Day 9 was worse.
The Galleri B&B was gorgeous. Luxurious, in fact. I highly recommend it. It was a bit out of character on this trip, an extravagant exception to sleeping in tents, 
but it was necessary, especially since Derek’s cold could either get better or really bad at that point, so it was important to have a comfortable warm sleep. We had long hot baths, drank lots of hot tea, and slept as long as possible.
In the morning, breakfast was served in the gift shop, a mixture of food that Icelanders eat and what they think Americans eat. Very cute, and ample. I had multiple waffles, still making up for lost time and perpetually hungry. The gift shop was full of beautiful handmade things, lots of them made by the two beautiful (blonde) daughters of the proprietors, whom we saw flitting about and who’d let us into our room in the night. We lingered there for awhile, bought a few things (made more mental notes), and reluctantly got on the road in the late morning.
I wanted to go to Geysir, because we were “this close”, Derek wanted to get into Reykjavík to catch some marathon day events. For awhile we played both sides, darting across the road to stick out thumbs at any vehicle passing, either way.
This did not work out.
After finally committing to definitely going to Reykjavík, and then walking all the way out of town, we still waited, and waited, and waited… We took pictures of the sheep grazing in the median, and laughed at them. The sheep moved on. We decided there was more traffic going off the split to Selfoss than the more direct way to the city, so we moved over to that arm of the roundabout. And waited. And waited. What traffic there was appeared to be horse trailers going to þingvellir, to the pony show we’d heard about. There was no bus, unless we got to Selfoss.
In the afternoon, we got a ride. Partway to Selfoss. It was starting to look dismal to get into Reykjavík in time for the evening fireworks.
Then the guy with the stuffed Komodo dragon in the backseat (some vague explanation involving a strip club) picked us up, and things started looking up. He drove like a demon, and took us right into town. We asked about a Pentax dealership, and he took us straight to an Elko, the equivalent of a Best Buy. Unfortunately, they don’t deal in Pentax, but here’s the address of the place that does.
On the city transit to get to the campground (more waiting), and finally, to set up our tents and drop the packs we’ve been standing around wearing for hours. On the bus again to find some food (more waiting) downtown. 
Happily, we chanced upon this amazing quasi-Indian cuisine place with a mad salad and soup bar, all fantastic ingredients. SO good, and the first time I got full in days, it seemed like.
We wandered along the crowded downtown Laugarvegur to take it all in, saw some good music (and some bad) and then I got the bright idea of taking advantage of the free Culture Day public transit, and going to pick up our suitcases from the BSÍ. We went and got them, then got on a couple of the wrong buses going in the wrong direction, got yelled at by a power-tripping driver for standing too close to the door, and finally made it back to camp just after the more cautious couple who decided to wait for the right bus. 
The buses were all off schedule, crowded, and unpredictable because of the holiday. On the bright side, the BSÍ guy “remembered me”, remembered what luggage was ours (!), and then charged us for about half the time we’d left it there, with much winking. I didn’t remember ever seeing him before, but I was grateful for the break in this expensive land, and happy.
Nearing dark, we headed back downtown for the fireworks. Everyone was wearing Icelandic sweaters (a fashion statement that has no boundaries at all) and there were many handheld beers walking around. Various street vendors and performance artists were doing their things.
One cooler art piece we noticed was spontaneously shed shoes and pants lying in little heaps in the street. We didn’t see any pants actually being shed, but over and over, you could spot shucked clothes left behind. We saw the rather talented blue ninjas tumbling and running through the street, and ran after them a ways to keep watching them, with several other kids.
Mainstage, in the heart of downtown, was blaring abominable music, but the hill above was the best place for the fireworks, so we joined the throng converging to wait and jockeyed for a place to set the tripod. Children swarmed all over the sculpture of Ingolfur Arnarson and teenaged couples snuggled in the grass.
Icelanders even do fireworks differently.
In Canada, say, firework displays start tentatively, maybe with a bit of a teaser, then they escalate to the big stuff, with some pauses in between, with some attention to colour combinations, with some obvious planning of how two effects might overlap to best evoke ooh and aah, and then there’s a notable crescendo, culminating in an obvious finale- the big bang. Then everyone knows it’s definitively over.
Well, Iceland fireworks aren’t like that. They start cold, without warning, just as strong as they finish; just a full-on withering blast with no pauses, no crescendos, no altering in any way of pace, as though a small army of people is dashing around lighting fuses willy-nilly as fast as they possibly can, until they run out of explosives, at which point it all just stops dead.
It was possibly the most interesting display I’ve ever seen. It was about as much TNT as three Parliament Hill Canada Day shows, all used up in an action-packed 15 minutes straight of constant explosions, just puking out fireworks until -pht- all over. Derek and I look at each other like “WTF just happened?” then look around at everyone else, cheering and folding up the lawn chairs. For them that’s normal. The atrocious main stage act resumed belting it out, and the crowd started to disperse.
Wow. Iceland.
This was the biggest party of the year in Iceland, but we just wandered slowly back to our camp, people-watching. The streets were closed to vehicles; the crowds were as thick as a subway at rush hour; strollers were as thick on the ground as teenagers weaving among the crowd, and almost everyone suddenly had a can in hand. It was like a family friendly folk festival, only with booze, blackouts, and an ambulance fighting through the crowds to reach an unconscious drunk. Amazing.
It was a bit anti-climactic to make hot chocolate between our tents and go to sleep while a city-wide party raged, but Derek didn’t seem inclined to seek out a drunken good time, and I was more than happy to concur.
Yeah, boring. Cities rattle me at the best of times, and crowds worked up to that pitch unsettle me big-time. Even in this amazing place, I was emotionally exhausted by the whole thing; sad, shaken, tragic, overwhelmed with wanting and hunger to BE more. I had a serious case of not enough; not pretty/young/successful/bold/talented/rich enough- a sure indication that I’ve let the city get to me. I felt terrible too, guilty that my choices had screwed us up right and left, gotten us stuck and dragged us all over wrong turns for two days, and now my brother was sick and without a camera. I went to sleep in my clothes, waking at 5am feeling like I hadn’t slept at all, resolved to surrender. Surrender. Surrender.
All night the wind chimes hung in the tree between our camp and the next sounded like cutlery clinking, and I dreamed our neighbouring campers were eating.
What we got up to in Iceland 