Day #1 – Arriving, Reykjavik, Puffins, and Some Local Beers
Friday Aug 15
Our driver picks us up for the 2.5 hour drive from Philly to JFK airport. We’re flying an 11pm overnight from New York to Reykjavik on Delta. It’s only a 5 hour flight (and also a 4 hour time difference). We eat before the flight, and do our best to sleep as soon as we get on board.
We doze during the flight, thinking about our destination. It’s a tiny country. The entire island is roughly the size of Kentucky. While Kentucky has 4.5 Million people, Iceland has a total of 400,000, and half of those are all located in the biggest city, Reykjavik. Some of the smaller towns have populations in the hundreds. We were excited to explore as much of it as we could.
A few hours (and not much sleep) later…..
Saturday Aug 16
It’s 10am Iceland time when we land.
We quickly hop through an easy customs and meet our ride to our hotel for tonight – Centrum. While Melanie heads off to take a nap, Jim, Ruth and I intend to power though the day. Hungry, we walk two blocks to a Cafe Rosenberg for a light meal, and then off to take a city tour to get our bearings.
BREAK TIME
The tour gave us a good overview, which makes me think that I should take a minute to talk about being a tourist in Iceland.
The Good – Everyone speaks English, and people were generally pleasant and helpful. Everything is incredibly clean, there’s no trash littering streets, and the air is pollution free. They have a tipping free culture (except for tour guides) and almost everything is paid via app or credit card, so you barely need cash. It’s easy to come to Iceland.
The Bad – While water, electricity and heat are cheap, things like food are unbelievably expensive. I mean, crazy expensive.
Break time over. That little tangent about costs gives us time to finish our quick meal, and gives us our first food sticker shock.
We were prepared for the costs, but there’s still a mental shock. For our first meal in a little café, we get two coffees, one bowl of soup, and some bread. That’s $36. Ouch.
After our meal, we join a city walking tour to learn more about the country. In addition to history, we hear for the first (of many) descriptions about everyone in Iceland descending from the same small group of Vikings, meaning everyone is related to each other in some way. This makes dating and marriage …. Interesting (the official country suggestion is not to have kids with anyone more closely related than 5th cousin.
There’s even an app that lets Icelanders access the national database to determine how closely related you are to someone. Our guide relayed a first date that had to be canceled mid-dinner once they learned that they were third cousins. It’s just a normal part of life in Iceland). See the app: Íslendingabók, or "The Book of Icelanders"
Melanie is awake! She joins us after the city tour. We squeeze in a Puffin boat ride with Mr. Puffin. The Puffins are mostly gone (migrated) by this time, but there were a few left. We knew we’d see them close up on one of our cruise stops, but we’d read so much about unpredictable Iceland weather and how often stops get canceled so we wanted to hedge our bets. We didn’t want to miss the Puffins!
The water was choppy and the birds were far away, so the pics aren’t as good as I’d hoped, but we were happy to see them.
We finished our first day with some good Nepalese food. $70 for two of us – not bad for Iceland pricing!
After 2 or 3 hours of sleep and a day of touring, the exhaustion was setting in strong. We all wanted nothing more than to get to bed. Since we were tired, we passed on Le Kock. It seems that no one was interested in a giant noodle
We stumble back to the hotel aching to get some sleep, and
Oh! Hey! Ice Cream!
Suddenly, sleep can wait.
This gelato store is right next to our hotel and has some fun flavors (Blueberry Skyr, Black Licorice). We pay $15 for two small cups.
Gelato finished and we're all punch-drunk from lack of sleep. Now, for real, we finally can go to bed.
Oh! Wait! Beer!
A top brewpub is 20 meters from our hotel. So much for sleep.
We have a few local flights ($22 each for 4 tasters) at the Skuli bar and then finally get some rest. We have only one night here. Tomorrow we head out for our two day trip to the South Coast of Iceland.
We’re asleep the second our head hits our pillow.
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