ICELAND.
I C E L A N D. A word I probably said all of 2 or 3 times my whole life. If that. I knew the name, but couldn’t tell you where it was or what it was like. I tend to be bias toward warmer climates. I don’t like being cold if I don’t have to be. So a country like Iceland wouldn’t scratch the surface of my most immediate travel adventures just from the name alone. My friend mentioned briefly wanting to go earlier this year but I didn’t pay too much attention to it, because it was ICE-land.
So fast forward a couple months, I came up with the idea to let my friends and supporters choose my next destination through social media. Might at well shake it up a little bit. I put it on my calendar and started planning the project. As I got closer to announcing how I would choose my next destination, I started realizing that I could be sent off anywhere. I must admit I did start to trip out a little bit. But only for like two minutes.
So I made my announcement and narrowed down the choices to 5: Croatia, Cuba, Iceland, India, and Tanzania. Iceland edged out to be the winner and I was thrilled. Like yeah, this is about to be crazy, I’m going to Iceland. Then it dawned on me……I’m going to Iceland. Wait what? Iceland. Um. Where IS Iceland? I’m bout to freeze. What is Iceland even like?
Let’s just say, I was absolutely blown away after reading the first article on Iceland. I was beyond hype about experiencing 24 hours of light. Like too hype! (It never gets pitch black dark during the summer. I’ll explain in later post) But, I couldn’t believe it. The more pictures I saw and the more I read, the more I was in disbelief that I was actually going. What are the odds of this? My friends and supporters would send me to a place that was totally out of my comfort zone. A place that wasn’t comparable to any place I had ever been. A place that is compared to the moon! A place that required me to do more research than I had ever done before. Even when I travel to places I’ve never been, I always have some type of idea about the place. But before the research, if you would have said Iceland, I most definitely would have drawn a blank. We often hear that greatness begins at the end of your comfort zone. And ever since I started Can’t Stay Put™, I’d been a firm believer of this. Iceland was no different!
I left for Iceland on the red-eye from JFK. The 1st shocker about Iceland was the fact that it’s only a 5h and 30m flight from New York. Yeah, I was surprised too. Iceland is located in the North Atlantic Ocean, directly east of Greenland. Iceland is Europe’s most western country and a little over a 3h flight from London and Paris. Come to find out a lot of east coasters travel to Iceland for a 4/5 day weekend trip or stop there on the way to or back from Western Europe. No visa needed either!
I arrived a little after 9am, Greenwich Mean Time Zone. (Never heard of that time zone either, but it’s 4 hours ahead of EST) I turned on my phone. Connected to Wifi.
Mama, I made it to Iceland!
