Hopped off the Plane at KEF

"Welcome to Reykjavik", the pilot said over the intercom, "Where local time is 9:05am". Ahh. Suddenly I was wide awake despite getting maybe two hours of the sleep on the flight over.

We scurried off the plane and entered the clean, Scandanavian designed airport to make our way through customs. Two minutes later, our passports were stamped and we were through. Take note, Atlanta airport.

Similar to how major tourist attractions make you exit through the gift shop, they pushed us right into the duty free shop on the way to baggage claim. But it worked out in our favor this time because if you drink alcohol, this is the best place to stock up. Alcohol is not cheap in Iceland, and you cant just walk into a grocery store and buy it like you can in the states. You have to go out of your way to find a Vinbudin, which is a state run liquor store. So safe to say we did some damage.

We heaved our overweight suitcases off the baggage carousel and headed towards the exit with our bottles clinking like underage kids sneaking alcohol out of the house in their sleepover bag. Now time to get our rental car. There are a few rental car compaines, like Hertz, that are actually in the terminal, but majority of the rentals you'll have to take a free shuttle bus to get to. Ours, of course, happened to be niether of these options *cue stress sweat. We tried to call them and also asked the other rental car counters if they knew where our company, Thrifty, was located. No luck. So we did what any psycho ex- girlfriend would have done... kept trying to call them. At this point, I was a bit panicked. Luckily they finally answered and told us our "private VIP shuttle" was on the way. Yeah, okay. Ditch the fancy name, Thrifty. It was a white van, not a limo. Despite this little hiccup, everything else went smoothly when getting the rental car and the employees were so friendly. I don't normally get the extra car insurance, but this time I would definitely recommend it because there are a good bit of gravel roads and the weather in Iceland is unpredictable. I'm talking ice, rain, hail, strong wind, an sunshine all in one day. We Georgia girls aren't equipped for that.

Our car came with a built in navigation system at no extra charge, but a lot of times it couldn't pick up on the address we would type in. Luckily, we rented a wifi pocket hotspot from Trawire ahead of time so we could use Google Maps. It is only $10 a day, you pick it up in the airport, and the wifi is unlimited--very easy and useful.

(Our wifi pocket device from Trawire)

Once we settled in our grey Ford Kuga, we hit the road headed in the direction of Reykjavik. The city center is about a 45min drive from the airport, but first we stopped off at a grocery store because what road trip is complete without snacks? Plus something about checking out another country's grocery stores get me excited. (Does that mean I'm officially old?) There are two major grocery stores in Iceland: Bonus, with the bright pink pig logo, and Kronan, with the smiling lemon logo. You can't miss either of them. In fact they're so bright, you might need some sunglasses. I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but the cute little pig logo was calling our names, so we went to Bonus. It had simple, white, warehouse style shelving and like most European grocery stores, it was quite small. They had everything you could need. That is, except for my one true love, Diet Coke. Yes. They don't carry Diet Coke ANYWHERE in Iceland. Sad day. We picked up some sandwiches, cookies, and some Icelanic cheeto-like rings.

Then, in the words of Willie Nelson, we were "on the road again". I don't know if it was the beauty and newness around us, or being extra focused on which exit to take on the roundabouts thrown at us every few feet, but we found ourselves driving in silence. No music, no noise, just silence. It was nice. Then just shy of the city center, we pulled into Ishestar Horse Riding Center where we had a horseback riding tour through lava fields. Read more