Iceland!

My planes didn't crash on the way here! Yay!

It was actually a relatively tolerable trip over, although I'm almost convinced to start up an airline company for tall people. I first flew Calgary to Toronto via Westjet, which seemed to have more legroom and was therefore the more comfortable flight. They also do that personal-TV-in-the-back-of-the-seat-in-front-of-you thing, and one of the channels shows a map of the plane's current location, speed, and altitude, which is vital information for a geography geek like me.

The Toronto to Keflavik flight, after a 3 hour stopover where I became mildly lost because no one seemed to know where the correct gate I needed was, I flew with Icelandair. They lacked the cool personal TV and map combo, and had squishier seats, but served the absolute best airline meal I've ever encountered. I didn't think that was allowed. It was also interesting because the right side of the plane, looking SE, was dark most of the flight (left Toronto at 9pm), while the left side, looking NW, faded to a medium blue and red before brightening up again. My first taste of nightless day!

Anyways, I got into Keflavik around 6:30 local time, 6 hours ahead of Calgary MST. There's a bus that takes you the 50km into Reykjavik from there, and I got dropped at my hostel doorstep. The ride was fairly exciting for me from a geo- point of view. The land is very rocky, with outcropps of rock popping out at random. These are often integrated into cityscapes and make for amazing parks. Anyways, since I was actually starting to wake up at this point (didn't manage any sleep on the flights), I decided to explore the city.

Despite being home to 2/3s of Iceland's population, Reykjavik still is only home to 200,000some people, so it's fairly easy to explore on foot... until you decide to go hit all the highlights in one day! I enjoyed a walk along the oceanfront, picked up some bus tickets for the next 3 weeks, went looking for (but never found) any "old town" buildings - everything seems like a new city, not one that's been here for hundreds of years! - checked out a cool old graveyard, a lake, a museum, the local giant cathedral, and then joined the crowds for some June 17th action.

June 17th is Iceland's "independance" day, and is celebrated by just about everyone. I spent all morning wondering where people were, but by 2:30pm things had started up with games for the kids, entertainers, parades (which anyone could join in), music, and food. Unfortunately by this point I was starting to fall asleep on my feet, so I didn't stick around long but headed back to the hostel.

Also unfortunately, I forgot to bring my usb-camera connection with me, and since computer time isn't free, I'll just have to leave pictures for another day. Great weather here though, sunny and warm with a breeze, so I got a few good shots of the town.

That's it for now. Sorry if that one was a bit rambly and disoriented, but my lack of sleep is catching up with me.

'til next time!

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