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Published: August 18th 2009
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Evy and I were both up early this morning. It is difficult to sleep with it so light outside. It is hard to believe that this was our last night on the road and that after over 10 months, we are heading home today.
It is a bright sunny day. Joshua and Benjamin seem to need their sleep and so we refrain from the usual wake up routine. I make use of our internet connection to do the final blog entries, with the exception of today. Evy saw some interesting Icelandic Christmas ornaments when we were downtown yesterday, so she left to buy them.
After tidying up the apartment, I woke up the kids. Not quite knowing what we will find for food today, I packed us a lunch though we are all getting a bit tired of cheese sandwiches. It seems strange to be doing all this for the last time: the packing, the weighing of the suitcases, and the inevitable repacking to get each suitcase under the limit.
About 10:30 Evy returned and we finished up with the packing. After checking the room one last time for forgotten stuff, we rolled our bags down the hallway
and checked out with the manager of the apartments.
The apartment manager called us a taxi, which arrived quite quickly. At first he wasn't sure he could fit us and all our stuff, but having traveled in some very small cars around the world, I assured him we could make it fit. On the way to the flybus depo, he tried to convince us to take a taxi all the way to the airport, but it seems to be double the price so we declined. We want to use the last of our Icelandic change, so we counted out the fare.
While we were lined up to buy the flybus tickets, the taxi driver came back looking somewhat purturbed and said that we had not given him enough to cover the fair. Embarrased, we took the change back and paid him with the easier to figure out bills instead.
After buying our flybus tickets, we still had about and hour or more to wait for the next bus for the airport, so we settled in for the first of a lot of waiting on this way home.
On the bus, it was interesting to see the
same places that had given us our first impressions of Iceland three days ago. The area where the airport is is much flatter and more baren than what we have seen elsewhere. It appears to be a large lava field and at one place there is a huge rock ridge that you can almost imagine to have been a river of lava. In the distance is a cone like hill that appears to be a dormant volcano.
At the airport, we checked in and moved though security quite quickly. Once on the other side of security, we in a huge area with lots of stores. Prices here on many things were higher than in the city (a t-shirt cost about $33) but I bought some Icelandic Vodka as well as some of their Schnaps (packaged in its own small wholen icelandic sweater like bag). We ate our lunch while we waited until it was time to go to our gate.
At the gate, we still had another 45 minutes to spend. I paid for a bit of internet time and we checked our email again, just in case there was any last minute communication about our arrival. Benjamin
then took over and fired off a few final emails to his friends.
After openning the gate and checking our boarding passes, we found ourselves in yet another waiting room. Fortunately this wait wasn't long and they were soon ready for us to board, but it seemed almost like an attempt to make this final stage of our trip deliberately suspenceful.
The plane was a bit better than the last Icelandic air one. Benjamin got the window seat with Joshua next to him. This time, all of our seatback tv screen worked. It was very odd to visit the route screen and see a red line leading from where we are all the way to Toronto. Benjamin and Joshua are extatic to see this.
Other than the budget airlines that we have used like EasyJet and RyanAir, Icelandicair has to be the most chinsy airline, charging you for headphones and any food that you want. We still have tons of stuff left from our lunch, so we end up snacking on this rather than buying their $12 sandwiches.
Benjamin and Joshua our now old hats at this whole flying thing and didn't even seem to be
looking out when the plane took off. What a contrast to 10 months ago when they both were steeming up their windows looking out and waiting for the magical moment when the plane left the ground.
With close to a six hour flight, Benjamin and Joshua established their viewing list from the selection of inflight movies. I had started watching Australia on the flight from London, but now got the change to finish it. Keeping with the foreign lands theme, I watched Slum Dog Millionaire next, still regretting a bit that we never visited India. Benjamin and Joshua watched a James Bond film and then Australia, bringing back some memories of our trip and our time on the Fergusson's Ranch at Emyo Planes.
We followed our flight closely on the inflight maps screens, watching as we flew over Greenland and finally, over Newfoundland. The antisipartion seemed to grow as we passed to the West of Ottawa and began the stretch to Toronto. As we approached Toronto, we could lake and then finally, the skyline and the CN tower. The boys were estatic, chearing when we landed and actually posing for pictures (Benjamin usually covers his face).
It
is not hard to spot our battered and worn bags as they roll along the baggage track. At one point the orange flagging tape on the handles was the only way we knew for certain, now it is the threads hanging from the stredded sides that give them away.
At customs, we were greated back nicely by the official who processed us, though he did have to take away our two last apples and the ham sandwiches.
We were now ready for the final stage: walking through the opaque sliding doors that led to the arrivals area. Steve, Evy's sister's husband, had said that he would meet us, but when we walked through we had a whole crowd, including my niece and nephew holding a Welcome Home sign. Evy's sister Nancy was also there, though she lives in Seatle. As well there was Evy's other sister, Lily along with her son, the toddler Liam. David, my brother, and my mother we also there. It was had to hold back the tears seeing everyone after such a long trip.
We posed for a few photos with everyone to commenorate our return before splitting up and into two cars
and heading over to Evy's mother's house.
At Pia's, we found ourselves greeting Pia and our dog Sandy at the same time. We weren't sure how Sandy would react to our return. All year we have wondered if she will be excited to see us or mad at us for leaving. Ater a few quick sniffs though, she was frantically excited and was jumping all over us with lots of licks. She raced around the garden as it to burn off the excitement of seeing us all.
After saying goodbye to my brother David, Toddy, and Jasmine along with my mother, we went inside and enjoyed some much needed pizza. By now it was about 2 am Icelandic time (though only 10 here) and we were soon upstairs to the rooms where we had stayed the night before we left on this trip.
In all, our trip took 10 month and 7 days and we visited 21 countries taking us all the way around the world. It is going to be strange to no longer be packing and unpacking and moving from place to place. At the same time, it is sort of sad that it is
over. In the words of the Greatful Dead, “What a long strange trip it's been”.
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Paul Szkwyra
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Welcome Home
Hurry up. You both start work in three weeks!!!