Advertisement
Published: June 25th 2012
I'm in Iceland!!
Well, technically I'm only at Kevlavik airportThe flight from Boston Logan airport to Icelands Kevlavik airport took a mere 4.5 hours! As goes with the prices of these kinda flights, food costs money but since it was in the middle of the night, I didn't mind. They had a good deal for an Icelandic beer and a Jagermeister combo, so bought that with my last Dollars and actually had a bit of a nap while the plane skirted the most southern tip of Greenland on our way to Iceland where the sun was trying hard to push through the grey and dull skies. I managed to catch a glimpse of some mountains outside the airport, but mostly it seemed like a barren, rocky landscape to me.
After a few hours of walking about the award-winning but free-wifi-less airport looking for the less than badly signposted smoking room, we were back on our way onto a much older 737 of Iceland Air this time to Manchester. Another short and pleasant flight, breaking up the otherwise 7-8 hour flight from eastern Canada/USA to western Europe rather nicely! Just before landing the familiar yellow rapeseed fields welcomed me back to the UK. At Manchester airport I was awaited by
Departure to Manchester
From Iceland's Kevlavik airport my friend Danny (and a rather drunk lady that collapsed outside the terminal.. :s). Taking the local bus that I took back in 2007 as well when I worked at the airport selling coffee and muffins, we headed to Salford where his wife was waiting for us.
Outside it was as it should be in the UK; grey, dull and pissing down with rain. Nevertheless we spent a few hours walking the streets of Manchester and had a bite to eat at the Friday market sheltering from the rain under the tarpaulin. Walking though Canal street we ended up in the pub opposite where I did my TEFL course and also celebrated a few start-of-weekends back in 2007. I enjoyed the ciders and the chat, while comforted by the heaters inside the pub, feeling oh so English with red dubbledecker buses (on bio fuel, it is still 2012) passing by on the soaking wet streets. Next stop was another bar in the village where we continued downing beers and thus contributing to the Britsh economy 😊
At home, the wife went straight to sleep while Danny and I did some serious red wine-infused burrito cooking. Some more chatting,
Rapeseed fields
Back in the UK! playing music, reminiscing and generally getting drunk followed before we decided it was time to hit the sack. With the previous night on an airplane, I was definitely ready to! The morning after Danny cooked us a wonderful English breakfast deluxe, after which we went for a lovely walk along the Irwin river to process the carbs. It was then time to say goodbye to Danny and say hello to Judith, my landlady during my TEFL course in 2007. It was nice to chat up again and see the house that I helped painting. The Indian food that evening was absolutely marvelous, hadn't eaten Indian in quite some time and where better to eat it than in the UK? (apart from euhm... India of course😊 The saag panir, daal and korma tasted as good as the biryani and chapatis... nom, nom, nom....
The next morning it was an early rise as I had to be at the Manchester busstation for my bus to Leeds. I had booked it previously online for a mere £2.5 on the national bus express. So I said goodbye to Judith and rainy Manchester. I enjoyed the English landscape on my way over to Leeds
where I had never been before. Unfortunately no time to visit but oh well, no weather to be walking around anywayz.. So I transferred to a local bus to the airport for the budget flight to Amsterdam. There, a financially bit of bad luck caused me to spend an extra £17.5 over an already expensive 'budget' flight. Fairly pissed off about it, I want to mention the airline here; Jet2 charged me the extra amount because I had forgotten to check in online previously to the flight, which I had been told about on numerous occasions according to them. When I later checked my emails, I did indeed find 3 'reminder emails', ALL with large titels telling me about their fantastic champagne deals and what not. Scrolling down, yes, I did find a reminder for checking in online. How about putting that at the top Jet2 (?!) and your stupid champagne bullshit at the bottom??? I am flying home, I'm not going on a tropical vacation to rainy Holland!
Apart from that, it was a fairly pleasant flight and as usual a familiar view to see the east coast beaches appear from the plane window. (as were the grey,
low hanging clouds that seem to perpetually doom over Holland, any season). As with all other budget flights flying to and from Schiphol, we had to go to terminal H, which means a 'taxi' ride of around 15 minutes which passes over the main highway. A sister and her husband were there to pick me up 😊
And that was it: I had left off on March 18 2011 and flew back in on April 29 2012. Thirteen and a half months, 10 countries altogether (central America, USA, Canada and UK) and into my 4th decennia on earth.... Hope there's more to come!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.14s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 16; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0996s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
So let's hear about your time in Mongolia...
your profile says that you started teaching there in October!