Iceland!!!!

Icelandair was my carrier of choice over to Europe, as they offer a fairly cheap, 4.5 hour, overnight flight from Toronto to London via Keflavik Airport. One of the (dis?)advantages is that you get a seven hour layover, and $30 will buy you a return bus ride into Reykjavik, where 40 minutes later, you can be walking around the middle of a quaintastic little northern town. With only 300 000 people, the city core is pretty small - but full of shops, restaurants, and plenty of bars, pubs and clubs for those long northern nights.

One thing I didn't expect was for April 23rd to be Iceland's 'First Day of Summer'. Apparently, the tradition is that an overnight frost indicates a warm and long summer. (The North American groundhog is, reportedly, a more fickle prognosticator ...) Icelanders celebrate this by heading to the bars on the Eve to get right shittered by drinking away the last winter's night. Most responsible folks then stay in bed until 10ish to cure the hangover, meaning, sadly, that nothing is open and I couldn't even get my $6 latte .

Fortunately, R. has enough sights to fill in a morning's tour. My favorite sight (that I didn't get to go into) was R. museum commemorating the 871 p/m 2 townsite settlement - mostly because I have never seen a museum name involving error bars. Other highlights included the town hall, parliament, and the historical pictures on the waterfront area. Of course, the geology across the fjord was pretty spectacular too ...

I finished off my layover with a visit to the thermal pools. Although it was 6C outside, the pools were a balmy 25C and some of the hot tubs reached up to 44C. Plenty of Icelanders chilling out in the drizzle. I wonder how the bathing is mid-winter when it's -15C and if frozen beards are a problem? Sadly, I didn't get out to the Blue Lagoon spa - perhaps some time when cycling around the Island ...