To Reykjavik
While most sane people are taking advantage of the mid-winter school break to seek out sunshine and sandy beaches, the Roberts’ somehow decided it would be a good idea to go north. No, not to Whistler or Kelowna, which might make perfect sense, but to Iceland. In winter.
As crazy as it sounds, there is actually some logic to it. Growing up in Dawson Creek, cold winters with only a few hours of daylight were just how things worked. I don’t miss them for a second, but along with 4:00 sunsets and 40 below temperatures, on clear nights, seeing the Northern Lights was a pretty common occurrence. So much so that, as a kid, if you told me they out, I probably couldn’t have been bothered to get off the couch and take a look.
Living in Seattle, we don’t have to put up with the cold anymore, but as our kids get older (how did go from diapers to SATs overnight?), we realize there is still so much we want to show them, but so little time. On that list is the Northern Lights, and what better place than Iceland.
Logistically, it is a whole lot easier than sounds, particularly for anyone that lived through last year’s flights to the Galapagos Islands. There is a direct flight from Seattle, and following a polar route, it clocks in at just over six and a half hours, just an hour more than traveling to New York. The catch is the time change, with our oh so reasonable 3:30 departure time translating into a 6:30am arrival. A trip that short doesn’t really lend itself well to an Ambien-induced nap, so we’re a little worse for wear by the time we clear customs, pick up the rental car, and head into Reykjavik.
The past few days I’ve been watching both the weather and solar activity forecasts, and at the moment, neither are looking great. The fog and drizzle are really no surprise then, but for a tired crew, they add an extra layer of unnecessary “blah”.
Like Chile, it’s pretty slim pickings when it comes to hotels here, and the few that do exist are outrageously expensive. Given that, most of what we have booked so far has been through AirBnB, with the next two nights being half a duplex a short drive from downtown. Unfortunately, check in isn’t until 1:00pm, so with about 4 hours to kill, we head downtown in search of breakfast.
As capital cities go, Reykjavik is definitely on the petite side, with only 200,000 in the metropolitan area (however, there are only 300,000 people in all of Iceland, so in that context, it is huge). That makes it roughly the size of Spokane, although early on a Saturday morning, it feels even smaller than that. Very few people are on the streets and hardly anything seems open.
After parking the car and wandering past a few blocks’ worth of closed restaurants and shops, we settle for some snacks at the Icelandic equivalent of 7-11. We play it safe for now, but there is some funky stuff for sale here, and before we left Seattle there was a lot of big talk about trying the shark meat they let rot in the ground for six months, so we’ll see how that all goes.
What does catch our attention is just how expensive everything seems here. While the restaurants aren’t open yet, the menus are posted outside, listing $20 hamburgers, $9 milkshakes and $50 pizzas. Even a grab and go hot dog at the tiny kiosk in the park will set you back a cool $10. Multiply by five people, then by nine days, plus the heart medication I need after doing the math, and it’s hard to imagine how anyone could live here unless salaries are through the roof (which according to Google, they’re not).
With our breakfast search coming up empty, we decide to start making our way towards our hotel, crossing our fingers that they’ll take pity on us and let us check in early. Along the way, we find a supermarket where we load up on some essentials (like the always reliable noodle soup), cramming them in around the boys wherever we can find an empty space.
By this time it is just past noon, and where our day would normally just be getting started, today we’re well into the fourth quarter. Not long after we arrive at our hotel, the entire squad is sound asleep. There is a little movement around dinner time, and challenging game of english Scrabble using an Icelandic set of tiles, but no real momentum to get back in the car and explore the city.
We have one more full day in Reykjavik before moving on to the countryside, so once the batteries are fully charged, we’ll see if we can’t up our game a little.