After almost 24 hours of traveling, we finally made it to Iceland! Getting off the plane was quite the shock from the 70 degrees in the Pittsburgh airport to about 30 degrees in the Keflavík airport, but I had my coat handy and ready to go. Once we went through customs and claimed our luggage, we met our tour guide Olaf. She then escorted us onto the bus and told us some neat facts about Iceland. One of them being that they bring in Aluminum ore to be processed and smelted, then they ship it right back out because they don’t have any way to manufacture aluminum. Also, this process uses about 60% of the electricity that Iceland produces.
The next stop was the Perlin museum which used to be hot water tanks for Reykjavík. At the top there is a glass rotunda restaurant where the dining area actually rotates slowly so you can see the entire scenery in about an hour and a half. This is a very neat idea, but the rotating kind of threw me off while I was eating. For lunch I ordered the “Icelandic” plokkfisker which was a mix of cod and mashed potatoes with rye bread on the side. I usually don’t enjoy fish very much, but this tasted delicious. After lunch we headed down into the museum and saw a showing of the aurora borealis in Norse mythology and another showing on volcanic activities. They were very informative, but I was so exhausted it was challenging to stay awake! Then we walked through an ice cave which was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Next we went to our Viking hotel and took a refreshing nap to be ready for dinner. For dinner we had lamb with sweet potato and carrots. I can’t remember the last time I had lamb, but this meal was delicious. At the same time there was a Viking show where two members of our group were officially named Vikings! Then for desert we had apple pie with whipped cream which was spectacular. I had so much good food today that I feel like I can go a week without eating! Finally, to wrap up the day I took a walk around the harbor and then called it a day. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds!
Swanson School of Engineering 