Thursday, July 11th, 2013
I’ve never been a fan of the phrase YOLO to describe poor decisions, but today I couldn’t think of a better term for what happened.
With a full night’s rest, I awoke and took a warm bath, ate a tasty breakfast, and just enjoyed familiar civilization – intermet, music, youtube, ect. Bryan texted me alerting me he’d be heading over to my place, and about the time he arrived I was browsing Reddit’s /r/Iceland. We’d been talking on the phone about visiting the country; I’d always wanted to see the home of one of my favorite bands Sigur Rós, Bryan because he loves the combination of exotic travel and hidden gems. Our conversation escalated quickly, and before lunch, we’d decided to head to Iceland after his class let out at 4:30.
Time began to move very quickly after our decision. I used Google Flights to help locate the cheapest flight, an 8pm WOW AIRLINESstraight shot from London Gatwic. I booked the cheapest car rental I could, along with the cheapest double room for tonight. I ran upstairs to the room of the eldest son who lives here, and borrowed a duffel bag and a few jackets and pants, and just like that, headed off to a common Tube stop to meet Bryan.
We took a tube to Victoria station, a train to the airport, and had dinner and a few pints before boarding what seemed to be a made up airline’s flight to Iceland. Indeed on the plane, it seemed like we’d chosen a sketchy flight. The announcements and pamphlets were made in Icelandic, yet the aircraft was pieced together with mostly Spanish parts with, American made windows. Needless to say, I was thrilled to land safely outside Reykjavik.
We headed outside to our rental car after exchanging some USD for some Icelandic Krona, a hyper inflated currency that is over 100X less than the dollar.
I hopped in the front seat of out Toyota Yaris, popped it into first (it was a manual engine like all the cars here), and headed off to a bed and breakfast shortly after 11pm. Immediately I was struck by two things: 1 – the sun was NOT going to set tonight; it would only get slightly darker before getting lighter again, and 2, I was witnessing the most alien, beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen. Wild, mossy, volcanic earth that stretches for miles, punctuated with flowers here and there, not roads and people.
We arrived at our “cheap” double for the night, only to find that it’s an incredibly luxurious apartment all to ourselves, complete with a spa and a shower that has a ceiling mounted raining structure. Very cool.
Feeling hungry, we made our way down the road to a subway for a midnight snack. I got a six inch sub, which cost 700 Krona. I felt like I was on a whole new planet, but of course, that’s been my life recently. Tuesday night in Ghana, Wednesday night in London, now it’s Thursday and I’m in Iceland. It’s an adventurous summer, that’s for sure.
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