What a title huh? So Monday morning of our trip aka day four, we flew to Akureyri, picked up our rental car (if you think rental car prices are expensive, try Iceland. I thought the nearly $400 my fiance paid for a rental car in July for 9 1/2 days was a lot, well, that's nothing compared to the nearly $500 we paid for 3 days, especially since we were originally quoted a price of $300, but I digress). I have no idea how to drive a standard so my friend agreed to do all the driving and thank goodness for that, because some of those roads...omg, but we'll get to that in another post. Anyway, we got the car, went to the tourist info center, took a few pics outside, then it was off to The Christmas House (please don't make me type the Icelandic name for it). So my friend put the car in reverse and...nothing happened. Strange. She tried again. Nothing. Eventually, she put the car in neutral and I got out and pushed the car out of the space. Go me. lol Apparently, we would not be reversing for the next three days. So as she drove to the Christmas House, I thumbed through the owner's manual (the English version) and eventually was able to find that to reverse you had to lift something on the shifter thing (I don't know what it's called, like I said I've never driven a manual). She tried it and it worked, yay! We could reverse. Still to be on the safe side for now, we parked in a way that didn't involve reversing. :-) The Christmas House was kind of cool. It housed "the world's largest Advent calendar," and "arguably the world's most festive restroom." I'm quoting from Frommer's. It also had decorations, a Christmas themed garden, and a store that sold tons of Christmas ornaments and played Christmas carols, yes, even in August. Since I LOVE Christmas, I quite enjoyed this place and took many pictures. I'll only bore you with a few. Gleđileg jól! (I believe that'show you say Merry Christmas in Iceland, but if I'm wrong, someone please correct me.)
By now the car was able to reverse, but just to be on the safe side, we allowed some room to go forward too.
Hmm, I think Santa left his suit out to dry.
Stone People
"Santa Cat"
Above, is said to be the "world's most festive restroom."
In Iceland, if boys and girls are really naughty Gryla comes to get them and takes them her cave. She also has many sons, that come around in the days leading up to Christmas and do things like slam doors, steal sausage, etc. There names explain what they do (i.e. Door Slammer slams doors, Sausage Stealer steals sausage, etc).
A glimpse of the world's largest Advent Calendar
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