Getting to Reykjavik

The flight from Boston (BOS) to Keflavik (KEF) was uneventful, to me.  I was surprised and pleased at how quiet the trip was, in many respects.  For one thing, the plane itself (we were very close to the back) was noisy on takeoff and during some initial turbulence, but after that, fairly quiet (for a plane!).  The other thing was that there seemed to be tons of little children on the flight, but I rarely heard any of them complaining.  Then again, apparently Luscious did.  But I had my earbuds in all the time.

Legroom was decent, though I jammed a lot of stuff under the seat in front of me.  I don’t think I really slept at all, but I tried to relax as much as possible, listened to music, wore eyeshades, etc.  When we landed I felt surprisingly awake and functional, perhaps because it was really only about 2:30 AM in Boston.

The flight was from 9:30 PM (21:30, okay, I’m going to use 24-hour time from now on) local time in Boston to 06:30 in the morning the next day in Reykjavik.  That’s really only 5 hours from one gate to the other.  Not exactly a good night’s sleep, even if you could sleep well on a plane.

There’s a bus from the airport into Reykjavik that’s definitely the right way to travel (a taxi for that distance would have been prohibitively expensive).  It’s called the FlyBus, operated by Reykjavik Excursions.  It takes a bit less than an hour each way.  Buying a round trip ticket is cheaper than two one-way ones, by a little.  Although if you want to take advantage of a side trip to the “Blue Lagoon”, you’ll have to get the ticket separately.  We didn’t do the Blue Lagoon this time, because our arriving flight was too early, and our departing flight was too late to make it sensible.  But it looks like fun, and if either flight had been scheduled differently, I’d definitely have done it.  I can definitely imagine going there to relax right after getting off the plane.

The FlyBus has the option of getting you directly from/to your hotel in Reykjavik, rather than just to the bus terminal.  This costs a bit more, and you have to wait a little to transfer, and might be on the connection shuttle bus for a while if it goes to other hotels first.  I (frugally, and perhaps naively) decided to just get the ticket to/from the bus terminal, since I figured it’s not such a big city that we couldn’t walk to wherever we needed to go.  Also, we were going to have breakfast somewhere anyway before getting to the hotel (didn’t expect super-early check-in to be an option).  Interesting decision, as you’ll see further on in this post, as well as in a later one.

One of the first things to notice on the bus from the airport is how incredibly flat the landscape there is (not all of Iceland is like this, by any means, but that peninsula sure is!).  It’s also just very alien-looking.  Lava fields.  I didn’t get any pictures of it, but it’s kind of crackly.  And mostly covered in very short green stuff.  Quite desolate and barren, in general.  Brings to mind the Southwest of the United States, except much cooler, and less dry.  Also, there are vast expanses of lupins or lupines in the area, apparently imported to help turn the lava fields into usable soil (they fix nitrogen from the air, so they can handle the conditions quite well) which makes for a surprisingly pretty desolate wasteland.

So we get to the bus station in Reykjavik, and watch pretty much everyone else get on their connecting shuttles to take them to their hotels.  Meanwhile, I find myself a map and ask where we might find some breakfast.  It’s Saturday morning, and given the party atmosphere in Reykjavik on Friday and Saturday nights, I’m told there may be very little in the way of breakfast to be had, other than at hotel breakfast buffets.  Well, okay.  I guess we’ll just head for our hotel and see what we can get there.

So we head off into the city.  The bus station looks frighteningly like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, but from the other side of the building you can see it really is just on the edge of town.  Luscious is absolutely exhausted, but gamely goes along with my plan to walk around to keep us awake, and acclimating to the time zone change.  It’s Iceland, and early morning, and we really haven’t slept.  For some reason I’m still feeling good and awake and relatively warm.  Not so poor Luscious.  But she’s very patient, and I take both giant bags (thank goodness for good rolling travel gear) and start hauling them up the hill where we have get across.  Up and up.  Colder.  She’s wearing my jacket over her light coat (we really haven’t packed much for cold weather) and I’m just in jeans and a T-shirt.  Having to take breaks every so often, because my grip wears out.  Then we crest the hill, which is a good sign, since our hotel is near the water, on the other side.  Down the other side is a little easier, and we find the hotel I had booked all of maybe 24 hours earlier on Expedia (did I mention a lot of this has been ridiculously last-minute planning): Fosshotel Baron.

Maneuvering  two giant bags into the lobby, we see a breakfast room off to the side, and a lot of people already checking out.  This is a good sign, maybe we’ll already be able to get our room even at this incredibly early hour.  But not so fast!  The gal behind the counter has no idea who we are, and certainly knows nothing about a room we’re supposed to have.  Wha?  I go over to the public computer in the corner to try and look up the Expedia confirmation information, with my hands quite literally unable to type properly because they are exhausted from gripping the bags for the  trek over from the bus stop.  Before I even get logged in (fumbling for a few minutes with typing my password) I hear behind me that she’s found the information, and we have been moved to a different hotel, because this hotel is out of room.  Aw, man!

It’s not that far away, but still, my hands and forearms are very displeased.  Not to mention Luscious is exhausted and hungry, and having to work quite hard to remain patient.  She gets a lot of practice at being patient around me.  And I love her for putting up with me.  Out into the slightly-later morning, up a few blocks and over a few blocks, and we find Fosshotel Lind.  Not quite as nice a place.  Not quite as close to the center of town.  Not by the water.  But I’m not in any mood to fight this right now.  The gal behind the desk here is very nice, points us to our room which is already available (yay!), and also says that we can have an extra breakfast (at the other place, they were going to charge us, since of course breakfast is really only for the morning after you stay at the hotel, not the arrival morning).  No great loss to them, and a nice peace offering to anyone inconvenienced this way, I guess.

Luscious has herself a bit of breakfast, and goes to lie down.  I start reading some of the touristy publications to see what we might do with our two days, and keep eating.  Enjoying their salmon, and their skyr.  A bit later, I haul myself to the room, too.  In theory, we just plan to rest for a bit, but I rub Luscious’ legs and feet, and she passes out.  I don’t have the heart to wake her again, and so I surrender too, and we crash until early afternoon.  So much for fighting jet lag.

Wow.  Time to draw this to a close.  Sorry about that.  Anyone preferring Hemingway will just have to grit their teeth and bear it.  Of course, you probably didn’t make it this far anyway.

Tags: buses, hotels, Iceland, landscape, planes