Travels In Fire and Ice - Reykjavik and Departures

All  good things must come to an end. After dinner last night Kevin and I finished our packing, tagged and put out our luggage, and set a wake-up call for 6AM. We showered, dressed, and had breakfast in the cafe.  Then we waited for our group to be called.  We waited most of the time in our room and then joined the family in the lounge. We stayed relaxed and comfortable while we waited. This is a huge improvement over our first cruise on Princess where all passengers waited in the ship’s atrium for hours, sitting on the floor.

We collected our luggage and waited for our ride. We hired a private guide along with Erik’s family to take us around the city and take us to the airport at the day’s end.

Our first stop was to see Reykjavik’s iconic Sun Voyager sculpture. It is much more impressive in person than it is in photos.

Our next stop was the city’s main church, Hallgrímskirkja. It was named for the cleric Hallgrímur Pétursson who also composed Iceland’s famous “Passion Hymns. The church interiors are simple and bright with a massive pipe organ. We were also able to go up into the bell tower for the views and to hear the quarter-hours bells chime.

From here we visited  the Einar Jonsson Museum. We wanted to do something artsy in town, but we didn’t want to commit time and money to a big museum, so this free sculpture garden across the street from the church was a perfect option.  It is a pretty and peaceful spot, and the sculptures are fascinating. Most of them were kind of bizarre and invited a good study.

We spent the next two hours shopping. We went down the Rainbow Road, a charming street of shops and restaurants.  There are many touristy tacky souvenir shops, but I found a shop that specializes in local knitted goods and purchased gifts for friends and family. 

I also had been coveting a silver lava rock necklace and found the perfect one in a jewelry store, which Kevin generously purchased for me.

We stopped for lunch at Reykjavik’s most famous hot dog stand, selling Iceland’s signature Pylsur hot dogs.  Locals and tourists alike line up for these.  

Opportunistic seagulls also hang out here and try to grab leftovers. Twice during my lunch one became aggressive and knocked the hot dog out of someone’s hand.

See the ketchup on his beak?

I managed to keep mine for myself.

For the second half of the day we left the city and went to a spot where we could safely view the recent volcano eruption. We could see columns of smoke tinged with brown and bluish clouds of toxic gas. The road is blocked off twenty-two kilometers from the eruption, but nobody monitors the area, so there are still idiots who try to hike there.

Our final stop was the Bridge Between Continents. Iceland sits on two tectonic plates (hence the volcanic activity).  It sits between the North American plate and the Eurasian plate. So one can stand between the continents (sort of like a more majestic version of the Four Corners Monument in the US).

We were sad to leave, but the time came to go to the airport.  I take back everything nice I said about Keflavik Airport. Things started out easy. We arrived and hung out at the business class lounge and waited for the departure gate to be announced. Once it was announced, instead of calling up groups to board at different times, everyone had to line up at the gate at once and stand there in line for a half hour while we waited to be allowed onto the plane.  Why did we spend all this money for business class if we can’t get priority boarding?  We boarded the flight and we didn’t have too much delay, but that boarding process was the pits!  

So now that I'm home, what were my impressions of Iceland?  It is a beautiful country that lives up to its reputation as a place of stunning natural beauty.  I am delighted to have seen it.  

I also have little desire to go back.  It is a place worth seeing, but it's not the kind of place I can be in for long.  I look at all my photos and see lots of gloom and clouds. I am wearing a coat and a warm headband in most of them. The temperatures lingered in the high forties most days.  The warmest day didn't quite make it to sixty degrees.  This is July.  I thrive in sunshine and warm days.  I didn't like bundling up in layers of clothes every day. I want to wear my shorts and sandals and dresses.  I want to go swimming. 

It’s a good thing we are spending the rest of the week in Chincoteague.  I’ll have sunshine and warm days and I can swim in natural bodies of water that are warmer than 10C.