Oceania Marina - Iceland

Reykjavik

We drove to Reykjavik this morning and stopped at the only store in all of Iceland that sells sewing machines – Pfaff. Mitzi has been a trooper with the cheap Chinese tiny sewing machine she brought along. However, it was time to stop the suffering and get a real machine.

She is an amazing packer and without needing to add any volume to our luggage, she figured out how to pack the new much larger machine into an existing carry-on suitcase!

We boarded the Oceania Marina around noon. It's a larger ship than the Insignia, so this will be interesting to see the difference.

And ... we have a butler! His name is Churchill. Not kidding. He's great, super enthusiastic, and is taking care of important things like stocking the fridge with sparkling water :)

Here's a panarama of our cabin. Much much larger than what we had on the Insignia and wow we are enjoying the extra space.

Mitzi is amazing. She's been packing and unpacking my suitcase for me. It's an amazing experience! She's so cool.

And she's loving her new sewing machine! This new one purrs along like a kitten. The other one was so noisy I had to wear air pods on noise cancelling when she used it.

We decided on the dining room for dinner and enjoyed getting dressed up for the first time in over a week.

It was a wonderful meal.

After dinner we enjoyed the hot tub in the Aquamar Spa at the front of the ship. The weather was beautiful today, and nobody was up there since it was dinner time.

We left port at 10p. The sun was setting. A fancy Regent Seven Seas Splendor was docked behind us. We pushed away from the dock and started to move sideways alongside her, making for a nice picture with the sunset in the background. As our ship pivoted fore-starboard aft-port it looked for a second that the bows of our ships would kiss. Or crunch :) No worries, though, they knew what they were doing and we are sailing out of the harbor and on to our next stop in Iceland.

Grundardjödur

We anchored at Grundardjödur today. They were tendering people in. We wanted to work out after more than a week without access to a gym.

These flowers in our room against the artwork made for what I think is a nice picture. We are loving our state room.

Lunch was out on the back of the ship. It was peaceful and beautiful out there. Not too cold.

For dessert - dolce de leche cheese cake.

Here's a panorama of the view from our state room.

Some cute pictures of Mitzi.

A relatively small glacier nearby.

Our butler Churchill brought these chocolate covered strawberries and fruit kebobs over this afternoon. We hope this continues :)

We ate in the Grand Dining Room again tonight. Another excellent meal!

The picture of me eating chicken is for Benson, he calls me Meat Meat Poppy because I love meat. So I like to send him pictures of me eating meat :) This one with crazy eyes I think will be much liked by him.

We went to the show at 9:15p this evening. We enjoyed it. When we got back to our cabin at 10p this is the site that awaited us – super calm waters and a beautiful sunset.

Ísafjördur

We woke up in Ísafjördur on the northern side of Iceland. Beautiful weather today! After working out and getting ready for the day, we walked into the little town. I wanted to get some swim goggles and didn't think it was likely to find them, however, there was a little shop that actually had some – yay!

We enjoyed taking pictures as we walked.

For lunch we went to Tjofunusid, a fish buffet restaurant in a house from the 1700's. This was the best Icelandic fish skillet we've ever had. The place has character and wonderful food.

As we walked back to the ship, more pictures :)

Mitzi's quilt is coming along. Now that she has the new sewing machine it's going much faster.

We found a hardware store in town and Mitzi was able to buy a measuring stick with a straight edge to help cut the quilt pieces.

We had dinner reservations at the Polo Grill, that ship's steakhouse. They gave us the best seat next to the back windows and we watched the sun set lower as we dined. So beautiful.

Mitzi was looking beautiful as always and I asked her to do a quick photo shoot outside on the deck. She's so fun to travel with and dine with and experience life with.

Akureyri

What a beautiful day! It was sunny and almost 70 degrees. We ate lunch on the deck.

Going into Akureyri was fun. We remembered it from four years ago. And the trolls :)

We found Lava bars!

Four years ago we ate at this sushi place and got a picture for Lizzie, since she was with us.

There was a cat wandering into this shop.

Walking around and taking pictures. The tractor is for Benson, he loves them.

Returning to the ship. I bounded up the stairs, so grateful my body is working so I can do that. Turned around and got Mitzi coming up.

While shopping we saw this orange beanie. Certainly not cold enough today to wear it, but if we have a cold day on this trip I'll be wearing a Bitcoin orange hat, jacket, and shoes. Mitzi is going to laugh a lot if this happens.

Scone day! Mitzi's favorite snack at tea time is the english scone with cream and jam. MMMMM! We also enjoyed a variety of little sandwiches.

As we left the dock at 5p the water was calm and the weather still beautiful. Across the way was a waterfall and the entrance to a 5 mile long tunnel.

At dinner I saw some lamb curry. They had me at lamb. They had me at curry. There was no way that wasn't going on my plate :)

Seydisfjordur

This is the site we saw when we opened our curtains this morning.

After our workouts and getting ready for the day, we headed into the town.

There is a waterfall right outside the town. We hiked up there and had a great view of the ship and the houses.

This girl rode by us several times as we walked around. She was peddling like mad. It made us smile.

We found a little restaurant in a small hotel and bought a chocolate croissant, apple pie, and ice cream.

Then we took pictures of each other over a bed of flowers.

As we left and sailed through the channel the mountains and sky and water were so beautiful.

We decided to dine in our room for dinner. Churchill took our order and delivered our food. This is the best dine-in experience we've ever had on a ship!

We are on our way to the Faroe Islands and will arrive around 11a tomorrow. It's been a wonderful 14 days in Iceland, one of our favorite countries in the world.