I'm definitely glad I didn't sit down and write out a post for yesterday because it probably would've sounded something like this: it's cold and rainy, there's no snow, and our northern lights chances are zilch. I hate everything. THE END!

Fortunately, an extra 24 hours can change a lot.

Things did start out fairly rough. The nonstop flight was only seven hours, but I happened to be assigned to the one seat on the plane that absolutely refused to recline, no matter how hard I slammed my back into it. Sleeping on a plane is tough enough but doing it while sitting up perfectly straight is just about impossible. I'd nod off for 10 minutes, groggily wake up to change positions, and then repeat the process. I still can't complain too much though; Brittany stayed awake the entire time, knitting while watching old episodes of Sherlock and answering clumsy questions from a slightly odd elderly Icelander. Is that as awkward to read as it was to write?

At landing we learned that our plane would NOT have a jetway so we got up close and personal with Iceland's weather in record time. We stepped through the door and were instantly hit by freezing rain and the kind of wind that'd suck your eyebrows off. It was just the slap in the face we needed to wake up after the flight, and we walked into the airport grinning from ear to ear (well, Brittany wasn't frowning, which in cold weather is the equivalent of an ecstatic smile). Customs took about three minutes and we were off to catch a bus in to Reykjavik. That first crack at public transportation in a new country is always tough and we've had some pretty terrible experiences, but it was a whole lot easier given that just about everyone here speaks perfect English. Tourism has exploded over the past five years and two bus companies were set up to run the throngs of backpackers from the airport straight to their hotels. That sounded just a little too simple for us so we opted to cut the cost in half and track down the local bus. It took a bit longer but we got to see how the locals get to work and take a tour of the suburbs. The architecture in the city is definitely more subdued than I expected. The houses are attractive but simple, with lots of large windows to let in the few precious hours of light they get in the winter. I was a little surprised by trash on the roads and graffiti on walls. Scandinavia was "wet-nap level" clean and I guess I just assumed Iceland would be too. Don't get me wrong, it's still way better than Tampa, but I got the hint early on that my expectations might be a bit off this time around.

From the local bus depot it was another 15 minute walk to our hotel. We passed by the main church on the way (which was designed to resemble a geyser) and possibly the coolest tree house ever built. Those kids must have one seriously awesome Dad because I don't think anyone in their right mind would look at that tree and think, "hey, this would be perfect to put a house in!" Our super swanky hotel room wasn't ready (it was 9am after all) so we dropped our bags and walked a few blocks to a meeting point for a free tour of the city. I found this awesome agency online that uses college students as guides for free tours. You tag along for two hours learning all kinds of interesting things, and then donate whatever you can afford at the end. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and fun but I was really disappointed by the fog that clung to the city (especially because this did NOT bode well for our Aurora chances). I knew there should be mountains everywhere I looked, and all I could see was a wall of white while freezing rain poured from above. Walking in the rain is nice when you're feeling eerily introspective or you've just fallen in love. Outside of that it pretty much sucks.

I did learn that almost 100% of Iceland's electricity comes from renewable sources, and it's so incredibly cheap to produce that all of the worlds largest tech companies (Google, Amazon, etc.) build their servers here. There are fewer than 150 prisoners on the entire island, the absolute maximum jail sentence (for murder) is only 16 years, and the the only building in Iceland with armed guards is the US Embassy. For me, the coolest part of the walk was seeing the Prime Minister's office, which was completely open to the public with not one security guard in sight. Oh, you're a stranger that wants to speak with the leader of the country? Come on in!

After a friendly argument about whether one should say aluminum or aluminium (of course it should be aluminum) we finished our tour at the city's main concert hall. The building itself is incredibly striking. The exterior structure is designed to mimic a fish and it's covered in hundreds of scales that vividly reflect colors and light to represent the Aurora. We hung around inside after the tour wrapped up to warm up a bit, then ventured back into the foggy cold of the harbor to find some lunch. Reykjavik is the world's northernmost capital city and you can find just about anything here. Google maps showed us the way to a traditional type restaurant (we weren't feelin' KFC) and I decided to ignore the outrageous prices and enjoy our first meal off the plane. I got the Christmas Plate, which truly was the gift that kept giving because it had five different kinds of animals on it. Woot woot! I have now officially had beef tongue. It wasn't baaaaaad, but I'm definitely in no rush to eat it again. A special Viking lager washed it down until my lamb arrived, and Brittany queasily wrinkled her nose at me as I ate. She (shockingly) opted for the fish. Everything was delicious and came out to about sixty bucks. It ain't cheap but it's still a whole lot better than Norway!

About half way through dinner our bodies decided to shut down and we trudged back to the hotel. Our room was ready and I think I took thirty pictures of it. I want to reconstruct it in every detail in the new system, because it's absolutely perfect in every imaginable way. The style, the craftsmanship, the flow...I LOVE this room! We broke a travel rule and took a short nap before dragging ourselves out of bed for a free "tasting of local beverages and foods" at the hotel bar. The tasting consisted of a sip of cheap schnapps and some broken pieces of a chocolate bar. Yippee. We begrudgingly agreed it was a bust and crawled back to our beckoning beds.

I went to sleep a little bummed and disappointed that the skies weren't clear for miles, the mountains weren't covered in snow, and the Aurora wasn't dancing excitedly outside my city hotel window. I clearly had to wrestle with some overly optimistic expectations or this trip was going to be a bust before it began. Unexpectedly, breakfast did the trick. How? With one single, solitary item that will forever be etched upon my mind as an eternal tribute to Iceland: bacon. Of course, bacon is always amazing, but this stuff was on a whole different level. These pigs tasted as if they had spent their entire lives aspiring to someday have the opportunity, nay, the privilege, to bequeath their excellence on an undeserving world. I think even Brittany had a third helping, so you know it was stinkin' good stuff! That buffet was probably the most amazing breakfast I've ever had, and the fact that it was included with the room scrubbed away any worries I had that this might be a lackluster trip. It's sad to think about now, but that's really all it took: piles and piles of magical bacon.

Finally rolling to the lobby, we joined a crowd of tourists just like us, each waiting for some bearded Icelander to walk in with a tour sign for pickup. We signed up for a three day tour that takes in a good third of the country. We don't have much time here so we need to make it count! I was blown away by the super jeeps and behemoth vans rolling by, each lifted several feet off the ground with tires that could be used as boats for a family of four. I guess that's the kind of thing you need to get around out here in the winter! After a couple of false starts our Extreme Iceland tour guide pulled up and we were on our way. Icelandic is outrageously difficult to pronounce for foreigners, and after several attempts at saying this guy's name he told us to just call him Hawk, which is the literal translation of the linguistic impossibility his parents bestowed upon him at birth. He's a young guy around 25 and, like everybody else here, he speaks English perfectly. It's been remarkable to see that it seems to be the country's (or at least the tourist industry's) common language. Families from all over the world are here, chattering away in French, Spanish, Arabic, and more. When the waiter walks up they speak in English, get what they need, and then fall back into their mother tongues. It definitely makes life easier for us!

Today's part of the tour was all about the Golden Circle, which is the main tourist route of National Parks and waterfalls that every person visiting the country is practically guaranteed to see. It's a bit strange to be sitting in the dark at 10am, and even as the sun came around I could tell the fog hadn't gone anywhere. The mountains seemed to be fleeing out of eye's reach until just before our first stop, which was a park with a name I don't dare attempt to spell. Sunlight burst through a smattering of fresh holes in what appeared to be a thick gray blanket that had been laid over the land. The contrast of light and dark made everything more dramatic, and I must've taken over a hundred pictures in the first 15 minutes. What truly amazed me was how different everything would look after even the slightest change in lighting. I felt like I could stare in one direction and see ten different scenes as the weather changed. It was mesmerizing.

Our next stop was an area littered with geysers (most of which stopped, then started, then stopped erupting due to various earthquakes) and then a couple of massive waterfalls. Brittany and I couldn't help but compare it to Ireland, specifically Connemara National Park. Sure, this is Ireland's steroid-enhanced big brother, but the similarities were striking. By the time we got to the last waterfall it was coming up on 4pm and we only had about half an hour of daylight left. The nice part about that was that most of the tour groups had already come and gone, so we could clamber around the falls without tripping over selfie-sticks. After climbing to the top of a ridge I had a beautiful panoramic view of the country and relished the time to take it all in. True, I'm not seeing Iceland exploding with green at the start of summer, or experiencing the deafening silence of snow covered mountains in winter, but I am seeing exactly what I always imagined Iceland to be: a wild and magnificent country.

As the sun finally sank and total darkness gripped the van we piled back on for a short drive down the road to our country hotel. We've got a small cottage-like room covered in wood with a tv and a startling assortment of (three) BBC channels. There is nothing within walking distance of the hotel so you're pretty much stuck paying the fifty bucks for the house buffet. Brittany was smart enough to plan ahead and get a salmon bagel at a gas station (yeah, they do that here) while I forked over the money and sat down to three heaping plates of lamb, fish, and...roast horse! Our guide went on and on about how special the horses are here, and it took me a minute to understand his meaning: what made them so special was how good they tasted. He was right! I figure we don't really know if we'll get to eat meat in the new world (though I'm a die-hard hopeful) so I should probably try as many as possible while I still can :)

Tonight is supposed to be our best shot at seeing the Northern Lights, at least according to the comically unreliable Icelandic weatherman. I've really been looking forward to seeing them but, after today, I know I can go home happy whether they come around or not. We're heading out to the back of the hotel to take a look, and Brittany seems to be suiting up for an Arctic expedition; Shackleton would be impressed! We've got another exciting day tomorrow, and our third day culminates with a full-on glacier hike. Time to see if all those high-tech layers pass the Brittany test...