I spent most of the morning doing very little aside from preparation and packing for Iceland.
Frankfurt airport is pretty boring. I would hate to have to wait around for a connecting flight! I got there very early so had a couple of hours to kill. The shops were obviously in a different terminal – there was only 1 here and it was expensive!
The flight across was fine. I sat next to an older Indian couple. The lady had an iPad on which she was playing games and then, when we got chatting, she showed me her family photos. It was weird! But she was obviously very proud of her family! They were meeting up with another 2 couples coming from the States and Paris, and then they were going to tour around Iceland by car for 8 days.
I bought a ticket for the Flybus+ to take me to the Grand Hotel (close to my accommodation) on the plane, rather than stuff around at the airport. They cost the same regardless. It did make it very easy at the other end: I just had to get on the bus and go.
There were some nice scenes on the way into Reykjavik:
I had to ask for directions (on a map) at the Grand Hotel, but then it was very close – 5 minutes maybe. I was welcomed very warmly by Harpa, the owner of the guest house and shown my room and around the guest domain. The room is smaller than I thought it would be and a way out of town, but the friendliness of the owner made up for a lot.
I asked her to organise the South Coast & Glacial Lagoon trip for me, since this was the one that I’d had the most difficulty with – it seems only the big tour companies have the numbers to run it on a daily basis. But since this is the place I wanted to go to the most, I looked into a couple of them. She’s going to organise it for me tomorrow, while I’m on my Golden Circle tour.
Harpa gave me some recommendations for dinner and where to go to buy a few groceries (something non-sugary for breakfast!) so I took off in search thereof. Dinner was at ‘Glo’, which is a raw food restaurant. It’s all salads, though you can buy cooked chicken to go with it if you like. It was very, very good! I bought dinner for 1699 ISK – about $13. It looked and tasted great:
I walked it off by going to the grocery store, which is like a 7-11, but seems to be open 24 hours. It wasn’t the cheapest, but my weetbix (the only thing not full of sugar) were about 399 ISK and the milk about the same, so not so bad.
After the shopping, I headed down to the water to see what I could see. It’s a big harbour:
I couldn’t get over how light it still was! And cold! Once I got home and ready for bed, I looked outside. It was 10.30pm and the sun wasn’t even near the horizon yet! I woke up at midnight and looked outside – it was still twilight! Amazing.
