Dreams came true... Iceland - the land of fire and ice

Thursday was my favorite day in a week, as during the breakfast time in the office, I could browse through the travel columns printed in the newspaper that my colleague usually brought. I still remember. It was 26th May 2016. As I turned over the page, I saw something intriguing me - "Land tours only - Iceland." I saw the price it offered, "Hmmm.... expensive," I said it to myself. And at the page next to it, there was an advertisement offering the full package of the Iceland tour - "10D7N Iceland Aurora Hunt Explorer." 

Photo courtesy: Kelly Koh - Quote by Haruki Murakami from 1Q84

"Hmm... Wow!!!" murmured me. "That was it!!! They had it!!!" claimed me inside my heart.

"I've had that kind of experience myself: I'm looking at a map and I see someplace that makes me think, 'I absolutely have to go to this place, no matter what.' And most of the time, for some reason, the place is far away and hard to get to. I feel this overwhelming desire to know what kind of scenery the place has, or what people are doing there. It's like measles - you can't show other people exactly where the passion comes from. It's curiosity in the purest sense. An inexplicable inspiration." 

- Haruki Murakami 1Q84 -

Iceland map across the globe

Yes, Iceland!!! It was my dream to be able to visit this place. Geographically, this island was located independently between the continental Europe and mainland North America. It was well-known as the land of the fire and ice because of its country extremist conditions with glaciers and volcanic springs located next to each other. It sounded mysterious for me as its location was separated from the rest of the Europe countries and if you heard about the erupted Eyjafjallajökull (Read: [ˈeɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥] - Yeah, try to pronounce it guys!!! :P), which caused enormous disruptions to air traffic across western and northern Europe and affected more than 10 million travelers over a week's period of time back in April 2010, I was wondering how the place looked even after that. 

Reyka Vodka - Iceland made vodka

Apart from that, I was so curious and would love to visit the hometown of the Reyka - a brand of vodka distilled and bottled in Iceland. It was handmade and used the water drawn from the lava field that went through the process of demineralisation before being blended with the vodka. As you know, I'd been using 'Reyka' word for my nickname, a name given by chatting brother back in year 1998, and still used it until now. And only now, I found out that 'Reyka' meant 'steam' in Icelandic word :)

So, I was asking my parents if they were interested to join this tour and within the same day, they agreed to it. The next day, I went to register the package for 3. And few weeks later, I was asking my friend - who joined the Silk tour together one year ago - if she and her father were interested to join the trip. And yes, they did! Therefore, five of us were finally joining the tour, together with the rest of 18 people who had the same interests to visit the country.

Stopover at Schiphol Airport - Amsterdam

On 14th October our KLM flight departed from Singapore Changi Airport and we had a stopover in Amsterdam for 5.5 hours. While waiting, we just browsed around the area and had breakfast from the Amsterdam Bread Co. With the open kitchen concept, the sandwich offered was looked so appetizing!!! I ordered the Smoked Salmon Sandwich (€6.95) with a cup of Latte Macchiato while my parents were sharing the Ham and Cheese Sandwich (€5.95) and a cup of Espresso. They tasted delicious!!!

Schiphol Airport - Amsterdam

We spent the rest of our times browsing the shops and planned on what to buy on our way back home to Singapore. Hahaha... The airport was wonderful. Read more on my experience on Iceland - Day 1 soon...