For my 30th, we decided to do something a little different; I got it into my head that I wanted to turn 30 on the back of a snowmobile and then chase the northern lights, so we ventured over to Iceland. We based ourselves out of a hotel with a small spa attached, so we started the dark winter mornings (the sun rose at midday) in a hot tub. After almost taking us off the side of a glacier on the snowmobile and undoing the benefits of such a relaxing start to the day, we later joined a coach journey to see the northern lights.
Within minutes of leaving the capital Reykjavik, the excited tour guide informed us that activity was being reported not far from us. They took us to a secluded spot near a mountain and the sky erupted with green. It lasted hours and we all watched in awe, sipping hot chocolates and trying to figure out how to get pictures of it. Eventually, we gave up on pictures and just stood transfixed by it, being taught about the history of it, how the Vikings thought it was actually a bad omen, and how the different shapes and colors were formed.
However, those are not the lights seen in the pictures below.
Instead, those pictures were taken another night: after visiting a restaurant on the final night of our trip to try local cuisines (don’t ask), we left and decided to walk to the harbour to see the iconic concert hall lit up at night. I noticed a green hue in the sky. At first, we dismissed this as the building itself was lit up green; however, when the building's color changed and the sky didn’t, we realized what was happening.
We noticed a group of people and excited noises coming from near the harbour, so we went to join them, and the green hue suddenly exploded into one of the most magical things I have ever seen. The display we had seen before was already so amazing, but this dwarfed it; the entire sky was dancing, rays of green moving gracefully above us. You’d be looking at it in one spot, then someone would yell, "Turn around!" and behind us, it would have erupted into a whole new display. We met a photographer who taught us how to actually use the night mode on my phone, and we managed to get the pictures seen below.
