In the morning there was this persistent tapping sound, with a sort of crinkly tone. It seeped into my dreams and got really annoying until I had to wake all the way up to address this sound.
It turned out to be a seagull a few feet from me. It was pecking at a plastic shopping bag! I hissed at it and it squawked back at me. It left, and I fell back to sleep, then it returned. Peck (crinkle). Peck(crinkle). Peck(crinkle). I threw a shoe at it.
Awake now, I got up and packed, and I really did have some room in my suitcase. I did some writing and internetting and then walked down to the 10.11 looking for some things to use that space for. A half dozen skyr and a pile of chocolate. It was a good place to shop for candy (right near the traveller’s hostel – bet that’s no coincidence) and the guy there was very proud of Icelandic chocolate.
“All this-“, he said, pointing out the huge rack of Nizza and Pipp and Lakkris, “made in Iceland,” then showing me the small selection of foreign candy – Bounty, Mars, Snickers. I hadn’t known that so much was made in Iceland. I wonder where the plant(s) is/are. I just assumed it was made in Europe, the way North America imports so much processed food. He said “Our [Icelandic] chocolate is so different, so good. Very good chocolate.” I’d have to agree. “I think every day I eat some chocolate,” he says. I admitted I was addicted, gesturing to my mound of about-to-be purchases. “You are addicted to [gesturing to same]…like you are addicted to Iceland!” he said.
On my walk back to the tent a kid with a basketball feinted to toss me the ball, then spun it on his finger and carried on. That was unexpected too.
When I called to book our bus ticket to the airport, I found out that one way to get to the airport is via the Blue Lagoon. For a modest increase in price (nothing compared to their entry fees at the door), the bus will stop at the Blue Lagoon for a few hours on the way to Keflavík, and you can jam the Blue Lagoon experience into the last hours of your time in Iceland. I couldn’t say no to that, so I didn’t.
On the bus there were a couple of obnoxious British loudmouths going on and on and on about football and footballers. They drove me up the wall, but Derek was probably interested in the stats they were talking about. At the Blue Lagoon, we left our stuff on the bus (2012 note: now you have to unload your stuff and store it in the building and reload onto a different bus – the bus doesn’t wait for you – too efficient now) and went in to the pool. It was very high tech, with bracelets that you brush against a sensor to lock and unlock your locker in the changerooms. that was cool. Fancy.
The thing I wasn’t ready for that totally shocked me was that the Blue Lagoon is salt water! Nothing I’d read mentioned that. Nor the tripping / toe stubbing hazard, because you can’t see more than six inches below the surface of the water. The water is white and cloudy, with that seawater slipperiness. Very interesting.
There are pots of salt clay around the pool with long handled spoons to dip out clods of it and smear it on your face and skin for the “healing properties”. The pool is very large, with differing temperatures in various areas and nooks, and there are features- the cave, the shower, the bar that serves drinks to bathers in the water. Just wave your wristband to pay with your credit card when you leave.
The shower is the best- a powerful waterfall that hammers down on your shoulder when you stand over it. There’s a risk for any women with swim suits that fasten at the neck; the pounding water was determined to unfasten the top of my suit. There were some old men hanging around the waterfall. They knew what was up.
The salt water made my hair so unhappy. It was squeaky and brittle, hanging in ropes. I could hear it crying. Back in the change room I took a forever shower and dumped conditioner on my hair. It seemed like we had all kinds of time in the Lagoon before we had to be back on the bus, but the time ran out. We rushed back to the bus, getting only a couple pictures on the way out.
All in all I liked the Blue Lagoon, but I was sure glad I didn’t pay 28€ for the experience.
At the airport we got our VAT receipts stamped, checked our luggage, and ate a skyr. Derek had one can of Guiness left over and drank it in the lobby, knowing he couldn’t bring it on board. Slammed it, actually. We had a laugh about that, not sure how chugging a beer would treat him on the airplane. At security the skyr I was carrying on was denied, so I walked back a bit and wolfed it down, then went through security again. After the stress of security there was vast shopping options that we sort of darted into. Running through passport control, then the gate, finally slowing down on the ramp, we realized we had definitely caught the plane.
On the plane the attendants weren’t wearing their wool hats like they had on our arriving flight. The whole experience was a bit of a disaster. Derek and I couldn’t sit together, although we both had windows. The child behind me was vigorously and continuously kicking the back of my seat, and his mother couldn’t make him stop it, even after I finally had to comment about the situation (politely). I spent the first half of the flight sitting up straight and perched forward without touching the seatback. When the beastly child fell asleep, so did I, with the channel playing Icelandic folk tales in my ears. Their folk tales are a bit gory.
I was feeling wistful, anxious, and a bit wound up. Having the last Hraun, the last appelsinu (orange) chocolate, looking at the last chance to buy Blue Lagoon mud from the “Saga shop” (Icelandair shopping), it was all sinking in that we were gone.
Ever since, I’ve been desperate to go back.
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August 14, 2010
The flight attendants in their distinctive wool hats were murmuring in deep, guttural Icelandic to each other and our chairback TVs played scenic advertising to us- then I got SO excited! Finally struck by the uniqueness of this adventure, and gratitude that it’s possible for us.
and then watching flight-progress reports (Are we over Labrador?) on the third. Plus fawning over all the Icelandic on the antimassacars, napkins and flight magazines; cracking the Lonely Planet book for the first time and roughly “planning” our itinerary. So we were so busy and stimulated and thrilled that we didn’t get a wink of sleep on the overnight flight, like owls with ADHD.
What we got up to in Iceland 