Iceland South Shore

We had an interesting start to our trip. I was late getting back home because I had to take my PMP test that morning. That made Emily nervous.
To officially start our trip we took a Lyft to the airport since paying for parking for 14 days. When booking our flight we thought we had booked out of IAH instead of Hobby. Good thing we checked a few weeks ago and didn't go to the wrong airport! We were checked in through security and had smoothie by 3:15ish. This is always why we love to fly Hobby it is so easy to get in and out of! Our flight was slightly late out but we had around 3 hr layover in Dallas / Fort Worth so no worries. At DFW we learned our small plane was heading on to Durango (a favorite town of mine)! We switched from B to C terminal to be near our gate to Reykjavík. Near there, there was a Chick Fil A so we again split a large nugget meal and settled in to wait on it 8:30pm departure. I played on the Switch some while Em played on her phone. We were actually in the gate next to ours room since we could find room and didn’t hear our flight was boarding. Our flight was on a 757 from Dallas to Reykjavík. They started boarding pretty early and we missed our group 6 but got on with 8. American does assigned seats so no real problems boarding late. We got on early but didn’t take off until 9:45 since there was a light out on the flight and they had to have maintenance fix it and log it. American Airlines was in a dispute with their maintenance workers and I had heard it could be an issue (more on this later in the trip). There was a group of guys a few rows ahead of us on the flight that were going to Iceland to do race of sorts (Gambler 500) using junker cars they bought sight unseen. They had done several around the US already and were traveling there with a bunch of tools and parts to help their car out. Can't wait to get to Iceland!

Emily slept well on the flight and was out pretty early into it, perhaps the Benadryl helped her. I stayed up for a while and had the meal on the flight which was either BBQ chicken or a pasta. I attempted the bbq chicken and it was eh, but edible I slept for a bit afterwards. The plug on our seat didn’t work unfortunately, thanks again American. The flight was scheduled for 8 hrs or so but we made it in about 7 hrs 15 min, a little late because of the hour delay out of DFW, but only by 20 minutes or so according to the ticket. We landed and made it through immigration just fine. We had a bit of a wait for the rental car shuttle (we later figured out its only a 10 min walk) but made it to Blue Car Rental. We picked up for Kia Rio and headed to Reykjavík with Emily behind the wheel (she did most of the driving this trip). Along the way, I added the high speed data through Sprint onto Em’s phone, which worked very well in Iceland and Norway. It was about a 45min drive to our AirBnB in the heart of Reykjavík. Check in was at 2:00 PM and it was only 12:45, but we were able to park the car at the apartment. The AirBnB was on the very edge of the tourist area and in great location! We walked the main tourist area of Reykjavík and checked out some shops, we eventually ended up at the big church there called Hallgrímskirkja. Very very pretty inside! We grabbed a pair of waffles, mine with strawberry and whipped cream, Em’s with caramel, cinnamon and whipped cream. These things were delicious!!

Later we headed back to the apartment and got checked in. Very nice place on the 5th floor! We could see the harbor and the mountains past it easily. We unpacked a bit and I ended up passing out on the couch for an hour and Emily napped for 30 min or so. Around 4:30pm or so and we headed back out to the church, Hallgrímskirkja, again. This time we bought tickets to go up into it’s bell tower and was able to see all of Reykjavík! Well worth the money!

After we got down, we walked around some more and ended up at a fish and chips place near Hallgrímskirkja church for dinner called Reykjavík Fish. They ended up loosing our order and we had to ask about it, but they were super nice and apologetic about it. It was all okay because an older couple was at the table next to us who were from Richmond Virginia. They were doing a pre trip to their Viking cruise out of Stockholm, Sweden. Very lovely couple and funny. They had RV’d around the US for 5 and a half years and had some good stories. The fish and fries were good, but greasy. We did have Icelandic beer there, Gull, it is one of Icelands best known beers. We then meandered back to the apartment where we showered and streamed YouTube on their Apple TV before hitting the sack a little before 11pm.

Safe Travels,
B&E

To Day 3