Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Several years ago, my husband and I decided to go to Iceland for spring break because Icelandair was having a promotion. We knew that it would be cold for our three-day visit so we broke our own rules and took a large suitcase each with winter clothing, including a heavy coat. As the plane turned to land on the runway, all we could see was snow and cleared runway. We asked ourselves, "What have we done?"

In spite of our first impression, we really enjoyed our visit. A friend who taught school at the military base there arranged for us to have a taxi driver who took us around. He drove on the icy roads like it was the middle of summer and took us to the Golden Circle where you could see geysers, frozen waterfalls, and steam bubbling out of the ground. It was amazing. It was also 25 degrees F with a pretty nasty wind chill so I was really bundled up. In fact, when I took my hand out of my glove to take a picture of Geysir, a famous geyser, I thought it would freeze.

Icelanders swim outside in the thermally heated water. We saw the Blue Lagoon where people were having fun swimming and we even swam outside ourselves in a friend's hot tub. We learned that homes in Iceland have no hot water heaters because the water coming from under the ground is so hot, it is piped into the house just like the cold water.

When we got home, the temperature was in the 70's. What a change!