I didn't sleep well at all last night, I was just very uncomfortable and when I woke up this morning I was in excruciating pain.
I could barely walk or put any weight on my legs, especially my left one.
I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to get out and do anything for the rest of our vacation here in Iceland.
I even said to Jason this morning that I might need to rent some crutches or a cane or something in order to be able to get around.
I took some Advil and Tylenol and just stayed in bed resting for the morning.
Jason made us egg sandwiches on buns for breakfast and as I was eating mine, I broke off a big chunk of my tooth.
It wasn't hurting but I don't think I have much tooth left and it's right in my smile zone.
I won't be able to get to the dentist until we get back, hopefully what is left stays in tact and they can do something to repair it when I finally do get in to see them about it.
Early in the afternoon the pain in my legs had eased up a bit so Jason and I went out for a walk.
I was really limping and very slow but at least I could walk.
We stopped at a little store and I love looking at what kind of foods they sell in other countries.
I've never seen Orange flavored cereal before and home we call these Coco Puffs, not Coco Pops.
Kind of neat.
We came across a cute little ice cream store so we thought we'd check it out.
I like the pink and blue color scheme they have going on, it's fun.
It was kind of hard to figure out what we wanted since everything was in Icelandic.
We figured it out though.
We got these ice creams that are similar to what a McFlurry or a Blizzard would be at home.
Jason got a large.
I got the smaller one.
Just some of the homes on the street we were walking on.
I like that they are all different looking - it makes it so much more interesting than the subdivisions you see with all the houses that look exactly the same.
This is the place we stayed at.
I think there were three apartments in it.
We were in the basement one, the door to it is in front of Jason so you can't see it in this picture.
This is the vehicle that we rented.
Not in the best shape but it did the trick.
We decided to do the Hop On Hop Off tour today.
We normally like doing them when we go to a new city and figured we could just stay on it for the whole route since I wasn't really into doing a whole lot of walking today.
The first stop was right downtown at the harbour by Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center.
It was an art center as well I think so of course there was some art right outside of it.
Also a statue of a musician.
We hopped on the bus at Stop 1 right at 1:30 pm.
We pretty much had the upper deck all to ourselves.
It was a great day for it too - the weather was perfect - not too hot, not too cold.
Snapped a picture of the whole of Harpa Concert Hall as we drove past it.
It's a beautiful building.
A shot of the harbour as we drove past.
Ice cream place we need to come back and check out.
Whales of Iceland museum - another place we'd like to come back and check out.
There were some really cool murals on the buildings.
It was hard to snap pictures sometimes because we were going by so fast and there was a plastic window so I always seemed to have a glare.
This is right downtown - I think part of the college.
More from the downtown area - very nice green space.
So many people out and about.
More green
The back of probably the most famous building in Reykjavik,
Hallgrimskirkja Church
And the front..
We will most definitely be coming back here to check it out in person.
It looks like it has a nice grounds around it.
The Perlan of in the distance there.
There are views of the mountains all around.
Wasn't quite sure what this building even was.
Looks like it's a museum of some sort - we may try to make it back and check it out another day.
Some odd looking statues outside of the Perlan.
Looks like there are a bunch of trails around here you can walk on and I think you can get right down to the water from here.
Oooh, I wonder if there are some wild horses around here too?
We never saw any.
Reykjavik is actually a pretty big city.
I think off in the distance that this is another city right next to it, I can't remember the name.
They kind of blend into one another, hard to tell where one city stops and the new one starts.
There was a Disney cruise ship moored in the harbour.
I loved that Goofy was hanging off the front there.
A statue on the water front.
Another famous building - I can't remember what the significance of it is but regardless, it's still a nice looking building.
The Viking ship on the waterfront.
This is another landmark that we've seen lots when watching videos about Iceland.
We'll make sure we get back to get a closer look.
It was 3 pm when we got back to Stop #1 and got off the bus so the whole tour took exactly 1.5 hours.
I noticed all these little rock statues on the rocks by the harbour when we got off, home we call them inukshuks.
After the bus tour, we went inside of the Harpa Concert Hall to have a look around.
I also needed to get a drink so I could take some more medication.
I'm keeping on top of it and taking some every 4 hours so I can keep walking!
Then we went for a little walk around town and came across this famous hot dog stand.
Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur (The City’s Best Hotdog)
It's been frequented by some pretty famous folks including Bill Clinton and Anthony Bourdain.
There was a bit of a line up, apparently there always is, but it didn't take long to get through at all.
All the blogs and vlogs that we've seen about it say to order the 'One with Everything' so that's what I did.
Fist off, it's a hot dog made of lamb meat then it has all of the following toppings if you get the one with everything.
Icelandic Mustard
Remoladi Sauce
Fried Onions
Raw Onions
Iceland style Ketchup (with apples instead of sugar to sweeten the flavor).
I loved it - I think I could have eaten a couple no problem.
Jason skipped it, he doesn't like hot dogs but I think he missed out.
Hopefully I'll have a chance to have another one before we leave Iceland.
Jason was hungry though so we looked for a place to eat.
Jason found a place called Iceland Street Food that wasn't too far away so we headed over there.
We got a bit turned around with the directions but eventually found it and it was on this street with this giant rainbow running up the center of it.
How cool is that?
And you could see the Hallgrimskirkja Church there at the top of the street.
Of course we had to take a selfie on the street.
The restaurant we were heading too was right on this street.
The menu.
We tried the fish and chips.
We also tried the lamb soup.
It was pretty good food and pretty reasonably priced.
We've been finding the food a bit on the expensive side since we've been here.
After we ate, we explored around a bit albeit slowly due to my leg pain.
We saw some cool things, like this building covered in butterflies.
I love the street art, there was lots of it around here.
Jason was taking a picture and it looked like this kitty was about to pounce on him.
So I told him to look like he was scared, ha ha.
Love it.
Just cute little things to discover all over the place.
We checked out some touristy shops because I wanted to get a magnet and a Christmas tree ornament.
I always get them as souvenirs on every trip that we go on.
I also got some really nice mittens at a very fair price (I forgot to take a picture).
I did get a picture of the cool troll they had on display in the store though.
I love it.
We walked up the rainbow road to the church.
We wanted to go up to the lookout but it was closed this evening so we'll have to come back another time.
Hallgrimskirkja church in Reykjavik.
This statue of explorer Leifur Eiriksson is the the front of the church - it was a gift to Iceland from the United States.
Fitting then I guess that this hotel would be right across the street.
These knight statues were also in the courtyard of the church.
They kind of reminded me of chess pieces for some reason.
There just happened to be this little house with what looked like a thatched roof right across from the church too.
I'd expect to see something like this out in the country, not right down town.
I love the shape of the top of this building.
More street art.
Just interesting things we saw while exloring.
Road art.
It led all the way down the street.
Beautiful hydrangeas.
This store caught my interest but it was closed so we couldn't check it out.
More street art/murals.
There was a punk museum (we didn't check it out, not really our thing I guess).
It had a pretty cool looking mascot though.
All is Well.
Great message!
There were little street vendors all along this street and I love the flagging that went across from building to building.
Another cool mural.
My co-worker Colleen was in Iceland a few years ago and recommended we check out the Penis Museum while we were here so we did.
Imagine a Phallological Museum - that's a new one for me.
There is a giant penis to greet you just as you walk in the door.
Quite the record to hold.
There is a little video they show when you first walk in all about how the museum was started.
The museum's founder had owned a bull's pizzle as a child which was given to him as a cattle whip.
A friend heard about it and gave him 4 new ones and from there acquaintances at whaling stations began bring him whale penises and the collection just kind of grew from there.
He said that collecting penises is like collecting anything. You can never stop, you can never catch up, you can always get a new one, a better one.
There was a penis snail.
Just a bunch of penises of various shapes and sizes.
Then lots of actual specimens.
Some deer.
I should have taken a picture of the plaque to see what animals these were actually from.
This was from a horse.
I did think to take a picture of the plaque that went along with this one.
This one was from a zebra.
They all included these little plaques that told whether the size of the penis was small/average or large comparatively for the size of the animal.
Then it also describe the mating habits of the animal and other little interesting tidbits of information.
Have you ever seen a giraffe penis?
I haven't, not until right now.
So this is the kind of information on each of the plaques - kind of interesting.
A narwhal penis.
A sperm whale penis.
I thought this was interesting too.
His actual penis wasn't there on display but there was a picture.
There was a human specimen though - Colleen said they didn't have a human specimen when she was there so it must have been an addition.
Someone's idea of what a caveman penis may have looked like.
We only had about an hour in the museum before it closed which was ok, we saw what we wanted to see.
They did have a cafe in there that sold penis shaped food that actually looked really tasty but it was closed so we didn't have the opportunity to try anything.
I have been taking ibuprofen and acetaminophen regularly but I ran out of ibuprofen so we stopped at a grocery store to pick some up.
Turns out you can only buy it at a pharmacy so we looked one up to go to.
First though, there was a food truck in the parking lot of the grocery store and the smells coming from it were very enticing so we decided to have a burger and some fries first.
It was a really good burger.
Then we found the pharmacy to get my Ibuprofen.
After that, we decided to take advantage of our free passes to the geothermal pool.
Anyone who ran the marathon on Saturday could take their bib to any of the geothermal pools in Reykjavik (and there were several to choose from) and get free entry on Saturday or Sunday.
There happened to be one not far from our VRBO so we went there.
Laugardalslaug Thermal Pool
They make you strip down and shower before putting your bathing suit on and heading out to the pool and most everyone just uses the communal showers but luckily they had private showers too.
I don't think communal showering is for me.
Cameras and picture taking were not allowed inside the pool area so unfortunately I couldn't take any but I grabbed a few off the internet just so show what it looked like inside.
It's a huge place, there is a big pool for swimming laps then a hotter pool for kind of just sitting and relaxing in.
Just a view from another angle.
The round circle in the front is a really shallow pool for sitting in and relaxing as well.
You can see there is a big slide and to the right of this a lot more pool area which wasn't really captured in the picture.
It was a huge complex.
Apparently Icelander's love their geothermal pools and its a hangout spot.
So we might go to a bar or a coffee shop to hang out, they go to the pool and then afterwards, for ice cream.
I could get on board with that.
Relaxing in the geothermal pools was the perfect way to spend the evening - it was open until 10 and we stayed as long as we could.
Afterwards, we went back to the grocery store, I'd needed some butter and forgotten to get it earlier.
There happened to be an ice cream place near by that was still open so we went for ice cream before heading back to the VRBO and calling it a night.
Jason had some fruity flavored ice cream.
I went all out and had a giant one with caramel pieces in it.
It was a good day.
My leg/groin/thigh still hut but nowhere near like this morning so that's encouraging.
I am going to keep up my regimen of Ibuprofen and acetaminophen every 4 hours though just in case.
That's all for today, until next time, be happy!
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