Kids’ Blog: Iceland

Guest Author:  Our kid blogger, Messi Jr., is a nine year old fourth grader who loves travel and soccer.

My Iceland trip was awesome.

Iceland Day 1

On day one, as soon as my family and I got to the Icelandic airport, everyone was wide awake because we slept the whole flight.  When we got out of the airport, it was very cold and rainy.  My family and I got on the bus that would take us to a place that we would get a rental car.

On the bus, I saw two strange things.  The first thing that was strange was that out of the window I saw rocks.  Some were the size of pebbles and others were the size of cars.  The rocks were all different shapes, but many were the size of backpacks. There seemed to be millions. And, there were planes and planes of them.  But, they were covered in something.  I didn’t know what it was so I asked my dad what it was, and he said it was moss.  I thought it was very strange, but I could believe it when I saw it.  The other thing I wondered about was the rocks.  When I looked closely, there were many holes.  I recognized it as a lava rock.  I wasn’t surprised since I knew from a book I had read about Iceland that it said that Iceland was formed by volcanos.

Once we got off the bus, we went to a place where we rented a 4×4 car, which meant it can drive through harsh conditions.  With the car, we drove to the convenience store and bought some food that we ate at the shop for breakfast.  At the store, the Cool One and I both found coins.  The Cool One found a 1 krona coin, and I found a 2 krona coin.  Next, we went to Costco.  At Costco, we bought squeezies for my sister, water bottles for the car, Nutella to put on our bread for breakfast, and rotisserie chicken for our sandwiches.

Before we ate lunch, we went to the lava tunnel, but the noon tour was full.  For lunch, we went to a nearby town and picked up some very yummy pizza, which we ate in the car heading toward the lava tunnel.  In the lava tunnel, we had to wear headlamps so we could see around the tunnel.  We learned that before headlamps and flashlights, all people saw in the tunnel was pitch black.  The only way you could see was from small holes on the roof.  We also learned that lava once rushed through the tunnel.  My sister was the youngest person to ever go in the tunnel.

The next thing that we did was we drove, well we tried to drive to Kerid crater, but we drove into another crater.  In that crater, there were many lava rocks. We could also see all the layers of the crater.

The next stop was Kerid crater.  The cool thing about Kerid is that the deep crater has a lake at the bottom of it.  My dad also said that Kerid was formed 6,500 years ago.  On our way to the apartment, my brother, sister and I took a nap in the car.  I thought that I had slept for the whole night!  We watched some TV, but it was only in Icelandic, so we didn’t understand a thing.  We tried to take a shower, but the drain was plugged, so that made it pretty challenging.  The day ended with everyone having a good night sleep.

Iceland Day 2

Once everyone had woken up and dressed up, we went to Seljalandfoss, which is a famous waterfall because you can walk behind it.  Seljalandfoss is a very tall waterfall.  When my family and I walked behind it, we got soaked, but it was worth it because it was amazing.

As we were driving to Skogafoss, we saw Eyjafalljokul, which is a volcano that erupted a few days after my brother was born, which delayed my grandma from flying back to England.

 

Once we were at Skogafoss, we saw a huge waterfall, and when the water hit the river it had been forming, mist shot up and formed a huge circle.

We also saw a huge glacier that turned out to be the biggest glacier outside of the North and South Poles.

 

In a bird sanctuary, we saw a few puffins.

 

At Renisjfara beach, the sand was black!  It wasn’t just normal sand, it was volcanic sand!  We also saw a lot of basalt rocks.  There were also strong waves.  My brother, my dad, and I were standing about 2 yards away from where the waves end, then suddenly, a huge wave came and everyone started running, but I tripped over a big rock.  I fell down and before the wave went back in, my dad pulled me out.  I was wet, so I had to change all of my clothes.

 

As we drove, we passed the beautiful city of Vik, but we didn’t stop.  The next place we went was Vatnajokull, which is the biggest ice cap (other than the North and South poles).  It was a very beautiful sight.

The next stop was Jokulsaron.  One of the reasons Dad wanted to come to Iceland was to see this site.  Jokulsaron is a lake with icebergs.  The icebergs and lake come from a glacier that was constantly melting.  The ice on the beach was my favorite sight of Iceland.  On the beach, when Dad was taking a picture of my brother and me near the iceberg, as he walked backward to get a good shot of us, he tripped over ice and fell backward.  When he put his hand down to save himself, he went down so hard he broke the thick ice and hurt his hand a lot.

 

 

 We went as fast as we could to Hofn hoping to get to Hofn before the guesthouse closed.  hoped that we would make it in time so we wouldn’t have to sleep in the car.  Luckily, we just made it in time.  For dinner, we had pasta with rotisserie chicken.  Even though we tried our best to keep my sister quiet, she was still very loud.  We eventually got her quiet watching Netflix.  We had a good night of sleep.

We woke up in the morning to nice blue skies, which ended up to be a nice, blue, dry, and sunny day.  We woke up so late that by the time my family woke up, everyone else in the apartment had left for the day.  My mom lost her ring that she was very sad about, but it was a good thing she found it later in the trip.  As we drove to Netto, we had an amazing view of a glacier.

For lunch, we stopped on the side of the road where we saw a bench that overlooked the ocean.  We ate some of the food we bought at Netto.  My sister made a rock collection, which she loved and added to during the trip.  We stopped in a tourist office, and we got even more maps!  Next, we stopped on the side of the road where we saw a stream, and there was a wonderful view of everything around us.  My brother and I skipped a few rocks into the stream.

 

As we kept driving, near a farm we passed, we saw amazing hovering birds.  My dad took a few photos of them hovering and trying to find food.

As we kept driving along, we went into two tunnels.  One tunnel was 5 km, and the second tunnel was 6 km!  We stopped at Kronan where we got fish, fish stew, and French fries.  We spent the night in the fishing village of Eskijfordur.  We stayed in a very nice apartment.  For dinner, we had the fish and fish stew with the French fries, and we also had peas, and for dessert, we had ice cream.  But, that still wasn’t the end of the day!

At 9:30, there was great weather as we were driving to the mine that was famous because it had the most spar crystals in the world.  We saw many animals running across the road.  Some were so close, the car could have ran over them.  Once we got to the walking path, we walked up a big hill seeing thousands and thousands of spar crystals.  The mine shaft was blocked off by the rocks, but there were still many spar crystals.  My sister, brother, and I made a huge spar crystal collection and left it on a rock.

As we headed to our apartment, we saw the most amazing midnight sun we had seen on the whole vacation.  At end the day, we had a good night sleep.

Iceland Day 4

We woke up in the morning and had a quick breakfast.  We had a very quick breakfast because we wanted the maximum time at our first hot pot in Iceland.  It was a very cold day, which is the best pool weather in Iceland because every single pool is heated by natural magma and lava.  My family and I were the only people in the pool.  We all had fun on the slides, and when it was time to go, my sister didn’t want to get out.  The rest of the day all my sister wanted to do was go back in the pool.

We had lunch in the apartment.  It was raining very heavily, and the sky was very ugly white and gray.  It was still raining, but we drove to Dettifoss, which is a popular waterfall.  On the way, we got gas and looked for reindeer, but we didn’t see a single reindeer.  Dettifoss was one of the best sites we saw in Iceland.  It is amazing how much water comes down.  My sister nearly walked the whole hike by herself to the waterfall.

The first four days in Iceland were lots of fun.