Iceland Part I: Off the Grid Winter Wonderland

My friend Jess and I decided to use our holiday vacation wisely, and planned a trip to Iceland over Thanksgiving break. We traveled Saturday to Saturday, which seemed like a good duration for covering just the south shore and Reykjavik. It you plan to drive around the full island, it sounds like closer to 2 weeks is recommended. We felt like we had a good pace and only missed doing 2 things on our bucket list (dog sledding and volcanoes). 

We flew Wow Airlines direct from San Francisco to Reykjavik (which I hope to be able to automatically spell by the end of this post) because they were offering a great deal. Even though we had to pay approximately $60 to carry our luggage on, it still beat Icelandair. I would describe WoW as "minimalistic." Your seat won't recline, there's no WiFi, the food is bad and expensive (bring on your own), but it's a direct flight on a normal plane that seems just as safe as any other place so it was worth saving a couple hundred dollars.

Nonsensical Viking wisdom

Landing in Reykjavik at 3:30am met nothing was open but we picked up our rental car at 5am. Pro tip: wine and booze in Iceland are extremely expensive to stock up for your trip in duty free. After getting provisions, even though we had to wait around a bit, we used Iceland Car Rental. Jess had done her research on this and discovered it was the top recommendation via TripAdvisor and had good deals on SUVs (which you definitely want for winter). From the airport, we drove out to Hotel Ranga, a four star hotel near the south coast that specializes in seeing the Northern Lights without any light pollution. 

Icelandic rustic

Keep in mind that the population of Iceland is only 400,000 and 3/4th of them live in Reykjavik, so anything outside of the city is pretty remote. Ranga is one of the only options around so you will also be eating all of your meals there. It also looks eerily like a lodge-version of the hotel in 'The Shining.'

Red rum

 My one qualm with them is that even though we called to let them know we'd be arriving extremely early in the morning and confirming early check-in, they were unable to accommodate us when we arrived. We had to wait until the breakfast buffet was open to eat (and they almost wouldn't let us since we weren't officially guests yet) and then napped on couches in the upstairs lounge until our room was ready. Needless to say, we then spent most of the day napping. Leaving the hotel around 4pm, the sun was already starting to set. At this time of the year, the sun rises between 9-10am and sets starting at 4pm and both are the most beautiful evolution of colors ever seen. We began to refer to these times as "cotton candy skies." 

Alone on the road

We decided to make the hour drive to Fontana, an Icelandic spa with geothermal baths. We ate a lunch lunch of unlimited soup and bread. The rye bread tasted amazing and was actually cooked in the geothermal pools earlier in the day. Then we went out to the pools, which overlook a lake. There was one major mineral pool, a couple hot tubs that were more chlorine based, multiple steam rooms, and a sauna that you could alternate between.

Ahhhhh.... sulfite soaking

After a couple hours of needed post-flight soaking and discovering what we didn't know yet would be the trend of foreigners wanting to talk about Trump in sauna, we headed back to Ranga. There we ate a massive late dinner, which was probably not needed but hey, it's vacation! As a head's up to anyone who's lactose intolerant* and traveling to Iceland, beware. Cream comes in everything, cream is the base for everything, cream stretches their use of vegetable longer, cream will be on your plate whether the description includes it or not. I had a seafood soup (based in cream), with bread and Icelandic butter (which the Island is know for and rightfully so), and a salmon entree with creamed kale. Dinner is pretty pricey at Ranga, but it's also a four star meal and the only thing around.

On day 2 we woke up and once again indulged in the Ranga breakfast buffet (nutella waffles!). After that, we hoped in our SUV and headed out to the Golden Circle, which is a popular drive where you can see a lot of Iceland's natural wonders.

Get ready for more gratuitous sky pics

There are a ton of tour buses you can take from Reykjavik but we were so happy we drove it ourselves. We determined our own pace and rolled out when groups of tour buses rolled in. We hit the three main sights, but tacked on two more unknown stops at the end (which were actually our favorites). Starting out, we went to Gullfoss, a massive waterfall in a long canyon.

The only thing not frozen

It was beautiful, but the wind was so strong we were freezing our faces off after viewing it from a variety of vantage points. After checking out the gift shop, we were ready to head to the next stop. 10-15 minutes from the waterfall is Strokkur Geyser, surrounded by a bunch of little geysers.

The main geyser, notice how close the tourists are

The main guy goes off every 6-10 minutes, with other ones erupting every 3-4 minutes. And while it may be dangerous, they really let you get pretty close. I remember being at Yellowstone where they told horrific stories about getting scalded to death by geysers and roped tourists off a safe distance away. Here you can basically walk right up.

I also really enjoyed this little fatty explosion

We were so close we could walk the geothermal pool boil like a cauldron and then all the sudden get sucked into the earth before erupting. It was pretty cool.

Ridiculously close to ridiculously hot water

On the drive from there to Thingvellir National Park you could see geysers eruptions all over the horizon, appearing to be suspended in air like they froze there. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where the tectonic plates are slowly continuing to move away, under a giant glacier lake so there's some cool lookout spots.

"Frozen" geysers in the distance if you look closely

We though there'd be places to eat lunch but sadly there were only gas station-quality sandwiches at the Information Center. I made the risky choice of salmon and regretted it. After that we started driving down the southeast side of the lake to see Kerid Crater, near Selfoss. It's so neat because it's this perfectly circular lake at the bottom of a deep crater hole. You can walk around the top ridge and down to the bottom. There are lots of rock fragments and it makes you think about how hard this meteorite propelled down from space.

Space + Iceland = mindblowing

It was our favorite natural wonder of the day on not on the major Golden Circle tours, so it was bus free with minimal crowds. For our last stop of the road trip, we went to Gamla Laugin, the "secret lagoon." It was our favorite because it felt so authentic. There wasn't a crowd, everyone is chill, and it's a natural lake. Part of it was even blocked off because it's gotten so hot that it has become and erupting geyser.

The not so secret, secret lagoon

After a solid soak, we headed back for another expensive dinner at Hotel Ranga, filled with Icelandic butter and strange creamed vegetable foams. While eating dinner, they announced that the Northern Lights were up and peaking, so everyone ran out of the dining room, through on these amazing wool snowsuits they provide, and ran outside.

Magic suits, wish we could have worn these the whole trip!

The Northern Lights are so beautifully unexplainable. It's like what I imagine the skies in Harry Potter to be like, when Voldermort appears. But way less eerie and nobody dies. We went to Ranga's open roof observatory, where they have space quality telescopes to look at the stars and the Northern Lights with. We talked to one of the guys they had stationed out there and it sounds like the green color comes from excited oxygen. Ionized nitrogen makes more of the blue and purple hues you see in other parts of the world. Don't ever say you didn't learn anything from Green Eggs & Glam!

On day three we work up early, stuffed giant to-go boxes with breakfast buffet items, and hit the road for a 3.5 hour drive out to the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, where we were meeting up with our ice cave trekking group. After a morning of driving through cotton candy skies, apocalyptic terrain, through cute sea towns like Vik, and past mountain ranges with massive glaciers we made it to this super cool lagoon/lake filled with massive icebergs of all the blue hues on the spectrum. 

Blue hues

All the tours pick up from the cafe parking lot there and we found out that ours had been cancelled due to car issues (the rough glacier terrain you have to drive across to get to the caves is hard even for ATVs). Luckily there were a ton of other companies waiting in the parking lot and we easily found another one. Our guide was great, although he didn't know the answer to one of our incessant questions, and defaults with "oh, it's the molecules." Nope, the ice is blue because the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by ice and the blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path light travels in ice, the more blue it appears. Another knowledge bomb! To get to the cave drove across what looked like rocky terrain on the surface of the moon but actually turned out to be a glacier, with the dirt and volcanic ash making the ice appear more like rocks. 

What I imagine the surface of the moon looks like

This area used to be populated back in the 1300s but then a volcano erupted, wiping out all the settlers. There were multiple tour groups once we got up there but it still wasn't too packed since we were there in off-season. 

Walking into the cave

Our guide told us the crowds have been growing, as last year Iceland saw ~300,000 tourists and by the end of 2016 the expect that number to be closer to 2MM. Once we were in the cave, you got to spend time walking around and could go pretty far in. There were so many natural shades of deep blue, it was unlike any place I'd ever been before. 

This is really what it looks like #nofilter

There's one area that was so small, Jess and I had to crawl up through a tunnel to get to an open air spot where you were surrounded by blue walls. 

Like how is this real? #themolecules

The ice caves were so amazing it reminded me that the earth is a pretty cool place. After that, we drove to the Fosshotel, which is a massive upscale hotel in the absolute middle of nowhere. Next to a waterfall.

We're all alone out here...

Unfortunately I booked the room for 2017,  but they had one of their apartment units available and it was only $100/night and so worth the upgrade. They had happy hour in the lobby, where we enjoyed artisinal San Francisco quality cocktails made by an Icelandic bartender who looked 14.

So legit they deserved a photo

We then made our way to their ritzy dining room (these hotels in the middle of nowhere must be making a killing on food). Needless to say it started with more Icelandic butter and cheese, although my salmon with polenta and cauliflower was the best I'd had on the trip so far. At night, we could see the Northern Lights again out our window as we fell asleep.

On day four, we drove almost four hours back to Thingvellir National Park. We saw the most epic sunrise I've ever possibly seen in my life. Although I would be awake for more sunrises if they were all at 10am.

Again, no filter. Just cotton candy skies forever.

Around the island there are also a ton of adorable ponies and lots of tourists pull over to take "pony selfies." I would recommend not getting too close, they might think you are trying to feed them...

The asshole pony that looks like Sia bit my finger

Our lovely Garmin, who can't pronounce Icelandic words anyway, decided to take us on the 360 which ended up being a harrowing, snowy, one way along the edge of the lake so I highly recommend staying on the 36. The beautiful, large, fresh water lake is actually covering a unique natural phenomenon on the north side, the Silfa Fissue. This is where you can actually see the continental drift taking place, as a "river" has formed over where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates are moving away from each other. Every year they shift another 2cm apart.  

This is what it looks like when the earth splits apart

Due to the uniqueness of this area and the fact that the water is so clear, it has become one of the most popular dive spots in the world. The way it was explained to us (so don't fact check me on this) is that 20-30m clarity is considered good dive visibility and in the fissure it's 70m. Sadly I am not diving certified (still on the bucket list!) so we decided to snorkel, yes snorkel during winter in Iceland in a glacial lake. There are a bunch of companies that offer this and we went with Magmadive, who ended up being awesome. Everyone else was in big groups but with them it was just the two of us and our really nice guide Wiktor. There were some small panic attacks when the claustrophobic dry suits were put on, but we powered through it even through apparently my face was blue.

Please keep us warm enough to complete our synchronized snorkeling expedition!

There was an initial shock getting into the water but the wool layer under the dry suit was the best. And you face and hands just go numb a couple minutes in. Once in the water, it really does feel like you're in a crevice of the earth, sandwiched between two rocky plates. The clarity was amazing and we could see down pretty far, past all these different shades of blue and green.

Literally sandwiched between tectonic plates

All in, you're in the water for about 20 minutes and it was totally worth it. Afterwards Wiktor made us the best hot chocolate I've ever had. We jumped in our trusty RAV4 and headed to Reykjavik... stay tuned for Part II of Iceland adventures!

Off Season Adventures: Melbourne

After a long hiatus from blog writing, I’m inspired by the latest travels to document the amazing places that I’ve seen. In May of this year, I traveled to Melbourne, Australia to visit a friend who had moved there about 8 months ago. I was excited, as there’s a common comparison in the US that Melbourne is like San Francisco and Sydney is like LA. Landing in Melbourne in late fall felt like SF weather year around, so I was already getting the comparison (although Aussie summers are much hotter). Keep in mind the title of this blog post. I headed to my friend’s apartment in the Collingwood neighborhood, which is the more hipster neighborhood and comparable to SF’s Mission but without the homeless problem, techies, and street poop. In an attempt to evade jet lag I instantly set out on a run, heading to Fitzroy Gardens, which is directly below Collingwood. It’s a sizable park with different garden areas that still feels like you’re in the city.

A little nature, a little city

 After that you can cut over a bridge, which has great city skyline views, and make it down to the running paths by the river.

That skyline tho...

On one side of the river is a massive stadium, and on the other is Melbourne’s massive Botanical Gardens. Being there in the fall felt like a mix of seasonal colors juxtaposed with tropical Jurassic Park looking plants.

Waiting for a T-Rex to pop out

If you run south to north, the park leads back to the running paths going into the city and you hit Federation Square, where a lot of the museums and the main tourist drag are.

If only all transit buildings looked this good

I showered and headed to the Fitzroy neighborhood, next to Collingwood and with a very similar vibe. Brunswick is the main drag and is packed with really funky bars, restaurants and shops.

Melbourne crushes it at street graffiti

I had an amazing salmon avocado salad at the Shfty Chev, a cozy café-like restaurant with fondue pots. It’s the perfect spot for cheese and wine lovers. I didn’t take any photos because jet lag was back in full effect, but for dinner we headed down to the CBD (Central Business District). After trying to get into Chin Chin, which is a trendy Asian Fusion spot that is apparently all the rage, we went with modern, upscale  British food at nearby Papa Goose. I remember it being over-priced for what it was but I almost feel asleep on my plate so I don’t feel fair giving a proper review…

Waking up for Day 2 I was already in much better shape. It was Saturday so we rented a car in the CBD and drove through St. Kilda until we hit an oceanfront freeway that took us south. It was a pretty drive through a lot of smaller beach towns. We hunted down the beach boxes and found a great stretch of them in Mt. Martha. These brightly colored sheds really popped against the gray beach day. Apparently these “boxes” are hard to purchase. Many are grandfathered down through families and if they go up for sale they can run up to $260,000. These boxes don’t have running water or electricity and you’re not allowed to sleep in them overnight (not that you’d want to), so yeah, it’s basically a cute yet super expensive shed.

I mean, I get why people want one...

After getting enough photos we headed up to Red Hill, WINE COUNTRY! It felt eerily similar to Sonoma, just a little more hilly. We tried Port Phillip Estate first, which was very sleek and modern with great views.

Worthy of a pano

Unfortunately they were pretty full so we went to the recommended and nearby Red Hill Estates. They also had pretty spectacular views and the food was very tasty and locally sourced (although expensive). We did a tasting in their back room but here’s where I have to give it to California wineries over Australian. In a place like Sonoma you get a tasting flight of approximately 5 wines for an average of $15. In Australia they charge you $5 per one taste. So basically you could either get a $5 splash or a full glass of wine for $10, which really doesn’t make much sense.

Spot the rainbow at Red Hill

That night in the city we went to a Cat Empire show at The Forum. The bar across the street has fantastic espresso martinis (a popular drink choice in AU right now). And places in Melbourne are all about decorating their ceilings. No space is wasted when it comes to decor! The Forum was a super cool venue that had a Greek feel going, with faux columns and statues with a night sky.

Solid venue, stellar lights

Cat Empire is great live. Their energy is high and it’s feel good music that’s perfect for dancing. The singers have amazing voices and everyone in the band is super skilled, rotating around to different instruments. After the show we headed to the Richmond District and ended up have drinks at the National Hotel, which has a great back patio area.

Drinking under the lights and stars

One funny thing about Australia is that bars are called hotels (there’s no place to stay) and hotels are called accommodations, so don’t get confused and pass out in a “hotel” for the night!

The next morning we went to the Windsor neighborhood on the other side of town for brunch. We tried to get into Journeyman, which looked amazing but had a ridiculously long wait (another San Francisco similarity). We went down the street to Mr Mister, which had a much more reasonable wait and but more of a standard brunch food offering. I had to get a picture of this place for my Ukrainian mother, although we did not go in as it seemed to be an aggressive trio to hit before noon.

The Russian trifecta

After brunch we went to the Melbourne Museum for the Jurassic World exhibit. Expecting an education experience about dinosaurs, we instead found ourselves walking through a reenactment of the movie. You walk through the entry gates to the theme music and get greeted by a mechanical brontosaurus.

I dare you to not hum the theme song

You can walk through the lab where all the “dino DNA” is stored in amber rocks.

I dig the nerdy attention to fake science

At one point all the lights start to flicker and a faux-T-Rex attack goes down. For adults it’s hilarious, but I bet it’s pretty awesome and scary for kids.

#scared #whosyourdentist

The museum also boasts one of the largest IMAX screens in the world so we went to see Alice Through the Looking Glass, which I actually liked better than the first one. Clearly it was a lazy day (hello hangover), so after a movie we went to dinner at Pabu on Smith St in Collingwood, which is a more chill version of Brunswick St. The sushi was just okay but the bao and gyoza were great.

Come Monday it was back to the morning run routine. I did a good loop around Carlton Gardens, where the Melbourne Museum is.

Believe it or not, a museum and not Parliment

The run ended by grabbing brunch at Proud Mary which even post-trip I will say is the MOST amazing meal I had the entire time. They made these extra fluffy ricotta pancakes with candied honeycomb that were to die for but I really would have eaten anything on that menu. 

I wish I could eat these every day of my life

After that I went back downtown to the tallest building of the skyline, the shiny blue and gold Eureka Tower which offers a skywalk on the top floor. The skywalk had great 360 views of the city but it was maybe not worth the $20 to ride the elevator up to the 88th floor.

Pano of the city, river, and stadium - my favorite running spot!

A good chunk of the CBD

After that I went back across the river to Federation Square to the ACMI Museum to see their Scorsese special exhibit, which was perfect for film buffs. The rest of their digital exhibits boarder on sensory overload.

This man has made some classic films

Nearby ACMI there's a well known alleyway that's covered in amazing street graffiti called Hosier Lane. It's legal street art to celebrate Melbourne's graffiti culture and is constantly updated by local artists.

Just one panel of all the graffiti glory

Walking back to Brunswick St, I went to Naked for Satan which had been recommended to me by multiple people. It did not disappoint. The rooftop was massive and had great views of the neighborhood. There’s tapas style food an really good infused vodka drinks.

The fried zucchini was not as good as it looks but the vodka was spot on

That evening we went to yoga in Fitzroy, which is always needed while traveling halfway across the globe. 

The next morning I got up super early and met a tour group downtown for a Great Ocean Road trip. I booked this tour the night before on Viator, so it’s not too hard to get something last minute. After a quick stop for tea (by a freezing cold lake), we headed up to Great Ocean Road, which is a similar concept to Highway One in California.

Highway One needs a better sign like this one!

One of the first towns along the way is Lorne, home to a very epic and popular pier to pub swimming competition that’s so notorious now it’s hard to get entered into. It’s the largest open water swim in the world (see more here).  At the next stop you can buy birdseed from the store at this campsite and a swarm of tropical birds will swarm you, landing on your head and arms which makes for some pretty amusing photos.

Cute but no thanks!

For those who are afraid of swarms of birds (me) or think this sounds unsanitary (me), you can start to wander the eucalyptus forest and get lucky enough to see some stoned koalas hanging out in the trees. Apparently the natives consider koalas the most useless mammal ever, but they are damn cute. Fun fact: A “joey” can be used to refer to both baby kangaroos and koalas.

ERMAHGERD I WANT ONE

We stopped to have lunch at the Otway lighthouse, which is super scenic.

Postcard perfect - no filter needed

You can go up to the top of the lighthouse and take in the views. There’s short walks you can take around the grounds to check out the other historical buildings.

Whale tail...

After that we went to catch our first view of the 12 Apostles, these giant limestone rock stacks separated from the coastline. There’s only 8 actual apostles (originally there were 9 but erosion happened), plus a couple stacks that look just like the apostles but are for some reason not.

"Rock" stars

After that, we did two more stops nearby. The first was Loch Ard Gorge, where you can walk down to this cove that made me almost feel like I was on Maya Beach in Thailand again (but the colder version).

Secret beaching

After that it was London Bridge, which has a couple short trails you can hike to see different limestone formations in the ocean.

It's hard to pick a favorite photo, beauty everywhere!

We wrapped up at the Gibson Steps (only 86 steps down to the beach), which has a few of two of the limestone stacks (I am not sure if these are Apostles or the impostors). My only complaint is that the tour is sold in as a sunset tour and we left the 12 Apostles right when the sun was starting to set. As our bus pulled away, I could see the beautiful sunset colors beginning to emerge. They should start the tour an hour later to account for any seasonal shifts when it comes to sunset timing.

Only the beginning...

The next day was another city day. After another morning run in the parks (I cannot get enough of Melbourne’s beautiful parks!), I grabbed a quick to-go breakfast of a chai latte and roti wrap at a small neighborhood café, Plug & Nickle. For a quick and easy breakfast it was delicious, definitely get a side of hot sauce with it. I love that both roti and chai are popular items in Australia.

More park pics since I forgot to snap my roti

I took the city tram through town to get to the Pandora office in South Melbourne. The public transit system in the city is top notch. It’s clean, streamlined, and super easy to figure out. In South Melbourne we grabbed lunch at Gas and shared an open faced lamb pita with hummus that was top notch. Hummus is another popular ingredient in Australia. My friend had a giant tub of Yumi’s Hommus, which I’m still trying to figure out how to order in the US. After that I walked around the South Melbourne market, which had some interesting little local shops and is a good place to get affordable souvenirs.

Souvenirs, plus food and flowers

From South Melbourne it’s pretty easy to walk over to the Shrine of Remembrance, which you can walk around in.

Shrine from the outside

You can also go up to the top, which offers more great views of the skyline.

MORE PANOS! #cantstopwontstop

To the right of the shrine is the edge of the Botanical Gardens, so I walked through the park and found a good bench to read on. There’s also a lot of free greenhouses you can walk into and see some neat local vegetation from more tropical regions in Australia.

I dunno what kind of tree this is but its fucking cool

After that I walked down Chapel St, which is a popular shopping area that ends back in the Windsor neighborhood. While I waited for my friend to get off work I enjoyed some local wine at Tusk, which had a nice outdoor seating area. After that we went to dinner at the nearby Mr Miyagi, which was the best dinner of the trip. I highly recommend getting there right when it’s opens. If you do get there and there’s a wait, there is a cool bar area in the back and they make fancy cocktails.

Ohai, more coll graffiti

For dinner we tried a bunch of dishes but the highlight by far was their famous nori tacos.

Personal mantra of my trip

The next day was my last full day in the city and I still hadn’t tried their most popular brunch dish, the avocado smash. I ran over to the Richmond neighborhood, to try it at a Friend of Mine. My friend who lives there said it was the best she’d had in the city so far and it did not disappoint. The dish is sprinkled in feta with a beet puree.

OMG YUM

I walked Smith St in Collingwood again and found a cool shop that sells things made by local artists. Walking back to Brunswick I finally found the George Constanza themed bar. Sadly it’s only open in the evening hours but I did get this great shot of their very apropos graffiti in the alleyway.

For I am Constanza, Lord of the Idiots!

That evening I went to an event at Glamp, this really cool themed bar that makes you feel like you’re drinking in an open air tent on an African safari even though you’re inside.

Bar camping - the best way to camp

After that we grabbed dinner at Cookie, which is a popular Asian fusion restaurant which is so massive that it’s not too hard to get into. They have a cool looking rooftop bar as well. We ate more roti, so I was happy. After that we checked out some bar options in the CBD and ended up at this cool place in an alley called Section 8, which felt like an apocalyptic garden with a DJ and local rappers battling. 

Leaving Melbourne in style