So cold we went to Iceland to get warm

Having had it with the Cold (yes, I'm capitalizing it now), we got on our plane to Iceland. The flight landed almost an hour early and we were lucky that our driver was waiting for us. It was pitch black and cold, but not New York Cold, so we were moving up in the world.
We were told that the drive west was a beautiful one but we only caught a glimpse as the sun started to come up around 8am. The sun coming up was like a normal sunrise, all pink and orange, but at a tenth the rate.

We were driving along the southern countryside, to a small hotel built on the outskirts of the Thingvellir National Park. The hotel,  Grimsbogir, is basically a grouping of villas and hotel rooms built on a circular road with a main house used as a restaurant. We were shown to a couple of rooms in a row style building next to the main house. We had booked a room to share, but our host told us that all the holiday travelers had checked out the day before so the hotel had plenty of room and we could each have a room. Yay for us! When he came back from getting the keys, he had changed his mind. He told us that there was a suite that was bigger and maybe we would prefer to share that instead. 

`Why not?

Who are we to turn down a suite at no extra charge? 

So we packed the bags up again and drove over to the "suite", one more building over. 

Now here is where the language barrier comes into play.

By "suite" he meant one of the hotel's "villas", and by "villa" they mean house. 

Like a house bigger than either of our houses back home. 

Four bedrooms, living room, family room, kitchen....for us two. 

Us two who were expecting to share a single room. 

Oh... did I mention the hot tub? Yeah. 

We have one of those to ourselves too.

And you can get wifi out at the tub, you know, for hot tub internet emergencies*. 

(*the only hot tub related emergency we had was looking up pictures of monkeys in the hot springs in Japan)

So, we found ourselves in our "villa" with heated floors, having to yell at each other because the place was so big. 

Of course we broke out the wine and took a bunch of pics.

Living room

From one end of the house

From the other end

Kitchen

My bedroom...one of four, all with views.

This is pic of our villa in the summertime. It's the one used in the brochure for Grimsborgir.

Our villa in the winter!

After picture taking we settled down for a nap in the sun, saving up our energy for the adventure we planned the next day! (hint: it involves a "Super Jeep" and a glacier)