Aug
30.
30.08.08 – Reykjavik – Frankfurt – Tel Aviv
By Garik and Lena
- We woke up this morning at 0615 AM, much better than yesterday! We wanted to pack our staff as quick as possible to get the #14 bus to BSI. It was rainy and it was difficult to pack quickly. We carried our backpacks to the shed near the entrance of the camping ground. We had tea with sandwiches for breakfast. The gas balloon was still not empty, but we had to finish it before the flight! So I stood there for half an hour, burning it, waiting for the gas to be over, but it didn’t! Finally, at 08:50 I gave up, we had a bus to catch, I pulled the balloon out as is, and of course I was covered immediately with liquid that smells bad. Now I see the benefits of a more expensive gas balloons that have a screwing.
- We took our backpacks and got on our way to the bus station near the youth hostel. When we just got to the street, we saw the bus leaving! Man, this is bummer! Somehow, instead of waiting for the next bus at 09:30, we decided to walk to the BSI station, in a rain! We got to BSI at 10:00, just the time we would get there with the 09:30 bus…
- We met earlier the Dutch couple in the camping area, when we ate breakfast, next place we saw them was Perlan, we went there to see the Saga Museum, the museum is not a “must” place to visit but it is interesting when you get in and try to follow the Icelandic sagas… It took us only 30 minutes to get in and out of the museum, and we couldn’t take pictures there… their local policies of museums I guess. Also there was some kind of bazaar, selling some weird clothes and stuff… All the donations are for Palestinian women… Hmm… we left the place quite quickly! Another place to have a quick snap of it is the roof of Perlan. We went outside but it was freezing!!! You can see the whole city, just too bad the Hallgrimskirkja was in restorations. It appears that the church is closed for the summer! [p.s Reykjavik Excursions decided to prolong their summer time table till September the 7th].
- From Perlan we went back to the main streets of Reykjavik in search of food. A restaurant, that we got a recommendation about back at the camping facilities, was closed. So we had to search for another place to have our last meat soup! So went to the main shopping street, and instead of food we started to buy presents! It was a long time shop travel! We walked for hours between the shops, buying all kind of stuff like simple local presents for friends and families. I also bought the Voxis tablets and wool for my mom. In some shop we spend 4000 ISK for presents, and for that we got an option to get our taxes back. You can fill this kind of form only if you buy for more than 4000ISK in one place, than you have to give it to someone in the airport and receive a refund! After two hours of running between the shops we stopped to eat something! We got a nice big Icelandic traditional meal, with creamed potatoes, mushroom soup, seafood soup a decent portion of lamb and more (they didn’t have a meat soup that day…)!
- Later we finished the shopping list, bought Remoladi and started to think how to spend our last hours in Reykjavik before we go to the BSI bus station and take our bus to the blue lagoon, just before our flight this night. [p.s we left out backpacks at the BSI station, we hoped it will be free of charge, but it appears that for luggage storage, you have to pay; it’s the transferring of your luggage that is free of charge…] .
- We took the way back to the BSI through a lake of Reykjavik. It’s a quite place without many tourists around. Most of the visitors there are local moms with their kids. All people gathered there had bread. They feed the birds by throwing bread crumbs to the lake; it was funny to watch how all kind of birds fight for a small piece of bread. We didn’t have bread with us, so we only took some pictures of the action.
- Then we just walked to the BSI station, took our bags and saw the big Icelandic guy from the Askja trip, working there, as a driver! We didn’t say hello though. We got on the bus and headed to the Blue Lagoon. We got there with a bus full of tourists! They were much quicker than us, so we were the last to get in. As a result, there were no lockers for us to put there our backpacks, so we had to put them in some small room, something like a granary. We got cool keys for the lockers in the showers. It’s like a wrist band but with a magnet or something that you have to couple with a main board, which manages all lockers in the room. When you close you locker, you have to remember what the number of the locker , because the key is not for a specific locker, when you get in you just grab a free locker, now you have to memorize it, and when you want to open it, you have to couple the wrist band again and then enter the locker number. Well it’s a bit tricky; saw some tourists there having really hard time with the system! The showers them selves… well you have to be there to believe me! I can’t describe how amazing they are! We also got some body lotion as a gift. Outside, in the lagoon, you can put some white mud on your face; it’s believed that it’s good for the skin. We spent there something like an hour or so, it was really cool! In the lagoon the temperatures are about 40 deg C and outside it was freezing with slight rain. So when I got out of the lagoon to get the camera, it was really cold!
- After the Blue Lagoon, the bus took us directly to the airport. We had a small hope that some stores will be opened at these late hours of a day (about 22:00) but everything was closed! We filled the tax refund blank and put it in a mail box (Later, a week or so, after we got home, Lena received the refund via her credit card). The flight was supposed to be at 0100 AM, and we had to spend the time somehow… We saw lots of groups gathering in the small airport, finding themselves small corners to take a rest. We found too. We saw lots of bicyclers with their bicycles, wrapping them with everything that comes to a hand. At some points we got hungry so we walked around in search of food, we found a small kiosk that was opened, we also had some Icelandic cash, so it was just in time! We spent all of the Icelandic money we had for two chocolate croissants and coffee.
- A time to check in had come and we took our place in a line. We were among the first to check in to the flight! We were happy until we had to pass the small baggage control, where they check the stuff you take with you on board. Apparently, I forgot to put my friends Leatherman in the backpack! The police guy that stopped me, was kind enough to give a second chance and let me go back to send my small bag with all other luggage. So I had to wait till everybody in the line will finish their check in. Meanwhile I met the German guy we met at the Landmannalaugar trek with his father. He wasn’t that nice this time, only said hello…
- Well we got awful plane back to Frankfurt; we got the seats in the tail of the plane, almost no room for my long legs! Most of the flight we slept; we woke up for breakfast at 02:30AM after which continued sleeping. At Frankfurt we had almost 7 hours till our connection to Tel-Aviv, we staid in the airport. We didn’t take the chance to see the city. There is not much to do in Frankfurt airport, unless you are very rich! We sat here and there, took the inside airport shuttle, had coffee at Starbucks. Just killed the time very slowly!
- Well this is it! The end of a long joyful trip to an amazing island! We didn’t see volcano eruptions but we saw lava fields and geysers and black sand. We walked one of the greatest treks in the world and had the best lamb soup! We climbed every mountain and rock we could! We ate enormous amount of Icelandic chocolate! I can’t imagine now my life after Iceland. It took us a year to plan the trip, Iceland became part of me! We had good time there and we are already miss Iceland! I made my word, to come back there in 2015! See you there!
Tags: 2008, August, Blue lagoon, Iceland, Perlan, Remoladi, Reykjavik Excursions, The Saga Museum