This day was the last full day in Iceland and it was pretty dang awesome!
I saw this type of bird all through our trip and I really liked it! It's a tjaldur also known as a Eurasian oystercatcher.
We went to a golden sand beach, but the sand wasn't very golden. We didn't stay here for very long.
Ytri Tunga Seal Beach! We saw a few seals playing in the water off shore, but not as many as I was hoping. I think the cold and wind might have kept the seals from wanting to be on land this day. But it's okay, the beach was still cool to walk around!
There's a Eurasian oystercatcher.
Still part of the seal beach!
The view from the seal beach parking lot!
So we stopped at this cafe where a scene of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was filmed. (The part where he's eating at Papa John's in Iceland. They changed the signage and inside to look like Papa John's but it's actually a cafe with sandwiches and pastries etc.)
It was cold and windy!
We got food here for our lunch that we ate a little later. The pastry I got was delicious! :)
This was the view from the parking lot of the cafe.
Hraunfossar! I seriously loved this place! The falls are coming out of lava rocks. No pools at the top, just coming out of the rock and it was so cool!
Look at the color of that water and the falls and everything around it!
It was pretty long!
So awesome! Did I mention it was a bit cold and windy this day?! But look at that scenery!
Do you see that house and buildings on the green hill behind the waterfall?! It was so cool!
You can't have too many pictures of this waterfall. :)
About a 3 minute walk from Hraunfossar was Barnafoss! This waterfall was just as cool as Hraunfossar, just in a different way!
The color of the water was amazing and it's running through the arch! (It's the same water running past Hraunfossar.)
Looking downstream from Barnafoss!
Time to say goodbye to Hraunfossar and Barnafoss! Like I said earlier I loved these waterfalls!
Hello Reykjavik! Before we left for Iceland, Diana had found a walking tour we could take in Reykjavik. This was our meeting point.
Our tour guide was a grad student named Johannes and he was hilarious!
The building above is the Parliament building.
I had to secretly get a picture of Johannes! Our hilarious, cute, smart tour guide. :)
The Settlement Exhibition. I love that it says 871 +/- 2 years on the building. They had found some old human relics dating back to 871 but then conflicting information said it might be a little older or younger so they added the +/- 2. I thought it was kind of humorous. :)
A lot of houses in Iceland have wooden frames and corrugated metal on the outside to help protect them from the elements.
This is one of the nicer neighborhoods in Reykjavik! It was cute and Johannes mentioned it was pretty expensive to live here.
I took a picture of this tree, because there aren't very many trees in Iceland. So when there is one, it's worthy of being pointed out (as Johannes mentioned on our tour). ;)
This is still on our walking tour. I don't remember what this was. I just liked the building.
Johannes again! :)
Some graffiti on the side of a building.
A memorial dedicated to a pioneer in Iceland's women's liberation movement,
Bríet Bjarnhédinsdóttir.
The beer mitten was invented by an Icelandic woman. Johannes had brought a mitten and can of orange soda with him to show us at the women's memorial. Diana got to drink the soda with the mitten. :)
While we were on our walking tour, we saw this Ugly restaurant/Don's Donuts and I thought the name was humorous and it made me want to get a donut later.
I was a bit disappointed after the tour when we went there and found there were no donuts, just pizza. :(
That sculpture is The Face of the Sun.
Inside the Reykjavik visitor center they had this awesome 3-D topographical map of Iceland! It was really cool to see where we'd been and see the landscape in that way. It was pretty amazing!
This was the ending point of our walking tour.
I thought this statue was pretty awesome! It's the Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat. You should look it up.
I loved these little kid's hats with Viking horns on them. Aren't they cute?!
Me and
Grýla! (Maybe I should have looked a little more scared to be standing next to her.) ;)
Me and
Leppalúði!
Hallgrímskirkja! A beautiful but not typical church in Reykjavik! It's a Lutheran church and is the largest church in Iceland.
We got tickets to go to the top of the church to see the view!
The next six pictures are the view from the top of
Hallgrímskirkja!
Isn't the city beautiful?!
Inside the main part of the church. Look at those organ pipes!
This teenager was practicing his organ playing while we were there. The organ sounded really good!
It's simple, full of light, and lovely!
On the walking tour, Johannes mentioned the most famous hot dog stand in Reykjavik and Diana and I decided to go there for dinner.
The hot dog was decent. It wasn't really anything special, but the toppings were good!
Our last stop of the day was the Harpa, a concert hall and conference centre!
Isn't it cool looking?!
Since it was pretty cold and windy outside, we went inside the Harpa to warm up and I walked around a bit. This was at the back of the Harpa. I loved the colored windows.
The view from inside the Harpa!
Look at that ceiling!
It was really windy and the it was hard to stand still for the picture. ;)
The view from the other side of the Harpa!
A statue outside the Harpa!
On our way back to our car.
This was the view from our hotel! Isn't it pretty?!
I liked Reykjavik. It has a different feel than other cities. It's smaller, colorful, and just feels different than most big cities.
Overall this was a day of awesome scenery and city sites!
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