Day: May 15, 2018

then I slept through the intro

the tour company left absolutely nothing to indicate when and where we are supposed to meet tomorrow

I just sent them a blistering email saying that I was twenty paces from the meet and the lazy fucks didn’t even come bang on my door or slide a note under it.

If this is an example of the attitude of the tour company I guess it’s a good thing the scenery is so spectacular.

 

note to brO the cat that ran across the road this morning was sitting in a tiny little tree and meowing at passersby when I came back to the hotel but I couldn’t get my camera out in time

All the trees in Iceland are tiny. I saw a private garden with six whole trees in it, amazing.

I did not make it to the saga museum

This is mostly because tourist maps in a high wind are a pain and nothing in this remarkably low rise metropolis is set on the square.

Walked past a church outbound and didn’t even notice it; it’s just a plain white box of a building.

There’s no place to sit down anywhere. Why would there be? The weather doesn’t support it. Funnily the sun is just blazing down now, as it was for most of my walk. At one point the sun vanished and it blew a gale and five minutes later it was glorious again.

Kids under ten on bikes by themselves.

NOT A SINGLE CIGARETTE. NOBODY SMOKING IN CARS, ON THE STREET. I was looking.

THERE ARE CONSTRUCTION CRANES EVERYWHERE it seriously makes Vancouver look like nothing is happening.

I walked around about a tenth of downtown R to the point my feet hurt, although that was on top of all the airport walking-while-laden so…

I wanted to eat something but it became obvious that unless I had something to drink I was going to keel over so I got some really nice orange pop. It smells like orangina, fizzes like Fanta Orange and has about a quarter of the sugar. Very nice, local business and all (Egils). I also picked up a gluten free chocolate caramel brownie, and it’s really quite good. I’ll wander out later for takeout, I guess.

Missed getting into the post office by about two minutes, so I still have no stamps.

There’s a bird in Iceland whose call sounds like, “Hey there!” followed by a mechanical sounding Bronx cheer. Or maybe it was two birds singing at the same time and I mixed them together.

Oh Jeff I forgot to mention that just before we turned into the street for the hotel a cat crossed four lanes like a boss just in front of us.

I suppose if I felt like walking I could go to the Phallological Museum. It’s walking distance from here. But maybe I’ve been enough of a dick today so I should stay here in this bright cozy room.

 

in the room

Just got about five hours of sleep, so I guess that’s me done for the day. I’m gonna check my itinerary to see when the forced heartiness of the welcome to the tour is going to be thrust upon me.

All the electronic bits and bobbles work – charging etc accomplished with difficulty or heating up too much; unfortunately those world-class ratfondlers at Bell Mobility TURNED MY ROAMING ON THE INSTANT I MADE LANDFALL.

In Iceland.

I’ve tried everything to get it turned off, but each time I turn the phone back on it’s automatically locked in place at the top of my screen. So unless I want hundreds of dollars on my next bill I have to take the ****** sim card out – and manage not to lose the SOB.

NO SOAP IN THE HOTEL ROOM. Past Allegra, possibly low key remembering something from a travel site, brought bar soap. YEAH ME. I likely could buy some, but if there’s one thing I learned from a $280 taxi ride, it’s that everything in Iceland is so expensive that it’s pointless being angry about it  — it was worth it, candidly, just to not have to drag my bags any farther — KEF is a nightmarish little airport AND THEIR FUCKING INFO SIGNS DO NOT SHOW THE EXIT OR WHERE YOU GET TAXIS since the place is designed to run you past every excuse to strip your bank account. The blonde woman taxi driver spoke better English than most Canadian politicians, which, now that I ponder it, is likely not the highest praise. ONE error in usage in a 45 minute ride? Which I have heard native speakers make?  Cazart. However since my Quaker, Mennonite and atheist forebears would rise up in a body unless I got the cheapest way back to the airport, that’s what I’m planning for the return ride; the bus system in Iceland is pretty damned good.

Although tourists will pay a set fee (thousands of dollars) to get DRIVEN AROUND ICELAND on the ring road. The driver loves those – you just go home for the day afterward, you’ve made as much as you’re going to.

At the end of the ride – tips don’t happen in Iceland – I was desperate for some token to show her how much fun I had talking to her – I took the little button from the Daagerad brewery in Burnaby which I’ve had on my bumpack since Paul and I went there last and told her, it’s advertising but it doesn’t have any words on it and she said IT’S A MOON!!! and put it on her lapel. If you go to the bottom of this page you’ll see the moon and star design – the button was in black and copper.

I didn’t get her name. Bad me. But she said, just as I was getting out of the taxi, that as I had lumbered up to the taxi stand (thank you JESUS I’m out of KEFLAVIK airport) one of the *other* woman taxi drivers said to my driver “That looks like a very interesting person,” which you know, from a taxi driver isn’t necessarily praise.

Anyway, I send up a beautiful prayer for her because tomorrow she’s cleaning up the lingering mess from having her storage locker burn down, including trying to recover baby pictures. I was so tired and emotional I nearly burst into tears when I heard that.

I hope they give the housekeepers ear protection, I need it for the vacuum noise which I honest to god thought was a pressure washer being used indoors, but is just the vacuum being thrashed about upstairs.

Man, I feel better for having had a shower. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna dress and wander over to the Saga Museum and possibly get something to nosh on the way back, since I haven’t had anything substantial since 5 pm Vancouver time yesterday. After I check the itinerary, of course. Can’t miss the mixer that inevitably starts these dos.

pics

safe at the Kea Storm in Reykjavik although god knows when I’ll get into my room and my body thinks it’s 1 in the morning so at this point it’s likely I’ll kick into midnight mode and just keep going.

Uneventful flight.

Ferry to Victoria just departed from Horseshoe Bay

You can really see the sediment from the flooding Fraser right now contrasted against the normal colour of the Strait.

The lounge at the hotel.