The Last Days of the Iceland Adventure: Reykjavik, Blue Lagoon, and a Local Church

Sunday. We’d been in Iceland for over a week now, and here we were, back in the capital city of Reykjavík. What should we do? What should we see? What museums were worth checking out?

Personally, I had a hankering to go to church.

Here’s an interesting fact I realized: my trip to Iceland was the first time I’d ever taken a trip to a different country just to do it. For, like, a vacation and a fun time.

I love to travel, but in the past, there’s always been something else inspiring the trip. I went to Belize last year because Mom was speaking at a women’s retreat there. I went to Kenya to do some work with Open Hands. I went to Thailand to visit my sister Amy.

And on those sorts of trips, I always go to church on Sunday with whoever we’re visiting. This was the first time I had to go on Google and find a church to attend. But I looked forward to it. When Mom and her sisters-in-law went to Scotland a few years ago they made some of their most interesting connections at a local church.

Stephen and Annie were down for the whole “go to church” thing, but Stephen in particular didn’t want to go to a service in Icelandic. So I searched around and found a place called Reykjavik International Church that had a service at 2 pm.

This was nice in one sense, because we had a late start to our day and probably would have missed a normal 10 am service. But it did limit our day somewhat.

In the end, we decided to visit a famous church called “Hallgrímskirkja” first. Not to go to a service (they were all in Icelandic that day), just to go as a tourist.

Hallgrímskirkja stood tall and imposing. We followed the crowd inside and rode an elevator to the top, where we saw the back side of the clock…

…and then walked up a flight of stairs to the bell tower…

…where we gazed out the lancet windows at the city below us.

In general, I got the impression that Icelanders only like dull colors. They seemed to dress exclusively in black and gray, and their cars were mostly white or black. The only exception was the signature red roofs of the houses that dotted the countryside. Why red? My one guess was that red doesn’t show the rust, but who knows.

So I was pleasantly surprised to gaze from the top of the church and see that the architecture was more colorful than I’d realized.

When we came back down, we went into the church sanctuary for a while. The morning services were over, and most of the people inside seemed to be tourists, but an organist played a haunting tune for us.

Remembering the glacier boat driver, I made sure to sit in stillness for a moment and absorb the beauty.

After touring Hallgrímskirkja, we had an awkward span of time to fill until the 2 pm service at the International church. For lunch I just ate leftover pizza, but Annie wanted to go a real restaurant. So we split up. Like every random town we’d been in so far, Reykjavik was remarkably walkable, so I opted to meander to the International church, admiring murals on the way.

I ended up going into a super-trendy little thrift store and poking around. For a few bucks, I picked up a little book that looked interesting and a pottery tea cup.

And then, on to the church service! It truly was an International Church, with people from all over the world.

You see those men in blue about three rows in front of where we sat? One of them wore a beaded wristband with Kenyan flag colors. When I was in Kenya several years ago, I saw little booths everywhere selling those wristbands.

When the service ended around 3:15 pm, we were in a bit of a tight spot, because we wanted to spend time at the Open Air Museum which closed at 5 pm. But when the pastor announced that we could go downstairs for coffee and fellowship, we decided that we could spare fifteen minutes.

“Excuse me,” I said to the man with the wristband, “are you from Kenya?”

“Yes!” he said. And it turned out the other man in blue next to him was also from Kenya. They were getting their PhDs at Reykjavik University, studying geothermal energy, and hoping to eventually help Kenya transition to also using geothermal energy. Of course I told them all about my brother Steven, and then scrolled through my phone trying to find a picture of him.

I’m not the type of person that usually thinks to take pictures, which is unfortunate for times like this. When I did finally find a picture, it was of the Sunday afternoon we all decided to go to Wesley Yoder’s funeral. Steven, who’d come over for Sunday dinner in a t-shirt not even realizing there was a funeral to go to, had to borrow ill-fitting clothes from Dad.

Anyway, we all had a lively conversation and it was so much fun to meet people who actually lived in Iceland, albeit as transplants. Stephen Sells asked Peter (the Kenyan who was not wearing a wristband) what it was like to be a person of faith in Iceland, and Peter said it was hard, because Icelandic people get really uncomfortable if you talk about faith. But the International church was full of true believers and was growing. It attracted people from all denominations.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long. Already we’d stayed a good 20 minutes longer than we’d planned. And so we left to go to the Open Air Museum.

This museum was the best. We got in for free because unbeknownst to us it was National Museum Day. The museum was full of historic houses that had been moved to the area, and you could fully walk through them.

I love houses, okay? I could have stayed here for ages.

Just think of all the wonderful novels you could write in this room!

I didn’t get to see nearly everything I wanted to see. We weren’t even there for an hour before they went through and locked everything up. But we stayed on the grounds for a while longer, snapping pictures and letting Daniel play.

I absolutely recommend this museum if you go to Iceland, especially if you’re going with kids.

After that we went to a grocery store to buy hot dogs and yogurt. And then, since we had some time to kill before eating our late dinner and heading to bed, we went to the pool!

I talked in an earlier post about Iceland’s pool culture, and indeed, going to the pool felt like the most quintessential Icelandic experience of the whole trip. I think we might have been the only tourists there.

However, if you ever want to go to Iceland and experience the warm swimming pools, I feel as though I should tell you of some of the, erm, cultural oddities.

The rule in Iceland is that you have to go through the locker room and shower naked, with soap, before you can go in the pool. This is really important to them, and allows them to use less chlorine in the pools. There’s also an expectation that you will dry off completely, remove your bathing suit, and wring it out before going back to your locker to get your clothes. This leaves the locker area floor completely dry, so that people can walk around in their stocking feet (since no shoes are allowed in the locker room and must be left on a rack outside the door).

The locker rooms are sex segregated of course, so if you’re a woman, you’ll only be seen by women. But the reality of this system is that, even if you manage to strategically wrap yourself in a towel for most of the proceedings, you will see more naked people than you probably ever have before in all your life.

However, after researching it a bit, I discovered that Icelandic pools usually have private shower rooms you can request to use if you’re uncomfortable. At the pool we were at, it was called a “family shower room” or something of that nature. According to the Internet, if you request to use it they’ll let you, no questions asked, but I did not test this theory.

The pool was really fascinating, once I’d made it through the cultural shock of the locker rooms. The main pool was cooler than a hot tub but warmer than a typical swimming pool. It featured a water slide and a fountain, as well as a separate area for swimming laps. Most of it was outdoors, but you could swim into an indoor area through a vinyl strip curtain.

Then, there were three or four hot tub pools with water of varying temperatures. Due to the warm, balmy nature of the day, most of us were congregated in the coolest hot tub.

It really did remind me of the Roman baths. Everyone was there. Children played in the coolest pools while adults lounged in the hot tubs. And almost everyone spoke Icelandic except for two young women sitting near me who spoke English. I’m not sure why they were speaking English, since they both appeared to live there, but I got the impression that one of them might be a transplant. Nevertheless, I enjoyed eavesdropping on their conversation as they discussed:

• How tourists find the whole “shower naked before getting in the pool” thing weird
• How many pools there are in Iceland
• How record-breakingly warm the weather had been recently

Finally, after an hour or two of basking in the water, we got out, showered, and drove back to our campsite. It was our first time staying at a campground two nights in a row, although since our camper was also our transportation, I just had to trust that no one would disturb the laundry I’d washed and laid out to dry on a dilapidated bush.

It really was lucky for me that we had such splendid weather for drying clothes.

Anyway, we ate a supper of hotdogs and then went to sleep in our camper van.

Speaking of our camper, it occurs to me that I never posted many pictures of it, or described the interior. So let me remedy that now.

Although this vehicle was the first thing to come up when we googled “camper van Iceland,” and that’s what we called it the whole trip, I’m not quite sure it is small enough to actually be considered a “van.” Honestly, it was probably technically a small motorhome.

Look how clean this back bed is! This is a picture from the first day, before we’d even brought in all our luggage. This back bed was the only bed that stayed put permanently. Just to the right of it was a bathroom that we tried to use as little as possible, since our campgrounds all had bathrooms and showers.

Sorry for the blurry pic—but across from the main camper door was this kitchen area we used every time we didn’t have access to a campground kitchen.

This is the front part of the camper. The bench seat to the left is where Daniel sat in his Paw Patrol car seat and Annie sat next to him. To the right was the seat where we put baby Hannah’s car seat. Above, you can see the upper bunk, which was pulled down at night.

Daniel and Annie during the drive.

Here’s a picture of the night setup, with the table and bench seats converted into a bed, and the upper bunk (where I slept) pulled down.

Also note the yellow stocking cap on the gear shift, to remind us not to drive off without unplugging the power cord.

Stephen and I sitting up front, probably in a heated discussion of some sort. (I should note that by the end of the trip, Stephen was a great proficient at driving a manual. We had a full-circle moment our last day in Reykjavik, where we had to stop because someone in front of us stalled out, while we accelerated gracefully and did not stall.)

Our dear camper van at Vatnajökull National Park. Ah, the memories. We were very sorry to leave her when the journey was over.

The next morning was our last truly leisurely morning left, and we enjoyed a good breakfast of yogurt, eggs, bananas, and blueberries.

After which we packed up and headed to our last stop of the trip—Blue Lagoon.

Blue Lagoon is an interesting place. Here’s the story: in a barren lava field in southwest Iceland, they built a geothermal power plant, as they do in many barren places in Iceland that have abundant free hot water just below the surface. After the steaming hot water was used to create electricity, the still-warm water flowed into pools and was ignored as useless runoff.

But this water was unique, because it was full of silica. Not only did this tint the water a beautiful milky blue color, but someone with psoriasis once bathed in the pool and found it helped alleviate his symptoms.

That led to the creation of a man-made geothermal spa filled with the silica-rich runoff of this power plant. Called the “Blue Lagoon,” this spa has become one of the most famous (and certainly the most lucrative) tourist spots in Iceland.

It’s also conveniently located near Keflavík International Airport, which is Iceland’s main airport, and the color of the water makes for stunning pictures.

I will say that if I was doing this trip alone, I would not have bothered to go to Blue Lagoon, as the tickets were pretty expensive. But I was fascinated by the pretty geothermal water, and when the Sells generously offered to gift me admission, I was delighted.

Like the public pools, Blue Lagoon also expected you to shower naked, with soap. But the experience was so different, being full of tourists instead of native Icelanders, that it was almost comical. Every single person in that locker room found a way to cover themselves as they went from the showers to the lockers, and the showers themselves had private doors, so there was no nakedness in sight.

But I’ll confess I kinda understood the perks of the Icelandic system, because at Blue Lagoon there was water all over the floor in the locker area.

When I got in the water, I trotted and splashed about for a while in perfect bliss before I realized an uncomfortable truth: the whole lagoon was in full sun, and I was not wearing sunscreen. So I walked around the place looking for something shaded. Finally I found an obscure corner, back beside the building where they gave expensive massages, that was in the shade. The water was also a bit cooler here, which felt nice. So there I parked myself for an hour or more, relaxing in the blue and reading the book I’d gotten at the thrift store the day before.

I don’t recommend the book, but I had a good time nevertheless.

I didn’t get good pictures in the lagoon, so you’ll have to use Aunt Google if you want to look at it in all its Instagramable glory. At the end of the day I snapped this picture through the window of the café. By this point, the sun was setting behind the café and creating a nice area of shadow where many people congregated, but it does make the water look an uglier shade of blue than it actually was.

Here’s a picture Stephen took that gives a more accurate depiction of the water color. Poor Daniel found the water too hot for his liking.

Oh! Funny story I forgot to mention. When we were first checking in, they asked how old Daniel was.

“Two, almost three,” we said.

“Can you prove that he’s two?” they asked. (They don’t allow children under two in the pool.)

We looked at each other uncertainly. Daniel had a passport, but it was way back in the camper van.

Then Annie had a brilliant idea. “Can I show you a picture of him being born, and you can look at the date stamp?”

“Sure!” said the woman at the counter.

So Annie pulled up Daniel’s birth photos on her phone, and it worked, and somehow that struck me as the most hilarious age-verification tactic I’d ever heard of.

Overall, the lagoon was lovely. Although it’s not among the top places in Iceland I’d recommend, I do think it’s worth the trip if:

1. You go at a cold time of year. Many geothermal pools have a very cold walk between the pool and the locker room, but you can enter Blue Lagoon while still indoors and then walk outside through the water. I think the warmth would be much more satisfying on a cold day than it was on the blissfully balmy day we went. Also, I think it would be glorious to experience northern lights or snow while relaxing in the pools!
2. You are on a short layover. Blue Lagoon is the closest tourist destination to the airport. I think it’s about a 20 minute bus ride.
3. Saving money is not a huge priority as you’re planning your trip.

After our afternoon at Blue Lagoon we went to Vogar Campsite, 15 minutes from the airport. Vogar Campsite was lovely in several ways. First, the Icelandic couple who owned it were very present, helpful, and chatty. Second, the place was full of free food, toiletries, gear, etc. left behind by previous adventurers.

Unfortunately, since were were at the end of the trip, we had plenty to leave behind but didn’t need to take anything. As did the other campers around us. So my one piece of advice if you’re doing a camper van trip in Iceland is this: Go to Vogar Campsite first!

Also, the owners saw us toss the broken power cord, rescued it, and fixed it. So if you happen to drive off without unplugging, you can visit Vogar and ask the nice people to help you.

I hauled my stuff outside to pack so that the Sells could have more space, and I did my best to entertain Daniel. Finally, finally, he was warming up to me. He seemed to enjoy watching me pack my underpants and telling me about his own Spiderman underpants.

The Sells, it must be admitted, found a way to pack an extraordinary amount of stuff in their carryon bags. They attributed this feat to the vacuum sealer system they got at Walmart.

Advice from Annie: there’s no need to get the extra-large bags. Large bags will be plenty big enough.

The next morning we woke at 6:30 am, drank our tea, ate our breakfast, packed up our sleeping bags, and drove to the airport!

Stephen dropped us and the bags off and then went to return the camper van. Thus followed one of the most stressful times of the trip. Daniel, up earlier than usual and devastated to be leaving Iceland, absolutely refused to walk. He wanted Annie, who was already carrying Baby Hannah, to carry him too. I, of course, would not do.

Thankfully, we shortly found some little orange strollers provided by the airport, and I was able to push Daniel with one hand and pull my carry-on suitcase with the other. But when it was time to go through the metal detector, the stroller was not allowed, and I just had to pick him up and haul him through.

It was probably the most like a parent I’ve ever felt in my life.

There were almost no seats at the gate. When Stephen showed up, he sat in the stroller and read a book he’d bought about Norse gods.

In general I enjoyed the journey back more than the journey there. Although we had a 6 hour layover in the JFK airport, and a 2-hour drive back from Nashville, I was able to go to bed around 1:30 am Eastern. So while I was awake for 23 hours, I never flew through the night, meaning I could go to sleep as soon as I got home and re-set my sleep schedule nicely.

The whole trip took 10 days. But what a 10 days!

There’s so much about Iceland that charms me, and I could write for ages about this or that interesting thing. For example, I am absolutely fascinated that Iceland, a country of 400,000 people, keeps its language intact and has a robust publishing industry. That boggles my mind.

Overall, I think Iceland is a place worth going to, and I had a truly magical time.

***

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