Our flight left Dallas at 11:20am with a stopover in Boston.
Arrived in Iceland at 6:45am.
Fun to see the plane landing at Reykjavik.
A place I've heard of all of my life.
We met Terry & Jan, got our rental car and started driving.
First stop was the bridge between two continents.
Terry & Elwood on the bridge.
Still snow!
The country side was so vast and changing,
at times we felt we were in another world!
Into Reykjavik and visited the famous
Hallsgrimskirka.
Beautiful inside and out.
We tried to obey the sign....
Nice to see a celebration of a 1000th anniversary.
Next we drove the Golden Circle.
The rocks are incredible.
The formation on some is so unique.
Stopped at Thingvellir
where the government met for the first time in 930AD.
Then on to the Geysirs. Absolutely incredible!
Boiling hot water comes up from the earth!
The little geysir.
And the big Geysir.
Strokkur shoots up 60 feet every 5 minutes or so.
On to Gullfoss, their most famous waterfall, the largest in all of Europe
Now we know why!
Beautiful!
Yes, it was cold and very misty.
Day Two we headed north to see where all
4 of our great grandparents came from.
Here we are in the valley were our great grandfather came from.
Our relatives came from the north dale.
Here is the word for north valley.
Here we are at Sau∂aukróker at the base of the fjord,
where our great grandparents on the Oliver side were from.
The Lutheran church where they
probably attended.
Fun to see inside the church. So ornate.
A bakery was down the street from the church.
Delicious coffee and the people were so friendly.
Icelandic horses are everywhere.
We maybe have seen more horses in the last two days than
we have seen the rest of our lives together.
The same applies to sheep.
There are twice as many sheep on the island as people.
The island out from Grettislaug.
Enjoying some old natural hot springs.
It was very hot!
The change rooms.
Haha! Thankfully, they had 'newer' ones too - still
very small but at least had 4 walls.
We saw the turf houses similar to
what our grandparents might have lived in.
And we found the farm where our great grandma Nordal
(her maiden name was Sigurbjorg Bjornsdotter)
came from in the North of Iceland.
Kringla, Norfurardalur, Hunavatnstla
Elwood bought Icelandic wool socks.
And at a coffee shop, they had sugar cubes.
Our grandma, Susanna Nordal, would always sip her coffee
through a sugar cube. Mola sopa. When we were kids we tried to do it as well but probably
had 5 sugar cubes for 1 cup of coffee.
Grandma would have her one sugar cube unfinished when she finished her cup.
Great memories!
The cute rocks they had at the hot springs.
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