“Day 1” of this travelogue is actually days 1 + 2, but we haven’t really slept properly yet, so for us it’s just one loooooooong day with a few minutes nap here and there.

First flight was Calgary to Vancouver - everything was on time, security lineups weren’t bad, and the view of the Rockies from the air was really nice.

FYI: you can always click an image to see the whole thing on your screen at once, rather than scrolling thru it

Because we switched airlines for the second leg, they couldn’t print boarding passes for Icelandair at the Westjet counter, so they said we’d need to get boarding passes at YVR. No biggie.

Once we found our gate, we got our boarding passes and set off to find the lounge. Icelandair uses some lounge called “Pacific Finest” or something and it was a loooooooooong way back from the gate. How long? By the time we got there and looked at what they had, the message board said our flight was pre-boarding! By the time we got back to the gate, we were near the end of the line to board.

Icelandair provided a little swag bag of goodies - the best things were the stickers that you pop onto your shoulder to let the flight attendants know whether or not to wake you for food and beverages or duty free. That’s a great idea, since I’m always afraid I’ll miss the food cart if I should fall asleep.

The socks meant to slip over your own socks so you can go without your shoes on the plane were “once size fits all” - they lie! At least for someone with size 14 feet!

The onboard menu and flight announcements were our first taste of the Icelandic language. In most European languages, English has borrowed enough from them that you can usually pick out a few words or at least get a grasp on the main topic. Not so with Icelandic, as it is derived from the Viking languages rather than the European languages.

Icelanders love their gin - it’s not uncommon to find ten or more gins on a restaurant menu, but only two or three wines. The plane was no different. Seven gins, two red wines.

I tried two of the gins and Rob had a third kind. All were good.

And let’s talk about those cheese things! It’s “lava cheese” - a crunchy, herb-infused cheese cookie that is absolutely delicious.

Dinner was charcuterie, chicken, pilaf, and cheesecake. It was all fine, but the cheesecake was my favourite. Unlike US/Canadian cheesecake, this was a bit dryer, more dense, and less sweet.

I found it very much like Pay de Queso (Mexican ‘cheesecake’) but a bit more lemon flavour.

In addition to gin, Iceland is also famous for its chocolate and its liquorice. I love liquorice, but Iceland liquorice is better than most. It’s softer, almost like a gummy, less harsh (none of the creosote taste like you get in some liquorice), and slightly salty.

On the snack menu, they had a “Draumur” ("Dream”) - which is a liquorice centre covered in milk chocolate. Rob and I both thought, “eww” and then we thought, “what the hell, it’s free. We’’ll try one.”

It should’ve been nasty. Everything about it indicates that this would be right up there with other Icelandic ’treats’ like fermented shark, but no! It’s actually delicious. REALLY delicious! Enough that we asked the attendant for more, but they were out of stock, so we found a grocery store and bought a box of bite-sized ones.

Before long, we were over Greenland and we knew we’d be landing soon.

You don’t actually fly into the capital city Reykjavik, but instead to Keflavik - a town of around 15,000 people about an hour west of Reykjavik. I’m not sure the reasoning for this, some someone is making.a killing on shuttles from the airport to the city.

When I say there’s nothing much around the airport, I’m not kidding.

A few houses and volcanic coastline. That’s it.

Security only took about 20 minutes and our bags were off in no time, so we were able to catch an earlier shuttle than the one we booked, which was great.

The hotel is typical European with tiny rooms and no storage.

I know what you’re thinking: “OMG, how do you fit in that tiny shower?”

You don’t have to. The ENTIRE BATHROOM is the shower. That clear partition swings out away from the wall and serves basically to keep the shower water from going into the main room. The big squeegee is there to push the water to the drain after you’re done so the next person in the washroom won’t have to walk on a wet floor.

The view from our window overlooks the coast and Harpa, the performing arts centre.

At this point, I got the good camera out and headed across the street from the hotel to get a shot.

This was what I got:

I had packed the wrong lens! Instead of my all-in-one, I packed the zoom lens (which looks exactly like the other one, save for some different numbers on the side).

So unless I was at least 75m away from what I wanted a picture of, I’d not be able to take the pic with this camera.

Crap. I googled camera stores and found one only about a half-hour walk from the hotel - and off I went. It was an expensive mistake. I don’t really wanna talk about it. 🤬

Anyway, armed with a new all-in-one lens, I stood in exactly the same spot as before and got this pic of the hotel:

Our room is the third window to the right of the word SKY.

So now that we have our room and the proper lens for the camera, it was time to do a little exploring.

That will all be in the next post.

On to the next day!

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