Believe it or not, Iceland wasn’t the last time we went winter swimming. There is something entirely primal about confronting below freezing weather in your skivvies and jumping into a slightly less cold pool. It kick-starts your heart, makes your bones jump and fills your lungs with the breath of a dragon. Swimming is a natural pastime in Iceland,...
My birthday falls two days before Christmas. It is on December 23, the eve of Christmas Eve. My mom left the hospital immediately after I was born to come home to take care of her five other kids and create the magical Christmas they expected to have. Growing up, Christmas was always a very enchanting time in our household....
When we visit a new place, we love living as the locals do - participating in local customs, eating the native foods, walking through their neighborhoods, and everything else. When we came to Iceland for Christmas, we wanted to have an Icelandic Christmas. We wanted to eat skate on Þorláksmessa, (dish of putrefying shark), and reindeer on Christmas. We...
Hallgrímskirkja Church, erected high on the hill in the city of Reykjavik, brags of her immense beauty, as she can be seen from nearly any point within the city. She stands as a beacon, with the wings of the church flanking her towering peak and resembling the pipes inside her. Yet, the exquisite beauty of Hallgrímskirkja is nothing compared...
Iceland is an enamoring country where in winter the locals walk outside to go snowboarding, in summer they write books under the midnight sun, have a crime rate that is so low even the police don’t carry guns, and celebrate Christmas in Iceland with 13 different Santa Clauses!
Iceland is one of the top 10 most festive places to celebrate...
