icelandic

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Every time I think about these horses, I smile. They were every where in Iceland! So short and so hairy. They’re just so cute.

This one was taken on our first day out. It was probably the worst day we had weather-wise. When we landed the pilot over the speaker said we were experiencing 50 mph winds. You could literally feel the plane shaking while we were de-boarding. Add that to all the rain and it was kinda miserable being outside. Luckily the wind didn’t last all day, but the rain sure did. It was raining off and on but mostly on.

So what do you do on a rainy day in Reykjavik? Drive the golden circle! We saw these horses everywhere but all the roads on the island are fenced off. I think it’s so the horses don’t run into the middle of the street, but they could be there for other reasons other than that. I just don’t know. But the whole time we were driving, my friend Mel and I were on a hunt to find horses that were close enough to the fences so we could photograph them but also possibly pet some of them. After pulling over about 5 gagillion times, we finally ran into a group of them that were right next to the fence. Mel suggested I change my lens from my 16-35mm to my 70-200mm so we could stand far enough away from them that we could still get good pics but not scare them away. So I changed my lens and ran out the car.

We slowly started walking towards these horses. Then we realized, the closer we got to them, the more they would come to the fences. They’re super friendly! I immediately ran back to the car to change my lens back to the 16-35mm wide angle and got super close. This was taken at about my hip. I wasn’t looking, I just kept on clicking, hoping for a good shot. Obviously, the horses did not mind all the rain and wind. I’m pretty sure these guys thought my camera was food. Which it is definietly not.

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When visiting a new country, I always try to learn as much as I can about the food, people and language. It’s the best way to totally immerse yourself into your new surroundings. In Iceland, it was a little difficult to learn the language. First off, everyone speaks english. Really good english too! So being able to listen to the Icelandic language was really limited to just locals in a restaurant or people talking quietly amongst themselves. But I did manage to learn a few words. “Foss” means waterfall. So if you notice all the waterfalls in Iceland end with the term “Foss”. This image was taken at Skógafoss which is in a small town called Skógar. You add foss to the end of it, you have the Skógafoss! Pretty cool huh? Another important word to know is “Kaka” which means cake! Who doesn’t love cake right? So if you wanted to say chocolate cake, you would say “súkkulaðikaka”.

Now that we’re talking about food, the food was great. Expensive but the overall delicious. I don’t think we had one bad meal. I ate a lot of smoked salmon, at least once a day. There aren’t very many vegetable dishes. It’s all very meat/seafood oriented and to our surprise, a lot of pizza. I’m not sure if that was just a tourist thing but almost every restaurant we went to had a lot of pizza options. We noted one day that the pepperoni pizza was cheaper than the vegetarian pizza.

The people are very nice as well. Super helpful when you have a million and one questions about travel. Even when they knew you were a tourist, they didn’t look at you funny or treat you differently which was much appreciated. However, I did notice that a lot of them weren’t originally from Iceland. Many were from different parts of Europe that just fell in love with the country. I can totally see why minus all the cold temperatures.

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Home from Iceland and had a blast. It was so much fun. The country is just so beautiful and I couldn’t of asked for a better trip. It was a 5 day adventure (including flying) but I could of stayed so much longer. I feel like there’s so much left to explore. My friends and I were basically road tripping it the whole time. Each day we were in a new town and it just got better and better each day we were there. If you’re ever thinking of going, definietly do it!

One of my favorite parts of the trip were these Icelandic horses. They’re pretty much anywhere you go, but most of the time they’re behind these little wire fences so they don’t run into the street. We were lucky enough to see some that were not. They belonged to this man named, Omar who had a barn in this little town called Hofn. He was nice enough to tell us about his horses and let us visit them. So you know me, anything cute and fuzzy I just have to try to pet. Omar had a big group of them. About 20 or so and they were all super cute. Compared to the horses in America, they were a lot shorter and a lot hairier but very gentle. I probably pet 10 out of the 20 that were there. HAHA. The others were either eating or sleeping so I didn’t want to disturb them.

This particular image was shot right after sunrise. The sun was still rising and created this gorgeous glow on the animals. It’s like he knew I was taking his picture and was posing for me in the perfect lighting. Thank you horsey! The ultimate dream would of been to ride one of them during sunset on the black sand beach. I know it’s possible, we just didn’t have the time on this trip. Next time, Iceland. Next time.