Of all the days of our trip to Iceland, Wednesday was the only one where Meghan and I had a chance to sleep in. After our exhausting 36+ hour day on Tuesday, we figured we'd need all the sleep we could get. But with the time difference we woke up at 8 a.m. anyway. After grabbing breakfast in our hotel, we set out to explore the rest of the city of Reykjavik.



Reykjavik is a pretty small city, so everything we wanted to see was within a 15 to 20 minute walk. That made it easy for us to cover a lot of ground. We saw lots of the things that were on our list of sights to see, but also had plenty of time to divert down interesting looking streets and explore some of the neighborhoods we wandered into.

Our first stop Wednesday morning was to Hallgrímskirkja church. This Lutheran church is the tallest church in Iceland, and it's probably the most iconic building in the city -- easily recognizable and visible from almost everywhere.



The church has an observation tower at the top, which offers beautiful views of the city of Reykjavik and the surrounding mountains.





There's also a very prominent statue of Leif Eriksson right out front. This statue was actually a gift from the United States to Iceland.



From the church we left to get a little bit of culture while in Reykjavik, and we visited the sculpture garden right across the street. Since neither Meghan nor I wanted to spend time inside many art museums on this trip, we decided seeing these sculptures let us check the "art" box.



After spending some time exploring the sculpture garden, we visited perhaps one of the most ridiculous museums I've ever visited: the Iceland Phallological Museum. Yes, we went to a museum dedicated entirely to the male reproductive anatomy.



I have no pictures from the inside, but suffice it to say this museum was a bit out there. I'm sure there's perhaps some scientific reason to preserve all of the various reproductive organs of different male animals (humans included), but overall, Meghan and I were a bit underwhelmed by this pretty small museum.

We didn't end up spending very much time there before setting out to our next destination -- the National Museum of Iceland. This museum traced Iceland's history from the earliest settlers up to modern times.



I thought overall this museum was kind of interesting, but the layout was confusing and I kept jumping forward hundreds of years in exhibits without realizing how that had happened. I actually thought some of the most interesting stuff in this museum was how Iceland has tried to modernize in its more recent history.

Needing a break from museums, Meghan and I decided to spend most of the rest of our afternoon exploring outside. We walked through a very old cemetery in Reykjavik, where some famous folks are buried.

We found the Catholic church in the city and from there somehow ended up on a road with many different embassies. We explored the embassy neighborhood for a little bit before strolling back to the pond and stopping to grab some hot dogs from one of the more famous hot dog stands in Reykjavik.



I'm not sure what exactly made this hot dog stand famous, but lots of people have eaten there, including Bill Clinton. Plus, the hot dogs were pretty delicious.



Our last stop in the city was to visit the Culture House. This museum is part of the National Museum of Iceland, and I ended up finding it really interesting. You could view some of the ancient Icelandic manuscripts and also see some more interesting art and cultural things from Iceland here.



By about 2 p.m. we had seen just about everything we had wanted to see and had explored things that weren't on our list. We decided it was the perfect time to go back to our hotel and take a breath before heading to the Fontana geothermal spas and going to search for the Northern Lights at night.

Fontana is a geothermal spa about 45 minutes outside the city of Reykjavik. It's situated on a natural lake and includes several geothermal baths of varying temperatures. Meghan and I think the warmest one was about 100 degrees. We had a couple of hours here to just relaxing and soak in the nice warm water, which felt lovely after two pretty busy days on the go.



It was such a strange sensation to have my lower body be all warm and toasty in the water, while my ears were freezing from the wind blowing and the air temperature only being in the 30s.

To mix things up, you can alternate time in the hot pools with freezing cold plunges in the lake. There are supposedly some various health benefits to this or something, and if you watch the Bachelor you know this was something Nick and Vanessa did in Finland.

Not typically one to back down from a challenge, I obviously decided I had to try taking a dip in the lake. Holy Moses was that water cold. At least the first step in...after that it wasn't so bad because you just stopped being able to feel your legs.





I actually went back and forth between the hot pools and the frigid lake more than once. It was weirdly fun. If you go to Iceland, stopping at Fontana is actually one of the things I'd highly recommend. You don't need to spend a ton of time here, but a couple of hours was really nice.

Our Wednesday night wrapped up with a hunt for the Northern Lights. It was so, so cloudy during this part of the trip that we'd been warned that we most likely wouldn't get to see them. While I was a little disappointed, I wasn't totally crushed since I had seen them from the airplane on Monday night.

But on the drive back to Reykjavik, the super dense and thick clouds miraculously parted over a field in the middle of nowhere, and we could see stars and then all of a sudden these green lights dancing across the sky.

It was pretty magical.

The lights weren't bright enough for us to get any pictures on our iPhone cameras, but they were definitely a sight to see. We probably stood in that field for a solid 45 minutes just watching them move across the sky.

And that was how we ended our second day in Iceland.

FitBit steps: 18,427. Miles: 7.8

And Wednesday's Snapchat story:

I'm back from my four-day trip to Iceland, and I'm already itching to book another cheap flight back to see all the things I didn't get to see this time around.



Iceland was a stunning country. Getting the chance to see all that raw, natural beauty is like something I will probably never see anywhere else in the world.

I figure the easiest way to recap this trip is to break it up into separate posts by day like I did for my Japan and Ireland trips.

So here's how our first day went:

Meghan and I boarded our flight from Dulles around 8 p.m. Monday. According to our captain, the flight time was about 5 hours and 30 minutes. Iceland is four hours ahead of DC, so our flight was scheduled to land at 6:30 a.m. Iceland time, which is 2:30 a.m. DC time.



Meghan and I knew we needed to try to get some sleep on the plane or else Tuesday in Iceland was going to be a struggle. Neither of us are very good plane sleepers, but we were hoping since we both had busy weekends that maybe we'd be able to catch some Zzzz.

No such luck.

In total I got maybe an hour of sleep on the plane, broken into 15- or 20-minute segments.

During one of my many periods of awakeness on the plane, I did get to see the Northern Lights outside the window, so that was at least pretty cool.

We landed early in Iceland, cleared customs in less than five minutes, did an outfit change in the airport bathrooms and hopped on the shuttle bus that would take us on the 45-minute ride from the airport into Reykjavik.

After dropping our luggage at our hotel, we set off to explore the city on foot.

It was still fairly early in the morning, so our first stop was the Harpa, the only thing in the city that seemed to open before 9 a.m. The Harpa is a really cool piece of architecture, that also happens to be the city's opera hall.





The Harpa sits right on the water, so after poking around inside the building, Meghan and I walked along the coastline.



I couldn't get over how you could basically be on the beach, but then just a little bit away were towering snow-capped mountains. I will never tire of the breath-taking scenery in Iceland.





A bit up the road from the Harpa, we stopped to scope out the sculpture of the Sun Voyager. This boat-like sculpture was built to commemorative the 200th anniversary of the city of Reykjavik.



We also strolled down one of the main drags in the city that took us to the Pond, where we admired the pretty colored houses and peeked inside city hall before making our way to the most adorable little bistro for a much needed caffeine break.





After breakfast, we made our way back to our hotel to wait for the shuttle that would take us on our tour of the Golden Circle. We ended up booking two tours on this trip -- the Golden Circle tour and a tour of the South Coast (more on that on Thursday).

We didn't want to deal with the hassle of renting and trying to find a place to park a car in the city, so small bus tours were so much better for us on this trip.

The Golden Circle is one of the more famous things to do in Iceland because it features three of the big tourist attractions -- Thingvellir National Park (where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are separating), Geysir and Gullfoss.

Our first stop of the trip was in the national park, where we got to stand right on the very end of the North American tectonic plate and look down into the gap where it continually moves away from the Eurasian plate. As the two plates move away from each other, the part in the middle sinks lower and lower into the ground. At some point this movement will eventually cause Iceland to split into two islands because the sinking part will drop below sea level.

We spent some time walking in one of the fissures caused by the shifting plates. If you're a fan of the HBO show Game of Thrones, some of this may look familiar to you because it's where they film all the scenes of the Wall/Castle Black.





I had way too much fun with that concept while we were there and made Meghan take silly pictures of me trying to climb the wall like the wildlings.



The national park was also home to Iceland's parliament from the 10th to 18th centuries, and there are ruins of stone shelters still remaining.



Our next stop was to visit Geysir -- the first known geyser. It's name is what all other geysers are named for (in case that wasn't obvious). While Geysir is mainly dormant these days, we got to see a neighboring geyser erupt many times during our visit.





We also got to see smaller geothermal pools that were routinely bubbling hot water in small amounts, but not erupting like the larger geysers.



After watching the geysers for a bit, we headed just up the road to the Gullfoss waterfall. This massive waterfall drops 2,800 cubic feet of water per second down the 105 foot drop into the deep crevice.





It was cold by the time we made it to Gullfoss and the wind throwing water spray in our faces wasn't doing anything to help the situation, but man, the views were totally worth how much we froze while we were there.



Our cell phone batteries also didn't like this drop in temperature -- dying pretty much immediately and forcing us to dig out our external chargers to bring them back to life. (Pro tip: Definitely pack a back-up charger and carry it with you everywhere you go in Iceland, you never know when the weather will turn and freeze your phone battery).

Once we'd seen the main sights of the Golden Circle, we started to make our way back to the city -- though we made two small pit stops on the way.

First to visit with some Icelandic horses.



These horses were adorable and friendly and loved when we fed them. They also had the thickest coats of fur I've ever seen on a horse to keep them warm through the very cold Icelandic winters.



Our second stop was to a much smaller waterfall - Faxi. In comparison to all the other waterfalls we'd see on this trip, this one seemed so itty bitty.





Meghan and I both nodded off a little bit on the drive back to the city. At this point we'd been awake for almost 36 hours straight, so the little bit of sleep we caught on the bus was so helpful.

We grabbed a quick dinner when we got back to the city and then immediately headed back to our hotel to pass out.

Tuesday's FitBit Steps: 24,859. Miles: 10.5

And here's the Snapchat story from day one:

This past weekend I was in Philadelphia with my family to celebrate my younger brother's wedding.



I got into town Friday afternoon just in time for the rehearsal at the church, and I have to admit the whole weekend was such a whirlwind of fun that I woke up Sunday morning wondering how it was all over already.



The rehearsal itself was a little bit on the earlier side, so afterward my brother and his now-wife hosted a happy hour back at the hotel bar for guest coming in from out of town. It was great to get a chance to catch up with a lot of my family members who were in town for the weekend that I hadn't seen in a while.

It was also really nice to catch up with a lot of my brother's friends from college that I probably haven't seen since they all graduated back in 2010.

Happy hour was followed by a delicious Italian dinner, and then my brother, some of his groomsmen and I grabbed one more drink at a bar down the street before we all turned in for the night.

I was up bright and early to meet up with my brother's wife and the rest of the bridesmaids to have our hair and makeup done. It was such a fun morning hanging out with Justine and the other bridesmaids before we headed back to the hotel to get dressed and hop in the limo...





There aren't really words for this limo...it was massive...

The wedding ceremony itself was really nice. I cried a bunch because I am a sap...and because my baby brother was getting married...and because Justine looked so beautiful...and yea...really because I am a sap.

Afterward the bridal party piled back in the limo for pictures around Philly. Tom and Justine's photographer put a single shot from the session on Facebook already. Based on this one alone, I cannot wait to see all the others.



Then it was back to the hotel for cocktail hour and the reception.



My bridal party partner and I entered to an Eagles chant (which I thought was most excellent, and I think many of the guests felt the same way).



And then I spent the rest of the night dancing nonstop. My feet still hurt today from all the dancing.



It's crazy to think the wedding weekend is over. I feel like I've heard Tom and Justine and my parents talk about it and plan things for it for so long, and now it's done. I don't think things could have gone much better though. Everyone I talked to had such a good time, and I know I'm really excited to finally have a sister (which has pretty much been a life-long dream of mine that my mom squashed every year since I was about four years old ha). If I write any more about that I will probably start crying again out of sappiness, so I'm just going to leave it at this: I'm excited to have a sister. Justine is wonderful, and my brother's a really lucky guy, and their wedding weekend couldn't have been more perfect.

The end.

(P.S. I am off to Iceland in a few hours with my friend Meghan. I will have some excellent travel updates for you when I get back and hope to post some fun Snapchat stories while I'm there!)