We woke up early on our second day in Iceland and had an excellent breakfast at the hotel.  CenterHotel knows tourists will need to go on tour very early in the morning so the breakfast buffet was laid out early each morning at 7 AM even though there are croissants and coffee and tea earlier.  The tour bus from Arctic Adventures came to pick us up at the city bus stop #9 which happens to be in front of the hotel, courtesy of my type A husband.  Our tour that day happens to be full with 19 tourists and the driver and guide, Thomas.  The tour we took that day went from 8 AM to around 7:30 PM.  We got to see a lot of the countryside, the volcano, the glacier, lava sand beach, the ocean and nature amazing force.  The day would have been perfect except for a very strong wind, around 15-20 meters per second (35 miles per hour).  It did not rain so we were thankful for the little things! We learned a lot such as to never destroy the moss that grew over the lava rocks.  It took around 80 years for the moss to grow about an inch and there is a hefty fine for destroying it.  A tourist drove his SUV into the middle of a lava rock field and took a selfie which he promptly posted to Facebook.  The police found him 2 hours later and assessed him a fine of $45,000!

      We passed through the Hvalfjordur tunnel built under the sea in 1998 and is about 5.8 kms (3.6 miles) long.  It shortens the time to pass to the northern part of Iceland from Reykjavik side to Borganes from an hour to 6 minutes. 

      Thomas told us about Iceland, its origins, its relations with the Vikings, Norway and Denmark.  He loved the fact that the ban on beer was lifted in 1989 and now there are lots of brewery in Iceland.  He also told us about Icelandic horse, sheep, fox and Northern lights.

     Thomas took us upon the cliffs to see the Arnarstapi natural stone bridge and we were all amazed at the force of the waves crashing on the rocks.  We saw the Kirkjufell Mountain that was pictured even on the video on Iceland Air.  We walked on the black beach of Djupalonssandur.  We saw the Budir black church, one of the oldest wooden churches in Iceland.  Most of my pictures were taken through the bus windows so I was doubly glad there was no rain!

     Once we returned to Reykjavik, we walked into this seafood grill restaurant, Sjarvargrillid, in downtown Reykjavik and had the best meal of seafood.  I had to say we ate grilled puffin but I only tasted the excellent mushroom, jam and bacon and had no idea if I tasted the puffin!  Oh well, we tried puffin.