At the request of an attentive audience (Dad and cousin Jackie) the blog is back for trip number 3 to Iceland. I cannot guarantee that I will write in as much detail as last time but I'll at least start out strong.
Well, I made it. After what seems like an eternity without sleep (36 hours + in reality) I'm still clinging to my excitement but am starting to lose mental acuity, so this may or may not be real sensical.
My plan to sleep on the plane so that my it would seem to my internal clock that it really was 6:30am upon arrival in Iceland was a total failure. I took my seat (12a for those of you wondering) and instantly became the poster child for Restless Leg Syndrome. I'm sure the lady next to me was thrilled with her seat assignment. A few times I fell into some sort of strange dozy state that helped to pass the time, but I can't say it was REM quality. My tv screen was also no help, as it was frozen on the language screen for the entire flight. Islensku? English? I would have been happy with Mandarin if it meant I could watch The Hunger Games or listen to some Jonsi. Despite two reboots of the system it wasn't going to happen. To distract myself I flailed around in my seat every 2 and a half minutes and flashed between being freezing cold and suffocatingly hot for 6 hours.
I made the 7:10am Fly Bus into Reykjavik where I was met by the newly Iceland-inhabiting Stefan Hermanowicz, Snorri colleague extraordinaire. I can't measure how jealous I am of his new living situation, just a short walk from downtown. After a solid skyr breakfast and some catching up, Asta Sol stopped by to chat and to bring me a SIMM card for the phone I will be using whilst here. Stefan and I followed that up with a walk around downtown and a pylsa/coke for lunch.
Asta Sol returned to bring me to the domestic airport for my flight to Faskrudsfjordur around 12:30 for a 12:45 flight. I love the domestic airport here. You can run in last minute, tell the front desk your name, they throw your bags on the belt with a sticker, hand you a boarding pass and send you outside to the tarmac to find your plane. No security, no waiting. I caught a solid 20 minutes of sleep on the 50 minute flight out east and felt pretty good. Despite my nagging fear that a plane that small (even smaller than the one from last year) couldn't possibly stay in the air all the way across Iceland, I was amazed at the view of the country below. I'm pretty sure I saw either Askja or Viti (or some equally impressive volcano lake), and Herðubreið. Gorgeous.
Bogga and her niece Arna picked me up in Egilsstadir and we did some shopping before heading home. It was a balmy 25 degree (Celsius) day here. Hot! Record breaking I think. The landscape here is so breathtaking no matter the weather, but this was an exceptional day to arrive. I can't exactly describe the wonderful way the air smells, but it is some perfect mix of water and mountain and moss and home.
Adorable Eidur came by to see me and spent the afternoon telling me, "Mallory, komdu!" in his efforts to show me this and that. He is doing his best to teach me more Icelandic as mine seems not to have improved much (ahem...at all) since I left last summer.
He showed me some Justin Bieber cover songs on YouTube that both horrified and impressed me and then after a mouthwatering grilled lamb dinner we watched Pippi Longstocking cartoons. Pippi (called Lina in Iceland) bridged the language gap.
I'm not sure what is on deck for tomorrow. Berry picking in the mountains maybe. Or maybe I can walk along the fjord to see if I can see the whales that have been hanging around. Either option sounds pretty spectacular to me.
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