Arrival in Reykjavik and end of the cruise

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How sad - it is our last day on this amazing ship. It took me a while to find my mojo on this luxury cruise ship but eventually I found like minded people and that makes all the difference. This morning we were awoken as we pulled into port at 6:30am in Reykjavik. I got up and started getting myself organised to disembark. Breakfast was delivered for the final time to my suite and I said my farewell to Sonal. By 8 I had checked out and collected the video/photo package I had purchased and then I waited for Barbara on Deck 5.

Barbara had organised a taxi to collect her and she was going to give me a lift. She could only give me a lift to her hotel and once we now had good internet, I was able to determine that it was going to be any less of a walk if I went to her hotel. After saying farewell to the Captain and to Skulk, we walked down to the dock and collected our bags. Ohmygoodness - it was freezing! The wind just whipped through you and we all agreed this was the coldest we have been so far on the trip!

Rather than stand around waiting for Barbara's taxi, I decided to just head off and walk to my hotel. Turns out her hotel was only 300 metres from the ship! And mine was about 1,6 Kms so only took about 20 mins, although I did have a bit of a hill to push my bag up. I arrived at my hotel, Hotel Alda, not long after 9 so checked in and left my bags in storage, as obviously my room wasn't ready.

I walked to Barbara's hotel and met her in her lobby. We then walked to the nearest Hop on Hop off bus stop as we had decided to do a circuit of this in order to get our bearings. We were well rugged up with all our layers but of course the shops and the bus were all heated! It then becomes the challenge of not over heating which can be difficult when you have bags strapped around you, making it difficult to remove a layer!

The bus tour was great and very informative - it also made me realise that Reykjavik is not an overly big city and I could easily walk to most of the sites. The bus tour took about an hour and afterwards we decided to walk up the main shopping strip - which just happens to be the same road my hotel is on. Barbara was keen to check out the shops along the way as she will be heading home soon and needed gifts etc. I was happy to wait outside as I was too hot inside!

We then stopped at a little cafe to have a coffee and Barbara bought one of the local sweets - it was like a dry donut but in the shape of a bread roll. I tried a little bit - it was meant to be dipped into your coffee, which made it a bit better. I was still so full from breakfast - actually, probably from all the eating over the past 12 days!

We then departed ways as I had received a call from my hotel and she really wanted to keep looking at shops, which I didn't really need to do. I checked into my room and sorted myself out then headed out again to explore.

I first walked up to the Lutheran cathedral which is right up on a hill not far from my hotel. A very impressive building from the outside but very plain inside. I was then on a mission to find a shop that sells FitBit products, as my band had broken and was being held on my arm by a hair tie! I had goggled an electronics shop, Elka, and knew they had a store over by the harbour so I could kill two birds with one stone and do some sightseeing along the way. I had lessened my layers back in the hotel and was grateful for this. I was now down to just my merino skivvy and a t-shirt over the top. It was a good 30 minute walk to where Google advised, which suited me fine. I followed the directions - and ended up at a vacant block! After much cursing at the stupid blue arrow (Janine will remember this well) I ended up walking back in the direction I came, looking for someone I could ask for directions. Of course this proved to be harder than I thought but in the end, thanks to walking around looking for someone, I spotted a flag in the distance that seemed to have Elka on it. Bingo - I had found it. It was in a big warehouse area so Google had taken me to the big of the property whereas Elka was in amongst other similar stores around the front. Fail #1 for Google.

I then went into Elka and asked if they had any Fitbit products - at first the girl gave me a quizzical look and then she said "oh, we don't sell them anymore. We used to". I advised that Goggle thinks they do still sell them but she shrugged. She gave me the name of another store that 'might' sell them but it was 3 km in the opposite direction, hence this is the end of my Fitbit search. Fail #2 for Google.

I then decided to walk back to my hotel and spend sometime trying to get my blog up-to-date. The internet on the ship was only basic and intermittent - for instance, I couldn't upload or download anything and couldn't stream either but I could send messages when we had a connection. This now means I am a long way behind although I have written everything but I need to add photos. It is a time consuming job and at the moment I don't have a lot of 'time'. Anyway, I did manage to update about 3 days before I finally became hungry. I had seen a noodle soup place further along my street so I headed there for something to eat. By now I was feel very tired so headed back to the hotel for some more blog time then eventually sleep.

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