Stop #1

This will be long. I'm not sorry about that. It's stop one on our trip, my Mum and I, and as promised, I'm sharing it with you.

No pictures for you yet, but I'll try to get some up on the next leg of the trip, and I'll keep posting on Instagram. If you haven't followed me yet, go do it! I'm Rani.Divine -- and I've been posting whenever I remember to do so.

[note: I'm not going to proofread, and you're not going to care. Okay? Okay.]

The trip started in Texas. We drove all the way to Fort Worth on Friday, the 23rd, and spent all day Saturday shopping and sightseeing around Grapevine, downtown Fort Worth, and the Galleria in Dallas. But Sunday was the greatest day of them all, on that leg of the trip. Sunday we went to church at Eagle Mountain International Church, a part of Kenneth Copeland Ministries. They had a pastor named Billy Burke teaching that morning, and again that evening -- and we all wanted to go. He's a healing teacher, and his services are filled with moves of the Holy Spirit. Boy did we see some. After hours and hours in church, worshipping the Lord, listening to teachings from Billy and Pastors George and Terry Pearsons, we witnessed miracles. I watched a woman with Parkinson's be healed, her hands suddenly still in the presence of the Lord. A boy whose hips had been damaged, and who hadn't been able to run without severe pain, was suddenly running back and forth across the stage. A woman with memory loss began to remember. A man with a growth in under his arm announced that it'd vanished. Women were healed of breast cancer. Men freed from demons. Children set free. Everywhere I looked, people were receiving their healing. The Lord gave, and they received without question. We all witnessed the beauty of it, the passion, the love of the Lord poured down upon His children. And it was a beautiful sight to behold.

It was also the perfect beginning to a trip unlike any I'd ever been on before.

Until that day, I'd never been to a healing service. I'd never seen miracles taking place before my eyes. And until now, I'd never been out of the country. How awesome is it, how great is the Lord, that I get to do both in one trip?

Monday, the 26th, we left the country. Dad drove me and Mum to DFW airport, watched while we got checked in and checked our luggage, and said a heartfelt goodbye when we made our way through security. He stayed with us the whole time, the watchful eyes of my Daddy on both of us until he knew we'd made it through and were on our way.

Our trip may have already started, but our journey was only just beginning.

The whole day was spent in airports. Not exactly the funnest way to spent that many hours, but we made the best of it. On a side note, the restrooms in DFW are amazing, and if you have the chance, you should definitely go in one of the Monte Blanc stores. Write with one of the pens if you can. It's worth it, even if you don't want a fancy pen. Trust me. Oh, and wear comfy shoes if you'll be in Kennedy Airport. It's a trek. And don't use the bathrooms in Terminal 7. They're horrible.

Mum and I still had fun the whole way, despite what some people call the annoyance of being in an airport all day. After all, we were on our way to Europe, and neither of us had ever been out of the country before. This was our great adventure, and we had the blessing of experiencing it together! We watched people, walked around the airports, played games on our Kindles, and generally tried to stay awake throughout the day.

New York, Kennedy Airport, was interesting. Bag claim was a hassle that had to be dealt with. See, all both flights were one-way, so we had to stop and get our bags when we hit our layover city. At Kennedy, however, our bag claim belt was shared with four other flights. Four. Other. Flights. I can see the necessity, it being Kennedy Airport and all, but there were so many people and so many bags that it was just a confusing mess. We found our bags eventually, after me almost knocking down a twig of a woman trying to get mine off the belt. But then we had to change terminals, to get to where we would board our next flight, which meant taking the overground train Kennedy has in the middle of the terminals -- and something neither me nor Mum had ever experienced before. After struggling to get on the thing without falling, we were both then trapped without a bar to hold onto, and holding our suitcases, carry-ons, and purses. We both very nearly fell over. Fortunately, our terminal was the next one over. We waited in line almost forty minutes before we could check in, eventually made our way through security for the second time in one day, picked up some pastries from Starbucks to eat once our flight landed in Europe, and eventually found ourselves seated outside our gate, waiting for our place to board.

By eight-o-clock that night, we were on our way to Iceland.

Icelandair is, I think, one of the nicer airlines. We boarded the plane and were immediately handed a bottle of Iceland Glacial water, which by the way is delicious water. If you've never had it, you should. Yum. The water in the country is good too, though it smells a little funny. You won't notice that once you drink the deliciousness. I digress. The flight attendants left a blanket and small pillow on each of our seats, and we even had our own mini TVs to ourselves. Remember, I've never been out of the country, so I don't know if this is normal. It's not in domestic flights, let me tell you. Though the flight itself was a little choppy, it really felt like being in a car on the roads of New Mexico. Easy to deal with. Especially if you're from New Mexico. We slept most of the flight, or rather, tried to. It's hard to sleep on a plane!

On arriving at Keflavik Airport, my mother had a blonde moment. We weren't sure where to go, so she walked up to someone wearing the equivalent of a TSA badge and earwig and asked "Do you work here?" The woman replied, "I should hope so, or else I'm not sure why I would be wearing these," and laughed. She then directed us to where we needed to get our passports stamped, and once again we were on our way.

I'll tell you, the chaos of waiting in line to get your passport stamped is insane. I've rarely felt so cramped in my life, and I've never once gotten used to it. Some cultures don't believe in personal space, and I experienced that firsthand. Oy.

After only slight confusion, we got through the line and made our way to baggage claim.

There's a mall in Keflavik Airport. Not in the terminals, but outside. By bag claim. There's a duty-free mall, where you can buy everything from Iclandic alcohol to VS underwear, all duty-free. They even have carts! We did not partake. After all, we were only in Iceland a short time.

Bag claim in Iceland was much easier than it was in New York. Only one flight's bags to a belt, and ours were early off. We'd pre-purchased a bus ride to Reykjavik, where we were staying our first night, so we grabbed our tickets and got on for the ride.

Did I mention it was about 7 in the morning?

On advice from a friend of ours, who often travels to Germany to visit her family, we didn't stop to rest. Even so, we hadn't anticipated much action in the first twenty minutes we were in Reykjavik. That was not the case. The bus ride was nice (GrayLine, in case you wondered), and we had the opportunity to see a little bit of the countryside and eat the pastries we'd gotten from Starbucks in New York, while constantly reminding ourselves that it was now morning, and not the midnight our bodies believed it to be.

But then we got off the bus after the forty-five minute ride to Reykjavik, having told our driver what hotel to drop us off at, only to get off the bus and realize we were at the wrong location. And the bus was now gone. Sheesh. Google Maps to the rescue! (Sidenote: it's been great having T-Mobile out here. I don't mean to be a commerical, but man, these guys have some pretty great service overseas.) Mum mapped the address to where we were staying, and we started our trek.

People say you should get lost everywhere you go. I didn't know why, until that day. I didn't understand why anyone would ever want to get lost. I like to know where I am, always. I just do. But we got lost. Google Maps glitched, it couldn't figure out which way we were facing, and we made it to the end of a street and stopped in stumped confusion, unable to read or understand any of the street names, not knowing our north from our sideways, and in a city neither of us know much about.

Thank God for locals!

A lovely young lady stopped paused her walk while we were situated on the corner of that street, and asked us if we needed help.

Yes. Yes we did.

She helped us, even taught us how to pronounce the name of the street we were staying on, and once again we were on our way. Google Maps found us again, and twenty minutes from the time we were dropped off (also twenty minutes late to when we told our hosts we'd check-in), we arrived at the home of the lovely Bea and Haffi, Airbnb hosts.

Much to Bea's surprise, we simply dropped off our bags and went out again right away. After all, we'd been told that the best way to get over jetlag is simply to force yourself into the local time. It wasnow 9:30 in the morning, so we might as well act like it. Having already been lost in the city, we knew a little bit of how to get around town. That, my friends, is why you should get lost in every city you visit. You'll know your way around like nobody's business, let me tell you.

We went to a nearby pond and watched the ducks and swans, took pictures of some of the houses, and called the bus company to make sure they would pick us up at the right place from now on. Then we walked to a church Mum had found online, called Hallgrimskirkja, that she'd wanted to see. Don't ask me to prounounce that.

It's a beautiful church. I highly recommend going to see it, if you're in Iceland. Inside there's an organ, with an organist playing beautiful music that fills the great hall. Some people were sitting in the pews, enjoying the sound, while others were snapping pictures left and right. We were in the latter group. After paying a small fee, we went up to the top of the steeple. From up there, we could see what looked like all of Reykjavik. The coast was visible from one side, and houses on all three, in colors in such array that you will never see in New Mexico. Ever. The desert is known as fifty shades of brown. Reykjavik is a hundred shades of every color you've ever wanted to see.

From up there, we saw a statue on the coast that we wanted to see up close, so upon our descent we made note of the direction and headed off. After a short walk and stopping at various points along the way to photograph anything remotely pretty enough to photograph, we were there. It's like a Viking ship, an abstract one, made out of metal. I'll post pictures later, with everything else, as soon as I have time.

The coast in Reykjavik is beautiful. Beautiful. We could've sat out there for hours. I'm pretty sure we did, actually. We took more pictures, selfies included, and continued our walk. We found some parks to sit in, located a coffee shop for future reference, grabbed a hotdog from a food truck, and found the place where we wanted to go for dinner. But only one thing mattered at that point, only a few minutes after noon: sleep.

We slept for three hours, on what could've been a sack of potatoes for how tired we were but was actually quite a comfortable mattress. Soon after my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. Never have I been so happy to rest.

When we woke up, it was almost time to go out again. We changed clothes, freshened our makeup, brushed our teeth, and went to dinner.

Check out Tapas Barrin online if you get the chance. That's where we ate our Icelandic Feast. Of course, home-time it was nowhere near dinner time, so neither of us was very hungry... So we split a meal for one. It starts with a shot of Brennivin, a famous Icelandic drink which also happens to be delicous. But the main meal is smoked puffin in blueberry sauce, Arctic chard with red pepper salsa, lamb kabobs samfaina, blue ling in lobster sauce with luscious mashed potatoes, lobster tails baked in garlic butter sauce, minke whale with sweet potato puree and cranberry sauce, and white chocolate skyr (a traditional Icelandic dessert) mouse with passion coulis and lemon sorbet for dessert. Oh my goodness. That meal was delicious. If you've ever had Maine lobster, and you think it's the best lobster, you're wrong. Iceland lobster is awesome. And if you've been watching my Instagram, you'll have seen an image of the dessert, which was fabulous. I do not, however, recommend eating minke whale. I didn't like it, personally, but I can see how other people would. Try it, definitely. Arctic chard is very yummy, on the other hand, as was the blue ling. Go to Tapas Barrin for sure if you're in town. Mum said they have good coffee as well -- I didn't try it, but I'm also not a fan of coffee.

After a quick stop at the house to switch coats, we were picked up by GrayLine for a Northern Lights tour. We had two blessings on this trip. One was that we got to sit together. We were some of the last people on the bus, and literally had the last two seats side by side. The second was the lights themselves. Even the locals said they were some of the best they'd ever seen. The bus took us to a little cafe on a ranch outside town, on the other side of Iceland. There, we could either sit on the bus or in the cafe, or wait outside for the lights to start. Apparently, it's never predictable as to when they'll start, how long they'll last, or the colors they'll be. That night, they were beautiful. Mum and I spent half our time outside, and the other half inside trying to keep warm. The lights started as faint little lines, hard to pick up at all if your eyes caught the glint off someone's smartphone or the rays of headlights from a car across the way. But then, a few hours into the night, they danced. I'd never seen the Northern Lights before, but believe me, this was a spectacle. It was beautiful, and in so many colors I couldn't even describe. They danced across the sky, from horizon to horizon, mixing and blending, popping and spiraling, so much that none of us knew which way to look. I have never before seen a more dazzling display of nature, and I will never not recommend going on a Northern Lights tour, anytime you happen to be in Iceland, or in a place where you're able to see them. They lasted at least twenty minutes, though none of us knows for sure. We were all too ensconced by the lights themselves, by the beauty of it all, to know exactly how long it lasted. Whatever the length, it was beautiful, and so far I count it the highlight of the trip.

GrayLine returned us to the place we were staying, where we only spent the one night. We slept in in the morning, quickly got dressed, and went to the coffee shop we'd seen a few blocks away. Icelandic pastries are yummy. Though, I'd pretty much say that any pastry is a yummy pastry. But really, they were delicious. We had one that was a little like a crunchy croissant filled with raspberry cream and covered with dark chocolate and dried raspberries, and another that was akin to a turtle brownie. Also, starfruit strawberry tea is delicious. Mum had another coffee.

Once again, GrayLine were the ones to pick us up. This time, from the right location. They took us back to the airport -- but that wasn't where we planned to stay for long. See, our flight is tomorrow, very early in the morning, and we didn't want to have a forty-five minute bus ride that early. So we caught a taxi from the airport that took us here, to Keflavik, where we spent all afternoon. We once again walked a bit in the city, strolled along the paved coast, and even took the beaten path up along the rocky shore, where we took some marvelous pictures. I'll post some for you later, I promise.

We got to board a ship on the shore, one that's decommissed and open to the public, and even see a giantess in her cave. It was silly, but hey, we were having fun. And we were very thankful that we'd been working out at home, in preparation for the trip. And for comfy shoes. Don't go anywhere without comfy shoes. Seriously.

The afternoon ended at a touristy restaurant, where we split fish tikka and a seafood plate, and ate a creme brulee for dessert. You'll have seen the seafood plate on Instgram and Facebook, if you've been watching. We also met another mother/daughter travel duo from the States, from North Carolina, and stayed an extra hour in the restaurant to chat with them about our adventures.

Now, the day winds down in our bedroom of the next host house in which we're staying, and once again the Northern Lights are supposed to be stunning.

We'll see if I stay awake long enough to see them.

I doubt that I will.

[love]

{Rani Divine}