Wednesday

– Our flight to Reykjavik was supposed to leave at 6:30 a.m., so we got up at 3:30 which was a slap to the face for most of us 🥱. Nevertheless, everything went according to plan until we sat down in the airplane. We were so eager to visit Iceland but nothing happened. Time went by, it was 6:45, then 7:00, and then 7:30, and we still hadn´t taken off. Finally, at 8:00 the crew asked us to get off the aircraft because the its “toilets are out of service” 🤦‍♂️. They claimed that everything will be fixed till 10:00. Time went by very slowly, and when 10:00 came, we found out that the departure had been postponed further – until 13:00. And then, obviously, at 13:00 they moved the departure again, to 16:50…

As the Iceland visit was moving away, the mood of every passenger was declining rapidly but with so much time on our hands we could watch others dealing with the situation. I mean, you don´t see an annoyed, screaming American every day 😊. Anyway, for someone from central Europe it was an interesting lesson on how to stand up for oneself.

A day at the airport

So, basically, we spent the whole day at the Manchester airport instead of Reykjavik. We tried really hard to kill our boredom and although most of the time we were failing miserably, at least we got some sleep to make up for the 3:00 a.m. alarm. Other than that we also played a little Dungeons & Dragons, we ate – several times, and we waved to a little Japanese girl, who was apparently as bored as us 😊.

In the end, we did gain some experiences, even though they weren´t really welcome at the time – waiting 12 hours at the airport is not what one would strive for. Nevertheless, it is now a funny memory.

We finally departed at 5:30 p.m. in a completely different plane which was sent for us all the way from Lisbon. I must say, the seats weren´t as comfy as the ones in the broken plane, but I guess it was still better than a comfortable seat in a crashed plane…

Iceland visit comes true

The flight took about two hours. We arrived in a tiny town called Keflavík, located about 40 km from Reykjavík. Our Iceland visit could finally begin. After getting off the airplane, we took a shuttlebus to a car rental where a brand new car was already waiting for us. It was a Dacia Duster all wheel drive. For the non-technical members of our family group it was a simply a nice white car 😊.

So we got into the car, convinced we still had time to see at least some small part of Reykjavik. Obviously, first we chose the legendary church Hallgrímskirkja. It was… well, though it resembled a church, it looked like a huge cement rocket, too. A very interestingly built rocket, though.

At that point, it was pretty late (10 p.m.), but the sun was still quite high on the sky (well, it was cloudy, so we more sensed the sun than saw it). And even though the brightness nudged us towards more exploring, our bodies were exhausted, so we decided to leave all the adventure for the next day and took off to find our home for the night.

We booked an Airbnb, a small flat, which belonged to a family with children who were on holiday at that time. After this long day, we went to sleep when the clock was showing 10:30 p.m. However, our bodies felt the central european time of 00:30, and we passed out right after touching our beds.

This article is part of a blog series about our visit to Iceland.