We Made It

Well, we made it. When we planned the holiday, Iceland was really only a side excursion, but following the volcano eruptions and the consequent impact to both our holiday and half the world's routine, its absorbed so much of our attention that its ended up being quite the focal destination. We touched down around midnight after watching the sun trying and failing to set from the plane window. Took the airport bus into town and were met at 1:30am by the hostel owner who took us to the hostel. Now that's service.

We're staying in an old style guesthouse, with breakfast and information supplied with a smile. Although a Scandinavian country, Iceland is the least Scandinavian of the lot. Whilst the language is almost pure viking, there are suddenly Amercan backpackers everywhere, no other Scandinavians are around, breakfast has toast and marmalade, the supermarket is full of U.K. brands, and prices are pretty much back to normal. The cars are mainly Japanese and Korean, and now we have Thai and Indian restaurants. There are only 330,000 people in Iceland, and 80% of them live in Reykjavik, so I'm guessing there won't be many people out there once we hit the city limits.

Spent the morning exploring Reykjavik, seeing the harbour, city hall, town square, and Hallgrimskirkja (the huge Lutheran church in the city).

After lunch I went back out to the airport to pick up the hire car. This was easier said than done, as the volcano has come to life again today, and all flights have been cancelled. No flights means no buses running, which is rather inconvenient since its 50km from the city. It's actually the ex-US airforce base used during WWII and the cold war, and replaces the old city airport that's almost an extension of the main city street. Its actually long enough to land the space shuttle on. I ended up taking a 'local' bus which dropped me about 4km from the airport, and walked the rest. I'm a bit tired now. Drove the car back to the hostel, and started planning our route for tomorrow.