Icelandic Candy

At the end of February my husband and I visited Iceland for our vacation.  It's always an adventure and so much fun to visit other places and cultures.

 In Iceland there were many things that were a bit of a culture shock to an American.  We enjoyed the delicious foods like lamb and lamb soup.  We marveled at the beautiful Icelandic hand knitted sweaters and blankets.  One of the most interesting things I came across, however, was the Icelandic candy called Lakkris!

While in Iceland, I had the opportunity to visit a grocery store. No giant grocery store with a pharmacy and everything in between like one sees in Virginia. A grocery store Iceland is much smaller and more akin to a convenience store in the U. S. 

As I wandered through the aisles I saw a bag of popular Icelandic candy.  This particular candy goes by the name of Lakkris and is pretty much licorice and chocolate. 

Now many of you may think that licorice and chocolate don't really go together, but you are wrong.  This candy has a licorice center covered with milk chocolate.  It was yummy and my husband pretty much finished off the entire bag.  

I’ve always made candy with molds so I figured why not try and make some licorice chocolates!  Very soon I will post my experiment in my version of Icelandic candy along with the recipe. 

Till then, happy travels…

Trip to Iceland and the northern lights

I recently made a trip to Iceland.  Iceland is the land of glaciers, hot springs, Vikings, and most of all, the Aurora borealis better known as the northern lights.  

When my husband gave me some luggage for Christmas this year, I was delighted.  I’d hinted that I wanted some red hard shell luggage.  That wasn’t all he gave me this year though.  The envelope inserted inside the suitcase held the itinerary for a trip to Iceland!  Never in million years would I have asked for that!  It included a northern lights tour, which is no guarantee that I would see the Aurora, but it was a better chance than I’ve ever had.

The trip to Iceland was pretty awful with layovers and packed planes and of course TSA!  We’d lost 6 hours of our life with time change in addition to the 5-hour layover, and 6-hour flight.  Needless to say we were Exhausted with a capital E!

The next night we would embark on our northern lights search.  We rested all day and when the time came we got on a bus with 50 more people with the same thought in mind.  The guide was informative and explained in detail all the criteria that needed to be present for the lights to appear.  Sounded pretty iffy to me.

We drove into the night and as the hours went by the guide started to lose faith.  She said although the sky was clear, there was no apparent activity.  My heart sunk.  Could it be I’d come all this way only to be disappointed?  The bus took a detour to a hot sulfur spring, which was in my estimation a consolation prize.

Then the guide announced that we had been traveling for hours and apparently the Aurora wasn’t in a good mood so we were heading back.  She told us to take a nap and she would wake us when we got to town.

So we settled in and I tried to chuck it up to fate.  If fate determined that I wouldn’t see the lights, then I wouldn’t.

All of a sudden the bus veered off the road to a side road and the guide started screaming, “Wake up, wake up, it’s starting.”

I looked out the window and saw the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I swear I started to cry!  We all poured out of the bus and in the coldest temperatures I have ever experienced, with my hands freezing and nearly frost bit, I started to take some photos. 

The Northern Lights was totally worth it.  It was worth the hell trip there and the hell trip back and the flu I got the day I returned that has kept me in bed for a week afterwards. 

My husband made a lifelong dream come true and continues to do so every day of my life.

I will be putting more photos and travel tips in the ensuing days.  Hope you enjoy my experiences in Iceland.