High Heels High Hopes

Reykjavik - Iceland

For my birthday my boyfriend treated me to a trip to Reykjavik to see the Northern lights or as I have learned the Aurora Borealis (such a pretty name). He had my birthday (day) all planned and my gift from him was presented in a number of envelopes with small clues. Originally the first envelope had a piece of paper with a typed message that said we are off too.....the Highlands...and as I flipped it open it said Scotland. I was hyped and figured this culminated from all the conversations we had about trying to see more of whats on our doorstep. The next day along with all the great presents my family had given me Andy presented me with another envelope and by this point thought it was all too much for a girl/woman (not sure how to refer to myself anymore) to be receiving at 27. I opened the envelope and pulled out another piece of paper that was folded in three. As I opened it I read we are going to the highlands (I was thinking yes I already know that) in Reykjavik Iceland and Icelandic króna came tumbling out. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. I mean I would have been over the moon going to Scotland but this was amazing - my boy did good! (ha) With only a month to prepare for this very exciting but FREEZING trip the next free weekend we had together we decided to head straight to North Face where we picked out suitable coats, I obviously took extra thermals and some ski pants. Before we knew it we were boarding our flight at Gatwick with our North Face jackets in tow (they were an absolute god send). We arrived at the hotel around half 1 in the morning and it was absolutely stunning, Scandinavian design at its very best and amongst all of it we were most impressed by the bathroom tiles - in fact the whole place was just bloody amazing!

We had a lot planned and couldn't wait to get going. We had a long first day, which is where we got to see most of what Reykjavik had to offer. Heading out at 8:30am we saw the Geyser, the Langjökull Glacier where we got to drive snow mobiles and finally the Gullfoss, which means the Golden waterfall. It was a great day (I think the photos and videos do them the most justice - which are below) and we eventually headed back to the hotel where we decided food was next on the agenda, we searched and decided on Sushi Samba, where the fish was exquisite. We got talking to the staff and they suggested heading to some bars before going to B5 the nightclub in the centre of Reykjavik. So impressed with the crowd and music we easily put it up there with some of the best nights out we've had. Of all the countries I have travelled to Iceland had by far the most beautiful people i'd ever seen, so tall, great hair and amazing features Andy I couldn't stop people watching and pointing out the lookers girls and boys a like! It was our first late night out in a long while so decided to stumbled back to the hotel at 3:30am dreading our 7am wake up call for the coach to collect us for the Blue Lagoon.

The morning wasn't as bad as we thought it might be considering our lack of sleep, the coach journey to the Blue Lagoon allowed us to catch up on some well needed sleep, and the Blue Lagoon it self was so relaxing and surprisingly warmer than I thought it would be. We slapped the silica on to our faces that they provided you with as a natural face mask and RELAXED. The site was beautiful, and as you wandered through the water there would be patches of extremely hot water - it was then that you realise how mind blowing it is that this was all so hot naturally! We headed back to Reykjavik centre around noon where we were on the hunt for food..again. We found a great restaurant that served Gluten Free food (perfect for the boyfriend) and we scoffed our faces before we headed out to see what else Reykjavik had to offer. We spent the rest of the day roaming the streets, going into various boutique shops with lots of lovely little things of the Scandinavian design persuasion. I loved everything! We headed back to the hotel to prepare ourself for the pièce de résistance - the Northern Lights Tour. We had a partial sighting of them on our plane journey in so we were positive for a second sighting, constantly checking the cloud coverage. Our coach was just comfy enough for the 6 hour search for the Aurora Borealis, and we had an extremely endearing tour guide that gave an intermittent commentary with facts and figures along our journey that wowed us. We eventually spotted the northern lights late into the evening and it was worth the searching. It was stunning, however (annoyingly)  it was impossible to capture the light through a professional camera - as the age old story goes it was all about a mental capture of the moment - a total experience.

We got back to the hotel stoked that we managed to see the lights and prepared ourselves for our journey back to London.

ALL photography by my boyfriend unless they look shoddy - they'll be mine! ha!

Day 1

Day 2