Tuesday, 6 June 2006

Our last few hours in Stockholm. I went out for my last run in Sweden and with a small additional out and back to City Hall, I ran about 4 miles. Bil decided to take his camera and go for a walk in Gamla \ Stan and do some last-minute exploring. He was hoping to find the building with the cannon ball still embedded in the wall but was unsuccessful.

We went down to the breakfast buffet for our last time, then commenced to packing. We took our time. Our flight was scheduled to leave about 2:30 pm but we had no idea how busy the airport might be, or how long it would take to check in, or go through security and all that stuff. So we planned on getting to the airport in plenty of time. We checked out and walked back up Vasagatan one more time, but this trip was to the main "above-ground" station, not to the underground T.

It wasn't very crowded at all, especially down at the Arlanda Express end. We bought our tickets and discovered that since today was a national holiday, the train was on the holiday schedule and holiday prices; which turned out to be 1/2 off. The train left on time and after another brief 20 minutes of watching the beautiful green countryside of Sweden, we were at the airport. Check-in, easy; security, easy. We had plenty of time before the flight so we wandered up the concourse and back, window shopping. Soon, we boarded the plane and the flight lifted off, on time, for Iceland.

As before, this flight was about 3 hours and it didn't seem to take very long to get to Keflavik Airport in Iceland. We collected our bags and quickly found a kiosk for purchasing tickets for the bus into Reykjavik. There is a small domestic airport in Reykjavik itself, but international flights go through Keflavik. From Keflavik then, it's a 30-mile (50km) drive into town. I suppose you could get a taxi but they are, we were told, quite expensive. The obvious, most popular method, is the "Flybus" bus into town. We bought our tickets for the bus and went outside right where the bus and the obvious crowd was.

This was not remotely organized. No line, no order, just a largish group of tired travelers all hoping to get on the current bus. We got in with the crowd and slowly worked our way up to where the driver was loading the luggage in the cargo area of the bus. Just as we were to the front of the crowd, he closed the cargo door and motioned that it was full and we all had to go to the other side. So now, most of the people *behind* us were getting around in front of us. So, again, we waited and slowly got to the front, when just as we would have been next (or 2nd to next at least!), the driver closed this side, announced that this bus was full and told everyone remaining "Next bus".

Back around to the curbside, this bus drove off, and another bus pulled forward. OK, we realize that we will have to get, errrr, assertive if we are ever to get on one of these and get our ride into town. We "firmly", but not obnoxiously, make sure we're near the front, when this bus driver wants to load the *other* side first. Grrrrrr. Again, "firmly", we make sure we aren't pushed to the back as the crowd surges around to the other side of the bus. This time we get to the front fairly quickly, he loads our bags, and we get on the bus. Whew!

The weather reminds us distinctly of Bellingham: low overcast, gray, drizzly, maybe 48-50°F. But, we are, afterall, at 64° north lattitude here.

The bus ride is pleasant and uneventful as we drove past lava fields. It's ruggedly beautiful here. The bus ride turned unpleasant once we got into Reykjavik. Suffice it to say that there was a communication problem. I actually don't think it was a language issue, as in Stockholm, everyone here seems to speak English. No, I think it was that the driver, I'll call him Mr. B, was not fond of his job, or tourists, and/or felt hurried or stressed. Perhaps we were just unlucky enough to be at the wrong end of his bad mood. And perhaps because I was tired anyway, all I wanted to do was go home and hug my cat. Anyway, we were, eventually, dropped off at our hotel, the Hotel Reykjavik Centrum in the core of Reykjavik. It was ~6:00 pm local time. After a few minutes, I shook off the bad feelings over Mr. B and started appreciating the fact that I was in Reykjavik, Iceland. As I said for Sweden, "How cool is that!?"

We got checked in to our room and looked around. It was small, but new and clean. The hotel had only just opened in 2005. But we couldn't seem to turn any lights on. Bil turned on the TV so there was electricity. I called down to the front desk and started to explain, "I can usually figure out how to turn on a light..." He explained that there was a card slot on the hall wall just as you enter the room. One of the key cards must be inserted into the slot in order to make the lights available. Interesting. It had something to do with helping people conserve electricity. Once we put a key card in the slot, we could turn the lights on.

Although the Icelandair meal was quite edible, we were quite hungry by now. We left the hotel to wander around the streets nearby. The core of Reykjavik is comprised of fairly narrow streets, with short city blocks, and it seemed a small "square"--many with a statue or a sculpture--was on every other corner. Just a block down from our hotel was a fairly main street lined with shops and restaurants, including a Subway Sandwich shop :-). After the stress of the bus ride and the grumpy Mr. B, something familiar sounded very comforting. Surprisingly, the menu was only in Icelandic, but Subway includes pictures on their menu, and we were already somewhat familiar with their menu, so we were able to order without much of a problem. Of course it helped that the friendly folks who worked there spoke English. We took our sandwiches back to our room.

One very nice thing about Reykjavik and Iceland, is that almost every hotel will book any tours or excursions for you and simply charge them to your room. Very convenient. By the time we had arrived at our hotel, we already had tour booklets from the two main excursions companies in Iceland. We decided to go out to the Blue Lagoon Wednesday morning and check out the natural, geothermally heated spa/pool. The front desk took care of this request and we were told to be outside the hotel to be picked up at 10:30 next morning.

The arctic circle is at ~66.3° north lattitude. Reykjavik is at ~64.1° north. So the sun does set in the summer, but it doesn't stay down long. Sunset was at ~11:40 pm, and sunrise was ~3:20 am. It actually never got 100% dark, just a very dim twilight. Good thing this hotel also has fairly dark curtains.