[Photos taken 25 April 2024. Posted online 26 August 2024. Volcano is still going, and it’s the first day of elementary school. The weather is finally nice enough to stain wood!]
Finnur’s parents had both turned 80 years old in the past year, so the siblings decided to replicate previous big-birthdays, and go abroad with them for a long weekend.
Miraculously, they managed to agree on a location and dates, although Icelandair did its very best to throw them off. Both of the flights that we had booked ended up getting cancelled (probably didn’t sell enough seats), and we were instead re-booked on same-day flights, but with less optimal departure times.
We got up at the crack of dawn (which is quite early in late April), fetched Finnur’s parents and drove to the airport. This was a child-free trip, and I was one of two spouses.
This was the view at 5 in the morning, as we drove towards Keflavik airport.
The airport’s cafeterias were incredibly crowded, so much so that I decided to make life easier for our big group by instead using my fancy-credit-card-granted-access to the Saga Lounge.
The Saga Lounge was also incredibly crowded. I was lucky just to find an open chair, with a flat side area, there was no hope of an actual table.
Thursday mornings are such popular travel-times that the Lounge no longer allows guest-passes. It was nearing standing-room-only when I left.
The family’s game master set up a challenge to take photos of as many 80’s as possible, so I sent Finnur a chat with a photo of 80, and then photographed him reading it…
Our airplane.
We flew over the mostly-deserted town of Grindavík. That black skinny splotch on the ground, stretching to the houses, is the lava that came up and destroyed three-four houses earlier in the year.
Grindavík harbor is a good one.
I can’t remember why anymore, but mid-way through the flight, everyone got ice-cream!?
Enormous windmills in sight.
The birthday-babes.
We all found each other, and the bags!
Hopping into a taxi. There were a lot of taxis and ubers in our future.
Approaching our hotel. It was close to this stacked-table-art-piece, and Star-Wars-esque-houses.
Our hotel! One of the siblings had flown the other airline, and arrived ahead of us.
The hotel sat on a canal, what else?
The hotel’s design theme was industrial-steam-punk-ish.
Note the weird chair!
Shower, bath, and sink in one space…
… the toilet in another. This is quite mid-European.
The view from our hotel window.
Taxi-ing downtown for a booked cheese and wine tasting.
The cheese-store was to the left of this big building.
We found it!
Our lovely hostess.
There were five cheeses to taste, two goat ones, and three cow ones.
My attempt to scribble something down.
They seem to go through a lot of bottles!
We hung out for a bit after the official program was done.
At some point I realized I was feeling faint due to starving, and decided to strike out on my own to find food. It would be quicker and easier than in a group of 10 people! These cheeses caught my eye on the way out of the store.
Being very much downtown, I couldn’t resist taking a few photos en route to a Google-maps-found cafe.
Weird front-facade, it doesn’t quite fit the back of the building?
The somewhat sinking buildings.
There were a lot of bikers!
I found a cafe that had an open seat, phew!
I went hunting for some head-ache medicine, which brought me to the main train station.
The reason there are 3000+ parking places available is because it was for bikes!
Bike-friendly escalators!! You can even see the bikes underneath.
This “Lovers” bar was the next destination, we had a dinner-cruise booked a little later in the day.
Priorities! Glad-tablets!
Stores decorated with orange to celebrate the King’s birthday that Saturday.
Glassy colorful rain-shield.
Checking out what’s hot in the bookstore.
I managed to refrain from buying yet another book!
Making my way back to Lovers-bar. Behind the grates on the right were hundreds of parked bikes.
Fancy ship decoration.
I reconvened with everybody at the Lovers-bar.
The guy announcing our imminent departure.
Boat-boarding-time! Those steel-frames on the other side of the river were also bike-parking spots!
Group-photo!
Beef-tartar for appetizer.
The windows soon fogged up, as there was just a little too much rain to have them open.
Main course being served.
It was pretty good!
People actually rowing!
We saw shapes outside the boat, it was all quite romantic.
Nice dessert!
What’s that outside the window?!?!
Finnur had the best view!
Yup, it was an actual old-style ship-replica, of the cargo ship Amsterdam.
From the front.
I think there may be a law in Amsterdam that no new building may look anything like the one next to it?!
I remembered slightly too late to record the journey on Strava, but I got most of it. The street organization is very unorthodox, so much so that driving around is a huge pain. It explains the prevalence of bikes! After the cruise we found taxis, and went back to the hotel.
