DAY SEVEN: HAFNARFJÖRÐUR, BLUE LAGOON AND BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday to me! It's my 32nd birthday and what an awesome way to spend the day driving through the Snæfellsnes Peninsular to Hafnarfjörður, the city of elves, where we had the most incredible accommodation at a Viking Village. Followed by a late night dip in the Blue Lagoon, this was definitely up there with the best birthdays of all time.

We spent the previous night in an AirBnb in Grundarfjörður, at the top of the Peninsular. We left super early as we had a jam packed day of fun. We stopped off at a supermarket for breakfast and ended up with the most delicious pastry consisting of a mix of croissant, donut, and iced bun. What is this witchcraft? Divine!! We headed south to Reykjavik as we had booked an escape room. I was so pumped for an Icelandic escape room, but it ending up being terrible. OMG we may be smiling in this pic but we were actually proper disappointed. Look at that time! We got out with THIRTY SIX minutes to spare! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we got out but wish we got our money's worth. We shopped for a bit in town before having a delicious noodle lunch and then headed into Hafnarfjörður, about 20 minutes south of Reykjavik.

Hafnarfjörður is known as the city of lava, city of vikings and city of elves. Hafnarfjördur is famous for having one of Iceland's largest settlements of elves, dwarves and Hidden Folk. Do all Icelander's believe in the Hidden Folk? I don't think many would openly admit to believing, but they certainly wouldn't deny their existence either. Sarah purchased the Hidden World's map and we did a tour around town in search of the Elven Church and home sites. This was taken in the elven park in the middle of town.

We tried to be as cheap as we could with accommodation during our trip, with the exception of this night where we stayed in a cottage in the Viking Village. Because why the hell not! Sometimes you just gotta splurge, and why not treat yo' self on your birthday? Honestly, it was worth every single cent. It was themed to within an inch of it's life, but managed to do so without being tacky or Disney-fied. We had dinner at the Viking restaurant, which got off to a bad start when we were ignored by the hemp sack wearing waitresses who wanted nothing to do with us. They then seated us in a small table at the entrance, and we felt like we were on display the whole time. Chinese and German tour groups walked past us and unsubtly stared at us eating our food. I death-stared down two Chinese ladies who were eyeing me up as I ate my lamb. I just picked up the leg of lamb and started chomping on it without breaking eye contact. I then snarled a bit (hey, we're at a viking village) and narrowed my eyes enough to make them go away. The food was incredible, they gave us shots of Black Death and ended up having an awesome night.

We tried so hard to be fierce. Fiercely failing.

That Icelandic sky!

We had pre-booked the Blue Lagoon for a 9pm start which meant we got to stay away from the crowds, and enjoy the midnight sun. We drove the main road and all the turn offs into the Blue Lagoon were blocked. We were semi-freaking out that there was no way to get there when we saw a roadwork crew flanked by 15 cars and a very animated argument was taking place. It turned out that they were repaving the road and expecting all guests to travel the long way around which would add 45 minutes to the journey to the lagoon. FORTY FIVE MINUTES are you joking? The Blue Lagoon is not cheap, and you want to get every single minutes worth there. Some of the ladies who were arguing were fierce, and demanded to be taken through the newly paved road which was met with replies of how much it will ruin tyres, you better have insurance etc. We ended up all going across as Fierce Lady 1 was not going to give in, and the paved surface? About 30cm long. Not even joking. By the way the road workers were going on about it, I honestly thought it was the entire length of the road. And furthermore, why would you block off the entire road to the most popular tourist attraction in the country? Do one side of the road! WTF.

Anyway, we got into the lagoon and relaxed our now stressed and frazzled selves in the calming warm water of the lagoon. We had paid for the more expensive package (treat yo' self birthday) which included alcohol, silica mud masks, algae mask and towels. I just kept slathering the masks on, they had buckets of it by the sides of the pool where you could just reach in, grab a handful and just slather it on all over your face. I knew you could buy the masks and they are expensive. I'm talking $100 for one tube of silica, so when they're handing that shit out - you take it. It was such a relaxing night and the best way not just to spend my birthday night, but also the last night of our Iceland trip.

Quite often we would see guests standing on the edge of the lagoon taking photos, so Sarah and I awkwardly posed in as many as we could. Random people now have photos of us with white silica faces strangling each other, waving, back to back posing and just general tomfoolery.

We were there until midnight and it was still light. What a magical place.