Reykjavik to Keflavik, September 12, 2019

First a few catch-up moments!  First, about the economic situation in Iceland.  We learned early on that 1,000 Icelandic kroner (ISK) is about ten dollars, so it’s pretty easy to figure our what you’re spending.  And since it’s really a little less, you get a pleasant surprise when you check your credit-card bill!  And about credit cards - everyone uses cards for everything.  You have to have a card with a chip and you usually need to know your pin as well.  All that said, there is quite a bit of sticker shock when you buy anything, from food to souvenirs to anything else.  What we didn’t know is that it is as difficult for the Icelanders as it is for tourists.  Our guide last night said his mom bought a tiny little place twenty-six years ago and not only is she still paying on it;  but she owes more now than at the start!  Most people work two jobs just to break even.

Other fun facts - there are 350,000 Icelanders and last year there were three million tourists!  All the new construction we see in downtown Reykjavik is hotels.  The last time there was this much construction was just before the crash of 2008!  (We’ve been warned!)

Education is compulsory from six to sixteen.  After that you can go to a junior college for four years and then to university, if you choose.  Gunnar did his university studies in Canada in tourism.  And we’ve meet American students who come to Iceland for theirs.  The Icelandic universities are very well thought of.  Students all study Icelandic, English, and Danish;  but the our guide spoke Danish to a Dane, they couldn’t communicate!  They used English!

Now - on to today!!  We spent enough time last night playing with our suitcases that we can go to breakfast and be ready to leave by the ten o’clock check out.  There is some weirdness about getting breakfast!  You go up a flight of stairs, across, and down another to gain access to the breakfast room!  Breakfast looks really familiar, although there is also hummus this morning.  Marilyn notices a pair of young men who "liberate" five or six slices of bread and smuggle them past the reception desk.  Now we get the whole controlled access thing! 

As we’re having our second cups of coffee we meet a woman from Finland who wants to chap.  She is an entrepreneur who is looking at ways to improve the tanning of sheep so as to make it more eco-friendly as well as financially secure.  She has three kids, a six-year old daughter and twin boys who are four.  They are home with their father!  She says that traveling in Iceland is like Ikea.  It looks like a straight shot on the map;  but the way you have to go makes it three times as long!

She has her hair shaved on the sides because they have a type of crawley fly in Finland that gets caught in your hair, and this way she can just brush them off!  She’s been hitch hiking all over the country, checking out sheep farmers and says they use deadly chemicals in their tanning process,  Last year she was here for six weeks, working on a farm.  Interesting lady!  She told us that their students study Finnish, English, and Swedish.

We get all our stuff into the car and head downtown for some last-minute shopping.  We head for the same area in which we parked last night and find a space with little trouble.  And now we pretty much know how to work the parking machine!  We walk down the shopping street that our guide pointed out last night, and which was also suggested by the man at the TI.  I find a couple of things.  

What the heck is this?

Really? A snorkel??

In one of the shops we run into a couple that was sitting behind us at the comedy club!  Everyone agrees that the show was, umm, not the highest calibre.  They and Marilyn were all uncomfortable with some of the comments that one of the comedians made about performing in front of his grandma!  I think I was less offended than the people who just watched.  I had a couple of comebacks and then he left me alone.

Fun paint job!

That's Leif Erickson's statue in front.

A gift from the people of the United States to the people of Iceland on the one thousand's anniversary of the first ever parliament in the world!, AD 1930.   And it is still going!  It's called "althingi"

We try to visit the big Lutheran church at the top of the hill;  but it is closed for a funeral.  It was built as an answer to the Catholic Church in town!  The architecture is inspired by the basalt columns so common all over the country.

It’s been drizzling off and on and it is good to get into the car and head to the airport to return our car. As we’re driving we see a car with an Icelandic flag flying from the front fender.  The license plate is simply the Icelandic flag followed by the number two!  Must be a VIP! We’ll be early; but that’s fine.  We bring all our things into the Avis/Budget car-return building and as soon as they’ve given it a quick once-over we take the shuttle to the terminal.

These are all over the country.

I wasn’t allowed to check-in on line this morning so we talk to an airport employee who says that Delta doesn’t have a ground crew here, so we’ll need to check the monitor in the morning to find out which desk will be handling our flight.

We go to the information desk, where we are supposed to meet our hotel shuttle.  Our reservation is for 1720, but the information lady says they come at twenty past every hour, so it should be all right.  Well, that’s not quite right.  When Marilyn calls, the shuttle office says they only come when they have reservations and she doesn’t have a driver right now!.  We’ve been here since 1:40 and she won’t have anyone here until 4:20.  We go to Joe and the Juice, the same little airport cafe we visited when we first arrived, and get a sandwich and play phone/computer stuff.  I’m blogging and trying to catch up!  We’ll sleep like stones tonight, after fitful rest last night.  The shuttle to airport will leave at six a.m. for our eight-thirty flight.

At four o’clock we go back to the designated meeting point and there are swarms of travelers and people holding up signs;  but we don’t see our person yet.  At about the right time a girl with our B&B’s logo arrives and she scoops up four of us.  We get to the van and there are already two people and when the last ones arrive we’re off (it’s a huge step up into the van!). It takes about ten or fifteen minutes and then we’re all disgorged from the van and queue up at the reception desk.

We get our key card, check on our morning shuttle, learn that breakfast begins at FOUR and settle in for our large room!  There are four single beds with two of them made up as a queen!  It’s quite a step up for us to have so much space and we enjoy it and the hot shower and there is even an English-language channel on the TV!  It’s going to be an early night and an early morning.  And it’s going to be so sad to leave this glorious country!! 

My charm for my travel necklace;  he's a hand-carved arctic fox!

 (I got brave and looted at my puffin photos.  There is only one that is even half-way acceptable!  I added it to the September 10th post.)