A TRIP TO A MAGICAL LAND.

Over four weeks of quarantine have gone by. Another 4, at least, until we can start moving around again. Luckily D. and I are together, and our home just happens to be one of my favourite spots in the world. I've lived in this apartment since 2009, it's changed quite a lot since I moved in. I guess both the apartment and I have grown up since then.  For the past four weeks these 35 square meters have been my whole world. Today I thought we would look back at a trip to a much more spacious place...  In late August-early September 2016 Duncan and I flew to Iceland! A life long dream destination. I had been working for a family that summer and while I was in Sweden with them Duncan found cheap flights and booked ❤First stop: Reykjavik!  Reykjavik was such a cool place, full of street art and cute cafés. Our initial plan had been to land there, head straight out on the road and then have a couple of days there at the end of our stay (after having driven around the island).  But no holiday without a tad of drama in our case. I had broken my wrist pretty badly earlier that summer, and had to fly back to Stockholm for a check in and for the doctor to pull the pins out, of course in the middle of our trip. As if that wasn't enough, we couldn't find the car keys when we woke up for my flight and I managed to miss it by about a minute... an expensive mistake as I simply had to book the next flight out. Went back, dad picked me up at the airport, we headed straight to the hospital then I stayed at mum's one night before flying straight back. Duncan waited patiently at the campground in Reykjavik.  In the only city we were visiting we went to their little zoo and saw bunnies, chilled out in hot spa pools, went out for an amazing dinner and had a fun cocktail-filled night out. We stocked up as much as we could, the rest of our trip was to be spent on the road!  We had a campground-card that gave us access to a bunch of different grounds around the island. As we were there late in the season some of them were already closed, the ones that weren't were pretty quiet. If we found one that had a proper kitchen we celebrated with cooked breakfast and coffee before heading back out on the road.  The best were the ones that had barbecues ready to light up! Some nights we were able to park close enough to a power station to plug in my laptop and watch a movie in the tent, snuggled up in five layers of clothing as it was frikkin freezing.  One of those cold nights we were watching Tarzan in the tent and Duncan's feet were so cold he had to venture out to the car to find another pair of socks. So glad he did, otherwise we would have missed this!  Everyone had told us that it was too early in the season and we wouldn't be in the right place to be able to see them, so we weren't even really expecting to. Amazing luck.  We were also told that we wouldn't be able to see puffins, but we did!! Had to pretty much hang off the side of a cliff, but it was worth it 😄 I had a big plastic cover for my cast, came in very handy for hiking in behind waterfalls.  It's a bit of a spooky feeling when it starts getting dark, massive clouds and fog starts rolling in and you realise that you're very far away from what could be called civilisation.  Every now and again we stumbled on little road side museums, like this one on world war II. Lots of interesting stuff to look at and nice to step inside of an actual building for a while as well..  One day we booked in for a whale watching tour!  All bundled up in matching overalls we piled on to a little boat that took us out. I stayed near the railing to have something to hold on to, as my arm was still in a cast and I was in no mood for additional injury.  Unfortunately I spotted exactly zero whales. Everyone else did, fun for them 🙃  Still a pretty happy camper, despite whale count zero.  Note the plastic bag (emergency extra cast-protection) and the eaten apple in my pocket (Snacks: important. Bins along the road: not many).  I wore raspberry red so that Duncan could easily spot me if I wandered off 🙃 One day we stumbled upon some kind of shipwreck, D. investigated 😄 So many beautiful horses! We were hoping to ride one day, but I was told not to in case something happened to my arm ☹ Managed to sneak in some cuddles along the road anyway.  The museum of witchcraft was a must on my list! Really cool place.  We had been told that we would get the best ever lobster in Akureyri, so we splurged! An extremely luxurious treat after a lot of campground meals.  They also had a wet floor-sign with jazz hands 😄 Living in Paris I sometimes get an extreme longing to the outdoors. I've always lived in cities, but at least in Stockholm you're always near nature. You can pick mushrooms in autumn and go for a swim in summer, things that are near impossible to do around here.  Iceland was all outdoors, all breathtaking nature. It felt like being dropped right in to a nature documentary, all that was missing was David Attenborough's narration.  The trip of a lifetime, I feel extremely lucky to have experienced it.