The Smith's European Escapades: The 4th of July in Reykjavik

Happy belated 4th of July! We hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday, and to be honest, we're (especially Adam) a little jealous that ya'll got to witness fireworks, go to BBQs, enjoy the sun and drink beer. But, we celebrated in our own way, which included dressing in the appropriate colors, eating hot dogs, and Adam shouting "HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!" to any American that passed by us. We even stumbled upon the United States Embassy!

Adam pledging allegiance

United States Embassy

We also spent our 4th by doing more walking around the city- mostly seeing the less touristy part of town with all the nice houses as well as the shipyard area, which looked both depressing and unique. We also witnessed a really cool jazz performance right after lunch!

European cat #2

European cat #3

Jazz performance

After watching the jazz performance, we went back to our room to relax for a bit before heading out to the Blue Lagoon for the evening. Since our bus was scheduled to leave at 7, we grabbed an early dinner at a popular place called Cafe Loki. We both had traditional Icelandic dishes, and it was all very tasty! Adam had two open-faced sandwiches, one with eggs and mashed fish, the other with pickled herring and eggs along with rye bread ice cream. I had a meat soup with lamb pâté over rye bread. I know, some of it sounds bizarre (and even I was a little wary about the herring and ice cream), but trust me....it was all super delicious!

Traditional Icelandic food

After dinner, we hopped on the bus to go to the Blue Lagoon! The lagoon is a geo-thermal spa, so the water was naturally warm and very blue! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures of us enjoying the spa, but I'm just going to say that it was awesome. And relaxing. Throughout the pool, there are crates of silica mud that you can put on your face to use as a mud mask. It leaves your skin feeling super soft and refreshed. The pool also had a waterfall (which felt like an amazing massage when standing underneath it), as well as a sauna and steam room. Ahhhh.....

Thus concludes our 4th of July. I'd say it was a success!

Today has been much more low-key. I got up early to go on a short run, which was both tiring (stupid jet lag) and refreshing. For lunch, we got some delicious Icelandic fish & chips, and then we walked over to the National Museum of Iceland, which is where we spent most of our afternoon. Iceland has a pretty cool and lengthy history! In short, much of their history has been shaped by farming and religion (but I guess you could say the same for any other European country). But the museum did a great job displaying many artifacts and explaining why each piece was important to Iceland's history (and there was a lot to look at!).