My Nordic Birthday!!!

I have SO much to catch up on! It may take me a bit, but I'll get there. I'll start with my very favorite - ICELAND! I'll break it up into a few posts so it's not so long and picture heavy. This one will be more of an intro to our trip, without many details.

Iceland has been at the top of my bucket list for a long time. It's one of those places I've really wanted to visit, but I didn't know if we ever would. Josh was interested, but he's more into Spanish speaking countries. Well, in January, Josh called me while I was at work to tell me he found really cheap tickets to Iceland and asked if I wanted to go in October. I told him I couldn't think of a better birthday present, but I didn't think we would REALLY go. We were already planning to go to Peru within the next year and we were going to be moving soon, so I was waiting for him to say it wasn't in the budget or something very Josh-like. ;-) BUT, he was super spontaneous and told me to go ahead and buy the tickets now before they sold out at that price. I didn't waste any time and I bought the tickets right away! 15 minutes after calling me, we bought plane tickets to Iceland!!!

So, we were off to Iceland from October 22-26. Not QUITE my birthday, but the trip is still the best birthday present I've ever received!

In case you're interested, we flew with WOW airlines. They don't fly out of very many US locations, but they are cheap flights and we had very few complaints. We drove to BWI and flew from there. They fly to several European locations and every flight has a layover in Reykjavik. Ummmm...yes please! We'll definitely consider flying with them when we go to Europe! My only complaints were that it was hot on the plane. I'm ALWAYS cold on planes, but definitely not this one. They do advertise being Iceland's most punctual airline, but both our flights were delayed. This wasn't a huge deal for us, but it may be for some. It wouldn't stop me from flying with them again, but I would plan to have an extra hour or so than I think I need if we had another connection. Another little quirk was that we had an overnight flight and they did not make it easy to sleep. Typically, they dim the lights and keep it quiet on late or overnight flights. They left the lights on and there were announcements for on board duty free shopping at like 3am. You don't get a carry on or checked bag for free and you have to pay for all your snacks and food, but as long as you're prepared for it, you can still save a LOT of money. Both of us flew both ways for $670 and that's after paying for a checked bag both ways. Woohoo! Such a great deal!

We also went the budget route with our rental car. I don't really remember where we first read about SadCars, but I'm really glad we found them! The cars are not pretty or new, but when you're driving on gravel roads in Iceland, that's probably a good thing! Their service was great. They pick you up from the airport, show you where to get the cheapest gas and send you on your merry little way off to explore Iceland. When you bring the car back, they check over it quickly and take you back to the airport. The only tiny complaint we have is that typically, cars have snow tires on them in the Winter. Most other cars we saw had snow tires, including other SadCars, but ours didn't. They would have been useful, because it did snow, but we were fine.

This is our SadCar, Patty. In this picture, we were on our way to the Blue Lagoon, which we were late for...that's a fun story for later. Anyway, she's not cute, but she got us around and she kept us warm. I loved her as much as one can love a Yaris.

So, car and flight are covered...for our lodging, we used Airbnb. Great experiences all around! Now, when we're researching for a trip, we always check Airbnb before checking for hotels. If you've used it, you probably love it too, if not, you're missing out. You should give it a shot. Use my link and we'll both get a $20 credit.

Other tidbits about Iceland before I get around to posting more detailed posts:

1 - I'm in love with it. Like, for real for real. It is definitely on our list of places we would love to visit again SOON. Tourism is growing pretty quickly there, and I'm afraid tourists will ruin some of the things I love about it, so if you suck...please don't go. K, thanks!

2 - It's basically magic. If I had seen a unicorn, I only would have been surprised because unicorns don't like cold weather. Everything is breathtaking. Even the city is clean. It didn't smell like a city at all. It's just an amazing place.

3 - The people are SO nice. I mean, everyone. The closest thing to a rude person we ran into was a french couple we were sharing our first Airbnb with and they weren't even rude. They just didn't speak much because they knew limited English. 

There's a lot more, but they require a little more detail, so I'll share them later with more posts and pictures. :-) 

The Cutest Jewelry Organizer!

I've been looking for a cute, non-traditional jewelry organizer for quite a while. I had a few requirements:

- It had to be a type that could hang on the wall. I didn't want to take up my precious shelf-space in my closet

- It had to be cute and not OBVIOUSLY a jewelry organizer. I wanted it to be unique, decorative AND functional

- It had to be less than $20

- I really wanted it to have either birds or some type of leaf-like design. I'm basically obsessed with both when it comes to home decor

I was even open to DIY, just not the type of DIY where I ended up spending days of my time and just about as much money as if I had bought a ready made one. My time is precious...I'm totally past that type of DIY. 

Anyway, the weekend before last, I was out running errands. I had to run to TJ Maxx for some returns and I decided to take a look. I wanted to look for curtains anyway - I came across this gem!

It was only $14.99! Score!

They had it in a black and off white finish. I chose black. 

I went to Michael's next and they had one that was pretty much identical to the off white one for $50. Even though it was half off, mine was still $10 cheaper! That's what I like to see! Joann has that same one for $35.99, so it's a little better there. I found a bronze one at Birch Lane for $45. OR you could always buy this "vintage" one from this lady on Etsy - for $49.99.

After getting some jewelry on it - Yes, I am VERY happy with my $14.99 find.

NOW...I just want to find something like one of these for less than $20 to hang over my bath tub. 

I'll stay patient and keep looking at TJ Maxx...maybe I'll get lucky one of these days! In the mean time, let me know if you find anything similar for cheap!

Inca Trail Day 4 - Machu Picchu

Day 4 started WAY early. We had to get up, get packed and finish breakfast in time for the porters to pack up and make it down to meet their early train. We also had to get in line to start the trail. Machu was gone when I came out of my tent, but he came back around as we were getting our stuff together to go. He wondered around and visited other people some. I assumed he would stick around the camp sites and wait for the next groups to come so he could get some tasty food. 

After finishing eating and packing, we went to the waiting point at the beginning of the trail. We had roughly an hour to wait. What do you do at this point - before 5am, on the side of a mountain, in the dark? Well, if you're with Dave, you have a dance party, of course! The dance party lead to the limbo with walking sticks, the limbo with walking sticks turned into one of our Peru Treks family members nearly falling off the mountain, but no worries, she caught herself with her arms! Way to go! At that point, everyone calmed down a bit and just waited. It was almost time to leave anyway.

We walked to the first checkpoint, where we saw our good buddy Machu again! 

 It's blurry, but we were saying goodbye to Machu

We hiked along for a bit.

 I love the mountains

 I would really like to retire somewhere with a view like this

We hiked until we got to a point where the climb was so steep, it was just easier to climb with your hands than use hiking poles. Guess who came along to join us for this part? Yep, it was Machu again! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this part. It was pretty cool!

Eventually, we made it to the Sun Gate

Our very first view of Machu Picchu!

 So much hard work paid off! We kept each other strong when we needed it most. Babe, I'm SO glad we were able to do this epic journey together!

Look who found us again!

 Peru Treks family! Say Sexy Llama!

 Continuing on to Machu Picchu

 Getting closer!

 So close!

 Dave and Theresa

 So amazing!

 These are what the stones looked like before they became part of Machu Picchu! It's so crazy that humans were able to start with this...

 and get to this, without modern technology!

 My person! :-D

Leaving Machu Picchu 

We left to go meet our group in Aguas Calientes for lunch. We presented our guides with our tip and thanks and we got some great news that one of our couples had gotten engaged earlier that day! Congrats Morten and Sandra!!! (top right in picture below). We enjoyed a much deserved beer and pisco sour as well!

Last time all together as a family!!! We truly had an amazing group of people! We had people from all over the world and I really enjoyed hearing about their stories during our journey together! I wish you all the very best and I hope our paths cross again someday!

After lunch, we were able to leave our bags at the restaurant while we explored Aguas Calientes for a couple hours. 

We found a bar that had a great happy hour special on Pisco Sours. After we ordered a round, we realized why they were so cheap and we left. Next, we found a place that served a good selection of craft beers, so we went there and people watched.

And we saw this!

We went on to the train station and waited for our train while we got some food. Guess who we found again?!?

Saying goodbye to Machu...for real this time!

We took the train (I think an hour and a half or so), then took a bus for a few hours to get back to Cusco. 

Funny story now, but definitely not at the time - I don't usually sleep well in vehicles, but I was finally starting to fall asleep on the bus ride, when our daypack fell out of the overhead compartment, straight onto my head! It wouldn't have been so bad the camera hadn't been in it. That HURT! It hit me hard enough to put a little gash in the side of my head. I was able to get the bleeding to stop without too much trouble, but it was no fun.

FINALLY, we made it back to our hostel. It took us a while to get checked in again (we were just here a few days ago, do you really need to make ANOTHER copy of my passport and have me fill out the same exact paper I just completed?) and get our bags. We get  up to our room and start to get our stuff out to get showers when Dave knocks on our door. They said they have cancelled his reservation since he "missed" his checkin time. Josh made our reservations together - our checkin  time was 11:00pm - it was 10:45pm. Luckily, I thought to print all of this information out and Josh was able to take it downstairs and get it taken care of. I finally make it to the shower and start my first HOT shower since Tuesday night. The water goes out just after I wet my hair (at least I've washed my stinky feet at this point). I try the other faucets and other showers - nothing. I'm livid at this point. I'm tired, I'm hungry and I'm dirty. All I want to do is take a hot shower, get a quick bite to eat and SLEEP. Josh went downstairs to check and the water is off in the whole building. I take yet another Wet Ones shower and get dressed so we can go find some food. At this point, it's after midnight, so that's easier said than done. We finally find a place and get some food. It was nothing to write home about, but it was food. Josh was feeling horrible (he gets car sick pretty easy and even Dramamine can only do so much on the swaying train ride we had), so we made our way back to our hostel. We find out the water is still not working. We contemplated leaving and trying to find another place to stay for the night, but we weren't sure how far the water issue went and we were both just too exhausted to deal with finding a room after 1:00am. We cleaned up the best we could and just crashed. We didn't sleep great. There were fireworks at all hours of the night and into the morning, even after daylight. So weird and very unwelcome when I was trying to sleep. Turns out there was some type of parade and festival the next day. 

Inca Trail Day 3 - It's the Journey, NOT the Destination - The Most Beautiful Day

Before we even started the trail, our guide, Edwin reminded us that the trial is very difficult. We could have opted to take a train to visit Machu Picchu. We could have done a 2 day hike to get to Machu Picchu. At any rate, we didn't HAVE to hike 4 days to get to Machu Picchu, we chose to. He told us when it gets hard, to remember it's journey, not the destination. He is SO right. Machu Picchu is amazing and it would have still been enjoyable even if we had taken the train, but I'm really glad we didn't! Day 3 was absolutely beautiful! We saw several remains and walked through jungle. We got an amazing view of the Sacred Valley. It is SO different from the dessert looking areas we walked through on day 1 and the crazy ascent we had on day 2. Unfortunately, we don't have as many pictures from day 3 as I would like. It rained on us for quite a bit and it even haled a little. Luckily, we bought good rain jackets before the trip and we each had a rain fly for our backpack, so nothing got wet.

We woke up early, got packed up and had breakfast. Josh was still feeling pretty awful. Bad headache, nauseous and no appetite. One of our friends we made on our trip wasn't feeling well either, and he mentioned hiring a porter on this day to take some of his things. Josh and I decided to split it with him. Even though we brought our own, lightweight sleeping bags and pads, the weight and bulk still adds up, so this definitely helped us with day 3!

Day 3 is the longest day. We did about 9 hours of hiking and there were a LOT of stairs, but it was up and down, not ALL up then ALL down. Either way, I was concerned with how my knee would do since it was still sore from the day before, so I borrowed a knee brace from Dave. Between the brace and an Ibuprofen, I was fine. There was a big of Inca Flat as well, so it wasn't nearly as hard as day 2!

 We were pretty much in the clouds. Crazy!

 The first remains we saw for the day

 Cloud forest!

 The climb here was much more gradual than what we had on day 2, but those stones were SO uneven. They make the bricks on NC State's campus look completely level, for sure!

 Remains at a distance

 Different remains

 Exploring

 Entering the jungle!

 These are our friends from Texas - Mariam and Adnan.

Hubby and I, just before walking through our second tunnel of the day! So cool!

Glad I'm not scared of heights!

Sacred Valley - this picture will never do this view justice. I was ready to stop here. :-)

 Step steps - but SO close to camp!

 Those are the steps we just came down!

 Dave is scared of heights - this wasn't his favorite part of the trail, but he did great!

 I wish I could have this view every day. Even though my legs are much more comfortable right now and I enjoy breathing lots of oxygen - I miss this.

These are the remains with the steep steps once we got closer to our camp site.

We mosied around and took lots of pictures, so we got to camp a little late. Our sleeping bags were waiting for us when we got there, so we set up for bedtime and got everything packed that we possibly could. Then we got ready for dinner. This was our last night, so all of our porters came in after dinner. We thanked them, our cook and our waiter and we presented them with our tip and our thanks. Our chef made us a cake along with dinner this night! Yay!

We also had a dog friend join us for dinner. We thought he was just hanging around for food (we had a cat hang around for food a few nights before, but if you know me, you know I wasn't nearly as excited as I was for the dog). The dog ended up sticking around. He wanted to come sleep in our tents, but we didn't let him. He spent a portion of the night sleeping between our tent and Dave and Theresa's tent. I decided if he was going to hang out past dinner and sleep by us, we should name him. :-) I chose Machu. I didn't realize how fitting the name would be!

We had to get up at 3:30 the next morning, so I needed to fall asleep ASAP. Even though I was anxious, it didn't take too long once things got quiet. This was actually the best night of sleep I got on the trail. Once I fell asleep, I didn't wake up again until I started hearing people move around, probably a little before 3:00. Woohoo!