and sipping a latte before I knew what had happened.
I think, in all candor, the toughest part of Keflavik is how far it is from Reykjavik. The 45min drive took longer than anything else I can think of.
I ate, sipped, relaxed and read my book. I hung out at the gate, once they announced it, which only happened about an hour before we started boarding, and then quickly and easily hopped on the plane.
Iceland passed below us, and I went through photos while watching the sea ice pass below the plane. Slowly it opened up to ocean water. I started seeing oil platforms, then islands, then wind farms on the islands! Then… Oslo!
I’m sad to be writing this final post, but also a bit amazed that there’s so many from such a short period of time… Iceland really is an amazing country, and a great place to explore and adventure.
It’s good that I should end my adventures in Iceland with a full overview of the land of Iceland itself – the Perlan Museum, a Natural History Museum that charts Iceland from when it first broke above the surface of the ocean through to the present day.
There’s a lot of amazing exhibits, and I took pictures of all of them, so please peruse and enjoy the placards and displays that kept me busy for multiple hours in the afternoon. Perlan stayed open a bit later than many other museums, which helped me see everything after an already-full day of adventure, but even then I don’t think I caught every section… I know I missed the planetarium section, which definitely bummed me out a bit because it showed the Northern Lights.
I did get to see the Volcano demo, though, where they somehow piped in Volcano smell! It was a surprisingly pleasant smell of smoldering moss with a hint of sulfur, and really added a neat depth to the video.
Anyways. Yeah – Perlan. Great museum, cool building with interesting architecture, and glorious exhibits. Great end to a great bit of adventure in a great country!
Ohh man, one quick piece that I adored. In the pictures above you can see a story projected onto a Redwood round, that was gifted to Iceland by the US government on Iceland’s 1,100 year settlement anniversary. The redwood round is from a tree approximately 1,300 years old. I mean, how much of a power move is it to say, “Hey, Iceland, here’s a tree that’s been around longer than people have been on your soil”. Just… dang, man.
At least they didn’t do something like “Hey Iceland, here’s a Native American artifact. It’s 1,100 years old, just like your settlement! It was celebrating their 19,000th year in North America!”
In contrast to the cold weather of Greenland and the cooler weather of Iceland… Lava is hot.
True story.
Bet you didn’t know that about molten rock – that it’s hot.
Also, that I can be sarcastic sometimes, maybe.
Anyways, similarly to Blue Lagoon and Hvammsvik, in the Reykjavik airport nearly two weeks ago, I saw an advertisement. It seemed interesting, and I filed it away for later in the back of my brain, where it sat until I was walking to find some food after being disappointed in the Reykjavik art museum. The memory came to the forefront when I saw another ad, mentioning that there we lava shows multiple times a day, 7 days a week… and you know what? Today happened to be a day! Of a week!
I checked out their website, found out that there was a show happening in about 45min, and that it was a 30min walk, and… I walked. I got a hot dog on the way, though, so don’t worry. Lunch wasn’t forgotten.
(Quick Trivia fact – Nordic countries like hotdogs. Iceland has their own Icelandic hotdog, that’s sort of like a chicago-style dog in that it snaps when you bite it… but it’s with raw onions, fried onions, mustard, and… some kind of peanut-butter mustard?)
I walked, I arrived, grabbed a latte, and waited the few minutes remaining until the show started.
The Lava Show is two-of-a-kind, the only events on Earth (supposedly) where one can see real lava. One is in Reykjavik, and the other is in Vik (the town I passed through, if you recall), but both are in Iceland and both are run by the same group.
They gave us a quick video about Iceland Geology, a safety brief, and then dropped the lights… and poured lava down a metal trough. It… was really bright, and I could easily feel the heat from my seat pretty far back.
Yeah, Lava’s hot. Turns out.
Honestly – it was really fun! The presenter was previously a geology teacher, and did a great job explaining the ins and outs of lava, magma, what type this was, how it differed from others, and what types of lava are normally seen around Iceland. He told a few stories about the lava fields, scooped and poked the lava with metal poles, and helped us understand just how intense Lava (and the core of the earth) can be.
One example that stuck with me – One area in Iceland is still warm, and too hot to touch just a foot or so below the surface, due to a lava flow still cooling. But. The flow was from the 1970s!!! So 50+ years ago, and it’s STILL that hot!
I didn’t get melted by stray droplets of molten rock, either, so that was a nice bonus too.
Always stay thankful for the little things, even in light (and heat) of bigger more fun things.
