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After getting some well needed sleep, we headed out for our second excursion of the trip which was the Golden Circle tour. The first stop on the tour was Þinvellir National Park. It was very cold and extremely windy and rainy when we were there, so I didn't get to appreciate it as much as I would've liked to.
The second stop on the tour was a very impressive waterfall called Gullfoss. I can't even explain to you how windy it was walking down to the waterfall itself. I had to hold on to my hot chocolate for dear life. Not only that, but it was so windy that I didn't dare take my phone out of my pocket to try and snap a picture, so the picture below of the waterfall was actually taken by one of my friends on the trip.
The next stop on the tour was the geysir at Geysir Hot Spring Area. This is where we ate lunch and I had a cheeseburger that was nothing like an American cheeseburger. It had some strange sauce on it and just had a different flavor altogether. After we ate we walked out to the geysir which erupted approximately every 5-7 minutes. The whole area stunk of rotten eggs because of the high levels of sulfur. Fun fact about Iceland: most homes don't need to heat their water because it is already heated by the Earth. The only downside to that is the smell it gives off.
The last official stop on the tour was the Víti volcanic crater. This was super cool, especially the different colors of soil against the frozen over water. The size of the crater was unbelievable. Truly a breathtaking site.
Our wonderful tour guide, Leif, took us to an extra stop on the way back to Reykjavic which was a smaller but still beautiful waterfall which is the 5th picture below. We also saw Icelandic horses along the way and Leif pulled over so we could get out and pet them. They were so majestic looking!
Leif also brought us to a plaza with a grocery store and a couple other shops on the way back so we could grab something to eat. In attached to the grocery store was a small gift shop and souvenir store which also contained an earthquake simulator from a 6.3 magnitude earthquake that hit the town of Skjálftinn in 2008. A bunch of us on the trip did it and it was actually kind of terrifying. You get into this pitch black box and all of a sudden it starts shaking you violently. Not fun, but I'm glad I did it.
When we got back to the city we rested for a while and then decided to walk into town to grab dinner and drinks. We tried hot dogs there, which actually were pretty good, and then found an American pub to eat and drink at. They had a special on the menu which included puffin, horse, mink whale, and one or two other delicacies. Most of them were actually pretty good. The pub had a tradition where you could take a picture on their Polaroid camera, write what you wanted on it, and then they would hang it over the bar with the countless other photos. So my face is currently in an American pub in Iceland which is pretty cool.
