The Journey Begins - Day 1 Reyjkavik

We flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul on NWA frequent flyer points – early flight, no problems. There is no food served so that eliminates the food complaints and most of the service complaints. The next leg was via Iceland Air. We managed a sizable discount on our fare by joining the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce. If you need some help with Norwegian American trade problems, we will lend you our card.




No one was in line for check-in when we arrived. Visions of an empty plane had us almost giddy. Then we found that about 50 French high school students were returning to Europe on our fligh t. As a bonus, we had about 30 high school Iowa soccer players and coaches on our flight, too. Fortunately, both groups were in the back of the plane. They were very quiet. Perhaps, Iceland Air slipped them a special meal. Our meal was not to write home about, but being ravenous raises most food to an average rating. The flight plan had us fly a polar route; the sky never got completely dark. At its darkest there was a medium blue layer turning to light blue turning to yellow/orange turning to orange/magenta below that it was a dark charcoal gray. It stayed that way for a couple of hours before sunrise started. It was like a 2 hour Georgia O’Keefe (spelling?) painting. At the end of a 6 hour flight, we were in Reykjavik. Expecting rain, we were greeted with clear, sunny skies and a temperature high of about 75°F.

Hallgrímskirkja with scaffolding

As is my luck with famous monuments, Hallgrímskirkja, the most recognizable landmark in Reykjavik, is covered in scaffolding. For the 4 years that we lived in Brussels, the Hotel de Ville (city hall) on the Grand Place had some portion of it covered with scaffolding. I don’t believe I’ve seen Notre Dame (in more that 20 visits) without scaffolding. Even in Milano, after I paid a $10 admission to see the fresco the Last Supper, I found it covered with scaffolding.

View from Hallgrímskirkja - side without scaffolding

Okay, my impressions of Iceland (I guess it’s Reykjavik) so far:

• It doesn’t rain every day as the Weather Channel told me
• All of the women are not blonde
• Everyone is not stick thin
• Reykjavik is a charming city of about 160,000 that feels much smaller
• No traffic jams
• No run down neighborhood
• Patronymic naming system makes last names easy, but it’s hard to find anyone in the phonebook
• Everything is expensive in relation to the US ($1=ISK 80)
• Siding on many buildings is corrugated metal (maybe 30-40%)
• I think I will come back again
  

Fishing, not whaling, boats

Sorry about posting late. The free wireless was so free we couldn't connect to it!