A view of Greenland from the plane. It does not look so green, huh?
Most people do not know this, but Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland, is only 5 hours from New York City. This was a major factor in the decision to visit the country, as I only had 4 free days to travel. My friend, Sarah ("sarahvioland" on here), and I boarded our afternoon flight and could not stop laughing at the fact that 2 weeks prior to this trip we had been in Costa Rica. What a difference in countries!
I suggest that if you take the same flight as I did from JFK you try to get a window seat. I always choose an aisle seat, but for the short 30 minutes that you will fly over Greenland it is more than worth it. I had never seen icebergs before and the view was out of this world amazing!
We arrived at 1AM and it looked like it was 1PM.
Greenland
During the spring and summer Iceland experiences 22 hours of sunlight. It was so surreal! To save $ we took the Flybus instead of a taxi to our guesthouse. Check out
www.flybus.is for the current schedule. When you walk out of customs you will see the machines to buy the tickets for the Flybus. Tickets were about $20 a person, whereas a taxi would have been about $50 a person. The Flybus will take you from the airport to your hotel if it is a popular one or to the main bus station in downtown Reykjavik, which was where we were dropped off. On the way into town we drove through lava fields and were lucky enough to see a gorgeous sunset. What a nice welcoming present from Iceland!
At the bus station we had to take a short taxi ride to our guesthouse.
Only in Iceland could the sun set at 2AM...
The place we stayed at was called the Three Sisters (
www.threesisters.is). It was a studio apartment located on a quiet street and was within easy walking distance to the heart of Reykjavik. The owner of the guesthouse was an adorable older man who treated my friend and I like princesses. I highly recommend staying at a guesthouse instead of a hotel.
It was quite difficult to fall asleep since it was so light outside and I was still on NY time, eventually though I was able to drift off after burying my head deep into the pillows.
