We’re in Iceland again, Reykjavík, to be precise. We arrived here at about 06:30 this morning after fewer than five hours of flying time and much — I repeat, much — less sleep.
As flight destinations go, Iceland has got to be one of the worst, if you happen to be arriving from the US. It doesn’t matter whether you’re flying from the east or west of America, you leave in the middle of the American evening and arrive in the middle of the American night.
Equally awkward, you arrive at the crack of the Icelandic dawn, which means that if you didn’t sleep on the plane, you’ve got a good twelve to sixteen hours ahead of you before you can go to bed at a time that will put you on local time by the next morning. The first day thus becomes one of determined endurance.
Our hotel this time, as on past occasions, is the ever-pleasant Hótel Borg. Needless to say, our room wasn’t available when we arrived — the previous guests were probably still asleep in it — so we headed out in the darkness to find breakfast.
Eloïse wasn’t amused at not being able to go to bed, but we managed to strike a bargain. When we finally settled down to breakfast at the very lovely Grái Kötturinn (the Grey Cat) on Hverfisgata and Eloïse was rewarded with a cup cake. Ignoble bribery, yes, but judiciously applied, it gets the job done in a crisis.
Fully refuelled, we spent a rewarding day taking photos, doing light shopping and drinking coffee. Most of the shops will only be open between 10:00 and 12:00 tomorrow, so we needed to get our Icelandic shopping out of the way today. Sarah’s bought some wool and I’ve added a handful of new CDs to the collection. We also bought a new Finnish winter hood hat for Eloïse.
Everywhere we go to eat or buy something is somewhere we’ve been before. Reykjavík is so familiar to us now. I was even recognised as a previous customer in a CD shop this afternoon.
In the end, we didn’t get into our hotel room until 16:30, which was good, because we didn’t have enough time to unwind so much that we didn’t want to go out again. We had only a short while to take the weight off our feet before we had to go out for dinner, which was partaken at charming little Hornið, around the corner.
After dinner, I went off to take a few photos with our new EOS 5D Mark II, which performed very well in low light. The shots I obtained this evening are the best night shots I’ve ever taken, which admittedly isn’t saying very much, but these look really quite good.
Bedtime now. We’re really looking forward to New Year’s Eve here and tomorrow is expected to be a long day.
Sounds like a nice little home away from home. 🙂