Day 16, Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Itinerary: Reykjavik fly to Boston fly to Philadelphia (home)

Time awake: c. 7:30

Odometer (in kilometers/miles) at start:

Weather: Cold in Reykjavik

Steps: 18695

Asleep:

Map Link(s):

Having gotten to bed rather early the night before, we got an early start this morning and were in the dining room by about 7:45 AM. Breakfast at the City Center Plaza was more along the lines of a typical American/English one with eggs, bacon, and sausage than those we’d had in central Europe, which should come as no surprise given Iceland’s proximity and the fact that almost everyone speaks fluent English.

By 8:50 AM we were out on the street ready to explore Reykjavik. We winged it to start since I hadn’t researched the city, never having figured we’d be touring it. With almost no idea about what to see, we headed toward the harbor since it looked intriguing. Coastlines often are. The course we took to get there, however, soon found us trapped in a construction zone where there was nothing to see and barriers restricting where we could go. After doubling back, we eventually made it to the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre, which stood on the water’s edge in the middle of a huge construction zone. We went inside this ultra-modern, glass honeycomb structure and wandered about and browsed in a couple of shops. Then we returned to the chilly Icelandic air, which was by far the coldest encountered on the trip.

We followed the harbor shoreline to the Sun Voyager, which is an ultra-modern metallic sculpture of a Viking long boat. Apparently it’s very popular for selfies, so we waited while others took their pics and then got ours. From there we continued our journey, heading inland through a residential area. The buildings looked to be recently constructed and modern, although not so ultra as the Harpa or Sun Voyager. Our course led us to the downtown area of shops, which prominently featured the architectural school of hipster—bright colors, wall paintings of fantastic creatures, and shops with outré names.

Ahead and impossible to miss with its tall tower rising into the now clear blue sky was the Hallgrimskirkja, an ultra-modern church. The tower reminded me of the Douaumont Ossuary in Verdun, France, although I highly doubt that’s what the designer was shooting for. Sharon said it reminded her of a rocket ship. We went inside to look around. The chapel was unadorned with clean lines, the antithesis of all those ornate churches we’d visited in central Europe. Visitors can ascend the tower, and surely the view from the top would have been special, but the admission fee seemed overly steep, so we just said fifty “Hail Mary’s” or so (or none) and went out into the invigorating air to continue our odyssey. A few blocks away we caught up with the famous local boy Leif Erikson, or more precisely, a large statue of the man. By Reykjavik’s standards the figure was downright old school. We then ventured into a few of the trendy shops in town to study their wares. At one called the Puffin, Sharon bought a pair of earrings that featured a pendant made of Icelandic lava rock.

We returned to Harpa Concert Hall to browse in the gift shop that had been closed on our earlier visit. The shop, called Upplifun-Bakur Og Blom, had some tasteful souvenirs. Sharon brought her mom a gift and I picked up a lapel pin that displayed the word “Reykjavik” atop the city’s coat of arms. It has adorned my sport coat ever since. The shop also sold stamps and provided postal service. We’d been looking for just such a place ever since Sharon bought postcards cards in Prague so she could send one to her brother Paul. She’d written the greeting in Budapest. And at long last we mailed it in Reykjavik to Paul in San Diego. That card had quite the geographic pedigree.

It was time for lunch, so that meant using the lunch voucher provided by Icelandic Air to the Sky Bar & Restaurant in the Centerhotel Arnarhvoll. We got there about noon and enjoyed not only a tasty meal and refreshing brew but also an incredible view. It’s called the Sky Bar & Restaurant because it’s on the 8^th floor of the hotel, providing a 270 degree view of the city and surrounding harbor. And it is a lovely view.

After lunch, we had about an hour left to explore Reykjavik before we needed to board a bus to the airport. Earlier in the day, rain threatened and at times a light drizzle fell. Now the sky was deep blue. We headed back toward our hotel, stopping at a place called the English Pub for a couple of beers. It was a warm and cozy place, and we pretty much had it all to ourselves. Somewhere along the way we passed a row of street vendors and picked up a gift for Daytona. The merchant had priced her handicrafts in local currency, euros, and dollars. We paid with a $20 bill.

The time had come to start making our way home. So we fetched our suitcases from the City Center Plaza, who had stored them for us, and walked to the bus stop about three or four blocks away. There we met up with three fellow travelers who had also been stranded in town overnight because of a missed connection. Two were an older couple from San Francisco, and the other was the 30ish woman we’d met the day before while getting on the shuttle. We exchanged stories while waiting for the shuttle bus. The bus arrived and took us to the bus depot, where we boarded another bus to the airport. During the long drive we carried on a lively and genial discussion with the 30ish woman, another couple from California as I recall, and the local bus driver. We all agreed on one thing, Trump was horrible. It struck me that that man’s supporters were not the type of people you were likely to encounter on bus heading to Keflavík International Airport.

We got to the airport about 4:00 PM, and our flight didn’t leave until about 6:00 PM, so we had a little time to kill. Anyone who has read this account to this point can probably guess what we did to kill it—we found a cool bar and had a couple of cold drafts. After the beers at Loskins Bar, we headed to our gate, stopping to browse in the duty-free shopping area, where we bought a huge bar of local chocolate for all of $3.82. It was very good.

The flight home was uneventful. Sharon watched the movie “Get Hard,” which as mentioned, I seen on the previous leg of our flight. We had a short layover in Boston’s Logan International Airport, where we grabbed a burger and beer. Once back in Philadelphia, Travis and Day picked us up at the airport and drove us home. We got in at 1:23 AM on September 27, 2018. And we had to go to get up and go to work in less than six hour.