In true Floridian fashion, it seemed we were trying to outrun a tropical depression. We had a little rain, but it seemed as though we out ran it. Or perhaps it just headed off the coast. We did have some concerns it would try and follow us up the coast or even prevent us from being able to fly out of Palm Beach, but… not!
We arrived in Boston and were able to head right into the International terminal with no additional security. We found some nice couches near the entrance of the terminal which apparently was the quiet area. Bryan and Ethan made a trip further into the terminal to brush their teeth and get ready for “bed” and it was mass chaos. The terminal was loaded with international flights all over the world. Pretty crazy!
Once we all had a chance to freshen up and get ready for bed (brush our teeth and use the restroom), we relaxed on the couches until our 11:50pm flight to Iceland. Ethan curled up on the couch and laid his head on my lap. It didn’t take too long for him to fall asleep. He must have yawned a million times. It was so cute watching him toss and turn with one leg almost kneeling on the floor and the other nearly kicking the girl’s purse off the counter between our couches. He didn’t seem to mind. So, we let him get a little cat nap in.
Icelandic Air! Super nice and fun accents :-) We also had great seats on this flight. They gave Ethan a little kid bag on the way onto the plane. It had some games, colored pencils, and some other cute goodies. Unfortunately, Ethan didn’t discover that the bag also included a sleep mask until AFTER the flight. Ha!
We all tried our best to sleep on the flight. After all, we were going to be landing in Iceland at 9am local time (5am our time). Ethan did pretty well. I surrendered my pillow to him. Each seat had a small pillow and cozy little blanket for each of us. Once we took off we were able to tilt our seats back, but it’s never quite enough to put you in a position to really sleep. It was a long restless night, but I’m sure we slept in little bursts.
The flight attendants would make all their announcements in Icelandic and of course we couldn’t understand a word. Then they would say, “Dear passengers…” We thought it was kind of silly cause they would start all their English announcements with “dear passengers.”
As the sun was rising on Iceland, we looked out our window as we made our decent. Once we finally cleared the clouds we could see a rough ocean… and nothing but ocean! It was pretty wild. We got lower and lower to the ocean and still no land. Finally, we could see a lighthouse and some patches of low, wet land. Before we knew it the plane was finally over land and we were touching down. If my memory serves me, the first set of landing lights for the runway were nearly in the water!
So the airport wasn’t that big, but it wasn’t too small either. What was so interesting was that there were plenty of empty gates off the building, BUT they parked our plane in the “long term lot.” My words, not theirs. It was like a whole parking lot for planes, but detached from the main terminal. How is it that one of the coldest places on the planet doesn’t have ALL their airplanes park at actual terminal tunnels?!? So, in the cold rain, we exited the plane, right onto the tarmac, where a bus was waiting for us. The 2 sets of double doors were wide open so we could quickly board the bus, but it’s freezing outside, we have no winter coats yet, and the doors are wide open! Brrrrr! So we wait and shiver as the bus fills up enough for us to be driven to the terminals. It’s a short drive, but then we walk outside in the rain and into the terminal building. Weird! Everything about the setup of this airport was strange, but we made it inside and were able to warm up.
Before we could make it to baggage claim we walked through a huge duty free store. Everything from “the alcs” (as Ethan calls it) to food, sweet treats and more! It was torture as I walked by massive bags of peanut M&Ms… I mean they were 6+ shelvers high and atlas 6 feet wide and it was ALL peanut M&Ms! YUMMM! I could have devoured a whole jumbo bag! But, we walked on by and made our way towards some…. That’s right… Legos! What vacation is complete without a Lego set for Ethan to build when he’s bored in a hotel room. We made him buy a set that had an Iceland theme. Ha! I’ll have to find a picture to send… I think you’ll agree it fits in with Iceland.
We got our luggage and our driver was waiting for us to take us into the biggest city in Iceland, Reykjavik. We drove from Keflavík International Airport about 30-45 minutes in the rain into Reykjavik while our driver chatted with us about Iceland, museums, town, the people, where to go, etc. He told us if you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes. Reminded us of Florida, so naturally we felt right at home :-) Everything we received from the travel agency before hand and upon arrival made constant mention of driving safety here in Iceland. So Bry asked our driver what was so dangerous about driving here, because it didn’t appear to be anything crazy. Turns out most of the Asian tourists come here and rent cars having never driven before! So, really, they have no license and then they come to Iceland and hop in cars and start driving the country. Ahhhh!! So, our goal is to stay away from Asian drivers. lol. Sorry for the stereo type Asia, but your reputation precedes you. Let our Iceland adventures officially begin!
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Oh my! We got to our hotel and walked into the lobby… standing room only. The place was full and of course we had no idea what was going on. We crammed all our bags into the corner and stood like sardines while Bryan made his way to the counter. (Remember, it’s still raining outside) The girl at the counter was very friendly and full of energy despite the craziness surrounding her!
The lobby emptied of the big tour group that was there and we opened our suitcases to change our outfits into something a bit warmer and water resistant! We tucked out bags into the laundry room for the hotel because the bag storage room was OVERFLOWING! So that was a little weird. We hoped for the best that they would still be there when we returned :-) We set out on the town to explore.
We headed to Harpa which is an all glass/windowed building right on the water. This is a huge music venue! I actually saw a fair amount of young people (high school/college) carrying violins and cellos into the building. This venue appears to house operas, theater productions, orchestral concerts, regular rock n roll concerts, etc. There was a cute little gift shop that we hid from the wind and rain as we waited for the bus to take us to the Perlan Museum. The bus comes at the top of the hour so we went outside around then and Bry ran ahead to see if the bus was there. We tried to hide against the building to stay out of the VERY COLD wind! The bus stop was right on the water and not protected at all. I’m not be dramatic when I saw it was freezing! Bry met another family from the UK waiting for the bus. They hadn’t seen the bus either. Bry came back and waited against the building with us. Only no the wind had shifted and the building was hardly protecting us from the freezing wind. We waited… and waited… until it was about quarter after 1pm. At that point Bry thought we had to have missed the bus. Rewind… as we were waiting there was a bus that bad been sitting at the bus stop wince before we got there. As that bus left the stop, Bry noticed a sign on the side for the Perlan. Ding ding! Was that the bus that we were all supposed to be on. We assumed this was the case and Bry called for a taxi.
A local taxi picked us up to take us to the Perlan. I suggested we try and grab the family from the UK. The Taxi drove us nearby and I ran out to invite them to ride along. They were VERY appreciative. Bry insisted there was no need for them to pitch in, but they insisted and gave us 1000 krona (about $10 US). Ethan was very excited by this because it was his first time seeing the local currency. Naturally he wanted to keep it forever and bring it home, which was fine, but we thought we may need it at some point some we had NO local cash on hand.
The museum was very cool. We walked through part of the exhibits briefly and then wandered back to the beginning where we started our official tour with a movie of the Northern Lights in their Planetarium! An amazing show, but after a red eye flight from the states, also perfect conditions for mommy to take a little nap. LOL. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the presentation… and I did as well… when I wasn’t taking a little at nap. I mean come on, the chairs were tilted back in a lounge position, the lights were down and there was soothing music playing as we viewed the vastness of the Northern Lights from all over the country of Iceland.
There were so many great things at the museum, details of volcano eruptions with great photos, time lapsed erosion of the glaciers and it’s long term effects, and an ice cave. The Perlan was built on water tanks that used to supply the water to the area. Since they are no longer needed, they actually froze one of the tanks and carved out an area so you can walk through from the museum. It is COLD! Ethan loved it! The top floors of the museum had a restaurant and observation deck. We had lunch at the cafe and enjoyed the 360 degree view of Reykjavik.
After the museum, we took a taxi back to Hotel Fron. The hotel was MUCH quieter now. We even teased the girl at the front desk, but she insisted she loved the craziness and informed us that she had super powers and she can handle anything. Her super powers are what helped her remember us from the morning craziness. She gave us our room which was outside to another building. That’s when we realized the hotel rooms were more like apartments surrounding the hotel lobby, which made the lobby a store front of sorts. It was very interesting.
Our room was super cute… and huge! It had 3 small bedrooms and a nice size living room. I’m betting before it was a hotel, it would have made a nice apartment in the “big city.” The living room was almost wall to wall windows with the exception of the kitchen cabinet area. The were so many pubs and bars around. We heard it gets quite rowdy in the city on nights and weekends. Apparently Sunday nights not so much. I’d say it was fairly peaceful. We were running out of steam, so we hit the pub next door to our hotel. I really wanted a burger from Chuck Norris’ Grill, but the pub had a better selection for Bry, so we went there.
The Public House Gastropub was a cool little place. I could see what young people want to come and spend time in Reykjavik. The food was Asian infused tapas, but not the kinds of things you may think of. Bryan had a “best of” platter. It started with some kind of sake cocktail. His tapas were fried duck chopsticks (the size of a small beef jerky stick), bacon wrapped dates with a sweet Thai chili type sauce (I liked dipping the duck sticks in the date sauce), and beef tenderloin for his main tapas. I needed something somewhat normal so I got chicken dippers. They came with a Thai bbq sauce and some bleu cheese sauce. As you can imagine the bleu cheese sauce was for looks… at least on my plate it didn’t stand a chance for getting dipped! Bry did take a quick sample of the bleu cheese sauce, but that was the end of that.
This was our first real sit-down meal. So, when Bryan got the bill there was no place to tip. We grabbed one of the many wait staff that had helped us throughout the night asked how or if people tip in Iceland. We explained this was our first meal here and we didn’t know what to do. She said we couldn’t tip on our credit card because that would just go to the owner. If we wanted to tip the wait stuff we could just leave some coins on the table. We had no cash, so no tip for her. But, she didn’t make it sound like it was a big deal.
As soon as we walked next door to our hotel, we immediately asked the front desk what proper etiquette was. I had the one 1000 krona bill that we thought we could run back and give to her if necessary. The lady at the front desk was great and explained that in Iceland it’s very different. A service fee is included in all of our checks or built into the price of the food. So, they don’t really work for tips. However, if you have exceptional service or if you feel you want to leave a little something extra, it is very much welcomed for people to leave a couple coins (the equivalent to a couple dollars). It’s funny though, it kind of shows that they’re not working for tips. Unlike in the states, they’ll leave you to sit at the table and look over the menu for a while. They might come take your drink order, but many times they’ll just leave you alone for a while. Eventually they’ll come over and take your drink order and your food order. They might check on you once you’ve gotten your food, but it feels as though they’re trying to leaver you alone. It’s nice in some ways. But after dinner we were waiting for someone to let us pay so we could just leave. Basically, if you’re in a hurry, don’t go out to eat!
That’s all the fun we could take for one day. We settled in to our very nice hotel room the night. Ethan had his own room, so I got him settled in and snuggled for a bit. About an hour or 2 after I put him to bed, I was getting ready for bed myself. I heard Ethan moving around and say, “Mommy… mommy!” I hopped up and came to him standing in the middle of the hallway. I was trying to figure out what he wanted, but couldn’t figure out what was up. Very upset he said, “mommy, Matthew aslkdfmaosidfmcaklsjdfmc.” I was like, what?! “Matthew lsasdojcadsmc oasjdfmoiacsjdfm,” he whimpered. “Buddy, what did Matthew do?” *Insert more nonsense about Matthew.* So I started to ask Ethan if he knew where he was, I reminded him that we were in a hotel in Iceland, etc. I got him back into his bed, but I still felt like he wasn’t actually awake. So, I kept talking to him to wait for him to snap out of it. I said, “now what about Matthew?” He looked at me with his brows crinkled and said, “what?” I said, “what did Matthew do?” Ethan looking at me funny, “What are you talking about?” And that was the end of that! Weird, right?!?
On that note, I went to bed.
PS - there are lots of great pictures, but these were the quick shots from my phone :-)
Good evening! What wonderful memories you are making ! Looking forward to your next daily accounts ��
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