^{South Iceland}

When I heard of $300 flights from Los Angeles to Iceland, it was a no-brainer to book flights as soon as possible. It didn’t need much time to find who’s willing to go with me. Iceland was the first country in Europe I had stepped on after a very long time. Sadly, my first time was just a short layover on my way to Sweden and Denmark. Thank goodness to great flight deals, I finally had the chance to visit this beautiful country.

We decided to go in March to experience the country with 8 hours of sunlight and still have the chance to see the northern lights. Everything was going great until the night before our flight when we received emails and text messages from our airline that there was going to be a big delay. Checking it online, we found out that we were arriving 11 hours later than scheduled… 11 HOURS! We immediately called each other up and decided to meet much later and be in contact with each other in case anyone hears anything else. The next morning, we received another update that it will be 9 hours delayed instead of 11, which is better, but not good at all. I had to scramble and look over at our itinerary and move things around for us to make it to our hotel in Vik in South Iceland by night.

Since we didn’t have much time, we drove straight out of Keflavik Airport towards the Ring Road. We decided to stop by the two waterfalls that were all located off the main highway while there was still sunlight. Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss, one of the most famous waterfalls in the country. This is the first big waterfall I have seen in person. It was so beautiful and much larger in scale than what I have imagined. You can walk around to view the falls from behind, but the water was so strong that you will definitely get wet. Getting wet is one thing, but getting wet with freezing water in freezing temperature is way different. We decided to admire the falls as close as we can, before turning around and driving to our next destination.

By the time we reached Skogafoss, we only had less than an hour before the sun begins to set. This means hurrying up to climb the viewing platform next to the waterfalls so we can see it from the top. To give you an idea, Skogafoss is about 200 feet high and this unplanned hiking after a long overnight international travel was the last thing on my list. However, when we got to the top, the view of the mountain and the waterfall was all worth it. According to other people, you can easily spot rainbows while viewing this waterfall due to the intense water that comes from this fall. It was almost dark when we reached the bottom, so we didn’t see any waterfalls. I was a little disappointed, but nevertheless, still thankful that we get to explore and do something on our first day in Iceland.