On Friday after school, we scrambled around loading car, getting last minute items, dropping off dogs and headed south to Orlando. The plan was leave at 4:00 and have a nice, relaxing stay at our halfway point in Valdosta before on to Orlando the next AM. Of course leaving at 7, meant drop in bed immediately after checking in, then rush out to Orlando the next day.
Why Orlando? Icelandair does not fly out of Hartsfield, so it wound up being way cheaper to drive and stay in a hotel than get a connecting flight. Steph got us a stay at a hotel in Orlando that would let us park for $5 a day and provide free transport to and from the airport. (As it turns out, they didn't even charge us for the $5 so we we made out well).
Hotel van dropped us at the Airport - Sanford International. The name Sanford International Airport is sort of like having an international airport in Cookeville, Tn. It is a nice little place but it is little and VERY quiet. We spent, all told, about five hours there on departure and arrival and saw two planes leave, including our own.
Most of the time we spent after going through customs (much more humanely than at Hartsfield and no backscatter body scanners so much in the news of late) was directed at trying to contact our debit and credit card companies to let them know there would be some out of country charges. Steph had more success than I did. Her credit card company actually has people providing services outside of business hours, so all the charges during the trip were on her card. ("Oh, the Check? The lady is paying.")
The flight over was a bit bumpy and the seats were more than a bit stiff (Ah, those stoic and ascetic Icelanders. 1000 years of life in one of the harshest climates on earth means there will be no mollycoddling of rear ends. What is a little fanny fatigue to a people whose national symbol is a tire with snow chains and whose national dish is rotten shark meat! Yeah, in case you have not heard about this before, the most remarkable item in Icelandic cuisine is a delicacy called Harkarl. If you live life on the edge where food is hard to come by, especially on an island, you will get protein wherever you can find it. "But why does the meat have to be rotten?" Very simply, because sharks do not pee. You see, they excrete uric acid through their skin, so their blood and tissue is just saturated with uric acid. Now we know why sharks, besides being at the top of the food chain, have no natural predators. Who would try to eat a full catheter bag with big, nasty teeth? Three months in the ground apparently allows for some fascinating biochemical fermentation, transforming the poisonous meat into a cheesy tasting treat that reportedly still smells like pee. I would like to meet the guy who figured out how to do that. What prompted some guy to say, "Hey, that shark steak made my buddy, Hjálmarsson to retch his guts out. I'll just bury my steak, let it rot and see if rotting meat is better for you than fresh meat. Hey, could it be any worse?")
Nice menu of options to keep you from not thinking about the rock hard seat on the way over: The usual movies and American TV fare on the video screen, plus some Icelandic TV selections, fortunately with English subtitles. I chose to watch Sands of Time. I am not saying it was bad, okay, I am saying it was bad. Aladdin + Lord of the Rings + Crouching Tuger, Hidden Dragon couldn't be too bad, right? This is a special effects driven flick (which generally I enjoy), but it is also a stunts driven film (which I typically enjoy), with the stunts wildly implausible because they are created not by real actors, but by the special effects. It was like watching an animated Jackie Chan movie. The whole wonder of the incredible athleticism is gone. Add the contrived pseudo hatred between the hero and heroine and you get a major fail.
So now we get to Iceland!
Kudos to Stephanie for reading the Fodor's Guide To Iceland in more detail than I did. She figured out how to get the shuttle bus to Reykjavik and we set off. Arrival about 6:00 AM local and as the sun does not rise until 10, there was not much to see on the way in. The shuttle bus allowed us to transfer to a van to take us to the hotel directly, but we misunderstood the bus driver's instruction and were late getting to the hotel van. So we had to wait another 45 minutes or so until another one left. The Reykjavik bus terminal is perhaps less dreary than most bus stations, but it was still a rather depressing sight. All the touristy posters showed green meadows, snow capped mountains, and blue sky. But all we could see of Iceland at that moment was steel seats (more tough posteriors), linoleum floors, and harsh florescent lighting.
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