Sunday July 21st 2002
Back in the US – but not without some hazzle!
Part 1 – Leaving Iceland
After sleeping for about an hour we went to Keflavik airport on Saturday morning and arrived an hour and fifteen minutes before our plane was supposed to take off. Inside the building it was complete pandemonium with the check-in hall chock full of people!! We should know this, but didn’t really, but there were EIGHT planes leaving that morning all within 30 minutes of each other – which on any other airport is not very significant, but it makes a huge mess at this one because there are only about 12 check in gates in total… It used to be ok to get to Keflavik an hour in advance but oh, no, not any more apparently! (They have 8 planes leaving around 8am and then nothing until 4pm…)
We being good nice people went to the end of the line and stood there for a while… not really moving much. We then noticed that people coming in through the doors from outside were casually just merging into the main line, which was so long that the barriers didn’t hold all of it, sort of doing the “wow, what a mess of people – I can’t really discern a line anywhere – I’ll just stand here then” routine. We stayed where we were though, and finally got to the check-in desk 20 minutes before the plane was supposed to leave… only to be told that we needed to go to the Icelandair sales office because we didn’t have an official tickets, just printouts from the Icelandair sales office in Kringlan, Reykjavik. The girl checked us into the flight but took our bags off the conveyor belt and sent us on our way… Panic, panic!!
We rushed to the sales office where both assistants were busy. We sort of patiently waited around until it was 13 minutes before our flight, which is when we got some service. We hastily explained the whole sorry story and that nobody had told us anything about proper tickets and that the plane was leaving!! The woman took pity in us and escorted us to the check-in desk, put our bags on the conveyor belt and gave us boarding passes. We ran through the security (I don’t think they dared to stop us), Finnur went to get some gravlax and dried fish for his boss, and I went to the bank to deposit some Icelandic money. When it was 5 minutes to departure we ran to the gate, only to be reminded by a passport officer that the plane wouldn’t leave without us…! 🙂
We got on the flight (we were not the last ones either!) and managed to get some sleep. At Heathrow we were very relieved to find that our bags had caught the same flight as we did and that my dad was there to pick us up. The day was spent half sleeping, shopping and chatting with David (Clare’s brother) and his family that stayed at dad’s as well that night.
Part 2 – Finally something good happens!
Dad dropped us off at 8am at Heathrow on Sunday morning, 2 hours and change before the flight. We made our way to the British Airways ticket office, like the nice lady on the phone had instructed us, where I paid for my ticket and Finnur got his. We then tried to check in but were told that there were no seats, the plane was overbooked. Again our bags were taken off the conveyor belt and we left browsing the shops for 45 minutes… Bridged Jones’ Diary is now mine! 🙂
At 9:30am we went to see the check-in person again, and Yippee!! We got seats! And not just any seats, we got upgraded to World Traveller Plus! 🙂 That meant extra legroom and leg-rests!! 🙂 Ahh… the beauty of overbooking…!! 🙂 The flight was very nice, although the inflight entertainment wasn’t very good. I slept a whole lot, but Finnur didn’t have much luck in that department. 11 hours later we were in California, 20C, and a whole Sunday to sort through our stuff and relax before starting work… tomorrow!
