puck
May 21, 03, 4:27 pm
This trip report is a bit of a change from the drool-inducing F and J class reports, but I hope some of you find it useful or entertaining.
An oceanographer by trade, my job perks come mostly in the form of interesting travel. Certainly not in cash. This time, I was on my way to Reykjavík to catch a "ship of opportunity," a cheap way to do science on a commercial ship already traveling an interesting route. On this container freighter route between Iceland, Newfoundland, and the US, I'd be measuring temperature profiles and taking samples for salinity, carbon, plankton, and nutrients, in an ongoing decade-old program to monitor changes in the North Atlantic. My reward was a few days in Iceland. I wish I could have fit a few more into my schedule.
Well if you want to go to Iceland, Icelandair is pretty much your only choice, unless you're flying from Scandinavia or on a charter from the UK. Unfortunately for me, Icelandair do not share miles with anyone but SAS Eurobonus, and I bank my Star miles with United... but apart from that, they're a friendly little airline and they've got a nice hub operation going out of Reykjavik.
FI 543 CDG-REK
23 April 14:15-15:45, seat 21B
I arrived at CDG T1 later than I wanted to, as is my usual and seemingly unbreakable habit, with my backpack, briefcase, and a large metal trunk filled with empty sampling bottles and other science gear. I'd checked the baggage limits on icelandair.com (http://icelandair.com), and thought I'd have no problem with the 2 x 32kg piece limits. What I didn't realize is that economy class between Iceland and Europe has the much more restrictive 20 kg total limit (icelandair.com being for the US audience, the tighter European limit is on icelandair.fr). Oops. I waited in line (I remember these...), where US-bound passengers were sent off for a manual checked luggage search before checking in, but fortunately I escaped that. Watching the luggage search on a side table is a bit like staring into people's shopping carts in the supermarket, only most people don't buy dirty underwear at the supermarket. I discovered the restrictive weight limit once I got to the desks, who were staffed by ADP (Aeroports de Paris). The trunk itself was 23kg, and they wanted me to check the backpack at 9kg since it was over the cabin limit of 6kg, which made a grand total of 32kg. They told me they usually allow up to 26 kg without penalty, and hesitated about letting me slide by. The consultations went on. And on. I should have shut up as they might have eventually let me slide, but was a bit impatient and volunteered that I'd pay, as I would get reimbursed by work. They decided to only charge me the 3kg overweight for the trunk. This unfortunately required me to go, with all of my luggage ("for security reasons"), to another desk on the other side of the terminal to pay. Typical French efficiency... By the time I'd found the desk, waited to pay my 48 EUR fee (for 3 kg!), and made it back to the Icelandair checkin, the line had disappeared. I got the same young woman again, who apologized for my inconvenience, then told me she only had middle seats left. And apologized again. Then wished me a good trip despite the inconvenience. Was I still in France? Perhaps age will bring on the time-honored "je m'en fous" attitude.
I went straight for the boarding area, passing through security just in time for the beginning of boarding. Taking us to Iceland today was a 757-200 in the old blue-and-white colorscheme (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/092878/M/). With only my computer bag to stow there was no hurry to get on the plane, so I relaxed and finally got on board with the last few stragglers. There was a proper business cabin with 2x2 seats up until the second set of doors, but it had a moveable divider about halfway down and lacked headrest covers in the second bit, which I guess was filled with lucky Saga elite flyers on economy tickets. The flight was pretty uneventful, I dozed through most of it. French and Icelandic newspapers were passed out while we were still on the ground, and there was a cold chicken lunch on this 2.5 hour flight. The flight attendants were all female, and as another FTer has recently noted, quite beautiful. And I'm not usually one to look (at the female ones, anyways). They have jaunty little caps which they take off once in the air.
The passengers looked to be mostly a mix of Icelanders and Americans taking advantage of cheap transatlantic fares. An exception was one of my seatmates, who had just started working for an Icelandic fish company in Paris, and was on her way to their headquarters for the first time.
Keflavík airport is surrounded by lava fields and nothing much else but a bit of ocean, it's impressive to come into. The airport is quite small, with something like 12 gates, but quite modern and easy to navigate. Our luggage was waiting for us on arrival on the other side of all the arrival shopping, surprisingly quick. Once clear of customs, who didn't bat an eye at my impressive luggage, I stopped at an ATM and took the FlyBus into Reykjavík (1000 Icelandic kroner, 80 Isk = 1 EUR), which is about 45 minutes away. At Reykjavík's domestic airport, which is nearly walking distance to downtown, I bailed and took a taxi to the Sundahöfn harbor where I was to meet the ship, only to discover that it was late, so I continued to the nearby Reykjavík youth hostel (http://www.hostel.is/heimilin/Reykjavik/Eindex.htm) (1500 or 2500 Isk / night, with bathroom down the hall or in the room). Which I have to say is the nicest youth hostel I've ever seen, though it's still a youth hostel. Why a youth hostel? Did I mention the "cheap science" aspect of this trip? Turns out it was also a nice way to meet fellow travelers.
First impressions of Reykjavík
Wow, it's small! The whole country, geographically about the size of England (sans Scotland), has barely over a quarter million people, and 180,000 of them live in or around Reykjavík, the only real urban area in the country. When I first took the bus into Reykjavík from the hostel, I nearly went right past downtown as it didn't fit my conception of it. Everyone getting off was my big clue though and fortunately I followed them. By the way those buses have books (in Icelandic) hanging near many of the seats to help pass the time, befitting Iceland's status as one of the most literate countries.
There's only a very few streets with any kind of street life, but they house an inordinate number of funky coffee shops and bars for a town this size. When the fog lifts, the mountains lining the fjord just behind Rekjavík dominate the skyline, but other than the tiny center, it really is a sprawling city, almost American in design. In fact, a lot of stuff in Iceland seems American, the SUVs, the strip malls, the gas station convenience stores, the Cheerios, but the people and the culture are clearly very European.
The highlight of Reykjavík though for me was the Laugardalslaug (http://www.spacity.is/English/Pool3.html) geothermally heated pool complex, right by the youth hostel. There are places like this sprinkled all over Iceland, though not all as luxurious. It had a 50m outdoor pool, 5 jacuzzis each with a different temperature, a steam room, a water slide, and a big wading/wallowing pool. All for a 220 Isk entrance fee. I easily spent hours in there, and it was clear that it was a center of social life. If only I could speak Icelandic and properly eavesdrop!
I finally met the ship the morning before our evening departure and settled in with my equipment.
M/V Skógafoss
Reykjavík - Argentia, Newfoundland - Boston, MA
The Skógafoss (http://www.heimsnet.is/iceship/hsmyndir/Kaupskip/Eimskip/Skipin/godafoss.html) is fairly small for a container ship, but at 103 m and some 5500 tons the largest I've been on. The crew tower is at the back of the ship, and my quarters, including private bathroom, were only one level below the bridge, about 5 stories above sea level. A few minor modifications have been made for scientific observations, most notably launching tubes for expendable temperature probes, and a van (small portable room) for launching weather balloons. But it's a far cry from the facilities on a science-dedicated ship, and I had to set up an ad hoc lab in my shower. Most of all I missed the running sea water taps one finds on science ships - instead I had to descend six flights of stairs to the engine room every 3 hours, day and night, to gather water from the engine cooling intake. I guess that's still better than a bucket over the side.
The crew, though it took a few days to get to know them, were very friendly and helpful, and were particularly eager to discuss the differences between Iceland and America they observe every trip. The cook was happy to introduce me to Icelandic cuisine, which featured fish, potatoes... and yet more fish. Fish every day for lunch, often with a sauce of mör, or sheep's tallow (tastes much better than it sounds). Breakfast was pretty Scandinavian, with bread and different kinds of meat, fish, cheese and eggs, and dinner was often lamb, an Icelandic specialty, and quite tasty. Saturdays, unfortunately, another kind of Icelandic specialty was served, a putrefied fish that's prepared by taking skate, raw, and burying it in salt in warm weather for several months. It is truly an acquired taste - to me the scent and flavor of ammonia overwhelmed anything else. Oof. But I did acquire a taste for kleinur, a kind of not-so-sweet Icelandic donut, the dark brown bread rugbroed, and the Icelandic lamb.
The rhythms of life at sea are nice, you can really shut the higher parts of your brain down, and connect a bit with the waves, the birds, the sun. Eimskip (http://www.eimskip.is), the company that runs the Skógafoss, takes passengers on some of its trips - it would certainly be an offbeat way to travel and learn about a different culture, that of the sea and of sailors.
We had a port call of about 12 hours in Argentia, Newfoundland, an old fishing town and former US Navy base. Unfortunately now it has 50% unemployment, and the setting, while beautiful and rugged, is difficult - they had 5 straight months below zero this past winter. I'm happy to report though that this particular set of Newfies seemed to maintain their good cheer (I went out with some of the ship's crew to the only bar in town that evening), and that yes, they really do talk funny up there.
A few days later found us arriving in Boston, whose familiar skyline first appeared on the horizon hours before we arrived. Having lived in Boston nearly a decade it was a welcome sight, and certainly a novel way to arrive in a city. In an age before FlyerTalk though, this was the norm! The dock on the inner harbor was in a rather seedy and industrial part of town that I'd never even known existed. Immigration was cleared on the ship, but the ship's agent had to drive me to Logan airport to clear customs, as I was the only person debarking, and they couldn't be bothered to come out to the ship. I didn't even have to bring my luggage - an easy way to smuggle in some forbidden French raw-milk cheese, if only I'd known!
I spent a few days visiting friends and family in Boston and New York before heading back.
FI 614 JFK-REK
10 May 20:50 - 6:20 (+1), seat 12D
Check-in for this flight is done by BA personnel. Despite this also being the UA terminal I'd never been in it, it's fairly nice, though many of the terminals at JFK are improving. It was one of my last chances to see the Concorde up close, and to witness the impressive JFK-LHR traffic, with a 747 departure every 2 hours on BA alone.
The Icelandair 757-200 was looking quite handsome, if small next to the BA jumbo, in the new blue-and-gold (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/073329/M/) colors. There was plenty of space on this flight, and I had an aisle seat on an empty row of 3, so once dinner was finished I curled up and slept for a few hours. I woke up to the golden glow of the engine, just outside my window, in the early morning sunlight.
More impressions of Iceland
I'd rented a car from a local company called Berg (http://www.carrental-berg.com/), who had a good 3-day off-season special that I'd spotted on my first swing through Iceland, and met the representative at the airport. I drove away a few minutes later in my copper 0.8 liter Daewoo Matiz (http://www.mymatiz.com/), essentially a tin box perched on scooter wheels (perhaps I exaggerate slightly), feeling very tiny next to some of the giant 4x4s...
This first day I took it fairly easy, and went to the Blue Lagoon (http://www.bluelagoon.is/english/), which is near Keflavík. This spa was apparently created accidentally when the nearby geothermal power station discharged excess heated and supermineralized seawater onto the lava fields. It's heavily promoted to the tourists, so I was a bit wary, but it was very nice. The water is warm-to-hot, salty, completely opaque with minerals and algae, and the bottom of the lagoon has a nice squishy/gravelly texture. There's silica mud to play with (it's supposed to be good for your skin). You can enter directly from indoors and pass through a door to the outdoors already safely ensconced in the warm water. It's easy to just lie back and forget the world exists. Until the military-precision every 2 minute take-offs of the next Icelandair departure bank pass overhead. Though that only lasted about 20 minutes at most.
Continuing on the way to Reykjavík I looked at my map and thought it would be cool to drive via Grindavík and Krísuvík, I was promised a wild volcanic landscape and boiling mud pots. What the map didn't promise but I quickly discovered is that secondary roads in Iceland have worrying tendency to suddenly become gravel roads, lurking around that next sharp bend. I gave it two attempts, on the first I turned around after a bit of gravel, thinking I'd taken a wrong turn. After verifying I was in fact on the right road, and seeing a few normal-sized cars coming from the other direction, mixed in with the giant 4x4s, I gave it a second attempt, and drove a good 20 minutes down the gravel part of the road. Finally though I had to give up again as the road started climbing a steep grade on switchbacks, and I started skidding and fishtailing all over the place - my little Daewoo just wasn't up to the task. So I gave up again, and drove to Reykjavík the boring way.
My roommates that night back at the Reykjavík youth hostel included a very recent law school grad from LA, a Boston-based administrator of a student exchange organization on a brief stopover, and a Dutch pilot for the UK charter airline Monarch on vacation - definitely an older (still under 30) and more eclectic crowd than I remember meeting in youth hostels... I had some interesting conversations with PJ, the pilot, on how he felt ferrying British holidaymakers around the globe ("they're a special breed"), on how he keeps his mind sharp on longhaul sectors (essentially he's always imagining potential problems and solutions), and just about the fun of flying in general.
The next day I decided to strike out into the countryside a bit and found a youth hostel in Fljótsdalur (http://www.hostel.is/heimilin/Fljotsdalur/Eindex.htm), at the end of a road leading into the Thorsmörk valley in south-central Iceland. It only took a couple of hours to drive out there in the morning, and I encountered yet another secondary road that devolved into gravel. At Fljótsdalur (which consisted of the fairly primitive sod-roofed youth hostel, sort of a glorified mountain hut, and one farmhouse), the road turns into a mountain track and fords a river, definitely the end of the route for the little Daewoo. The site is magnificent, being surrounded by three ice caps at the mouth of the Thorsmörk valley. I spent the rest of the day hiking up towards the Tindafjallajökull ice cap, starting on the mountain track but later following one of the many paths the sheep have worn in the steep meadows, and napping in the sunshine. I saw lots of sheep, many birds, a good handful of horses, and exactly zero humans the whole day. The hostel had one other guest that night, a German woman who had just finished university and was biking around Iceland for several months before working in a hotel for the summer. She told me about having slept in her tent in the snow in a dwarf birch forest, very cool. But the strong wind that blew everywhere in Iceland apparently made the biking difficult at times.
The next day I continued to Skógar, home of a folk museum recommended by the Lonely Planet, and home to the namesake of the ship I'd recently left, the Skógafoss, a thundering 60m waterfall. The museum displays many artifacts from Icelandic country life, which for many people remained quite primitive until the 1950s or so. The curator, Thor, about 75 years old I'd guess, adopted me and showed me around, eventually taking me out to the restored sod-covered farmhouse and church. He actually got me to sing with him while he played the small organ, which was great fun, especially after he assured me I'd made his day.
I finally made it back to Reykjavík with a brief stop at the national park in Thingvellir, where dramatic cracks in the earth sit on top of the spreading mid-Atlantic ridge. There I rediscovered my hostel friends, who'd been on some of the many day tours out of Reykjavík, and we headed into town for the evening. Hitting the town with a bunch of brand-new acquaintances is an interesting exercise, the different reasons why we travel jump out immediately. Some people come to see the big sights, I tend to want to see a few, but mostly avoid the tourists and try to get a taste of how local life is lived. In this case that meant steering my new friend the Australian away from the deal of the Italian buffet restaurant (empty but for a few tourists) and towards that busy café we'd just passed that did food as well. This is my usual method when restaurant-hunting in a new city, looking for atmosphere and lots of locals first, it's worked reliably all around the world. Mmm, I'm just remembering those masala dhosas I found somewhere in Tamil Nadu. But I digress. The cool café probably didn't have as good a price/quantity ratio as the buffet, but I'm sure yielded a more interesting evening watching the young and trendy of Reykjavik, and feeling caught up a bit in that atmosphere. And not bad food to boot (this was at a café next to the Hotel Borg on Pósthústræti facing the Austurvöllur, though I have a feeling what's hot and what's not changes very quickly in Reykjavík so who knows if the crowds will be as interesting next time). I think I might have even converted Pete, the Australian, and PJ to my method of restaurant-hunting.
FI 542 REK-CDG
14 May 7:45 - 13:05, seat 16D
Time to bid Iceland goodbye again with ideas for another trip already dancing in my mind... I arrived at the airport via the FlyBus around 6am, rather early it seems, as the lines grew longer as I waited for a few minutes, and I managed to snag an exit row seat. Without even asking, so maybe I look the part?
Again, not much to say about the flight. It was completely full, Icelandic newspapers were offered while on the ground, and Gameboys were available on request, as on all Icelandair flights, for entertainment. The meal was a full breakfast of omelet, potatoes, and warm rolls, actually quite nice as I was rather hungry by this point.
The landing into CDG was interesting to say the least. There was a bit of cloud and rain on approach, and we got zapped by lightning on the left side, a first for me. Freaked a few people out. Then, as we came in for landing a couple of hundred meters above the ground, gear down and flaps at full, the engines suddenly spooled way up, the gear retracted, flaps came in, and we lifted up sharply, flying right over the airport. My first go-around, and source of a sudden flood of adrenaline for me as the usual sounds and feels of landing abruptly changed. The captain soon announced that "for reasons of air traffic control" we had to abort our landing. The French girl next to me was hanging on to her Icelandic boyfriend's arm and refused to look out the window. After a few sharp turns, always slightly alarming that close to the ground, we had a clean (if rough) landing a few minutes later. There were a lot of relieved looks.
On the ground, my first indication that perhaps there was labor trouble brewing in France (I'd been out of the country for 3 weeks) was the inordinately long delay waiting for our bags to arrive, even for CDG terminal 1 where at least 30 minutes is the norm. More than an hour after landing I finally had my bags and was off, only to discover the RER and metro weren't running. So it was off in a taxi in an hour-and-a-half (usually a 25 minute) ride home. I capped off my reaquaintance with the Paris rhythm of life (always takes me a day or so before it feels entirely like home again) with a quick stop at the local café, then a baguette from the corner boulangerie and some cheese from my favorite fromagerie. Until my next adventure...
And that is the end of one long trip report. Thanks for making it through!
edited to fix ubb coding + other errors
[This message has been edited by puck (edited 05-21-2003).]
An oceanographer by trade, my job perks come mostly in the form of interesting travel. Certainly not in cash. This time, I was on my way to Reykjavík to catch a "ship of opportunity," a cheap way to do science on a commercial ship already traveling an interesting route. On this container freighter route between Iceland, Newfoundland, and the US, I'd be measuring temperature profiles and taking samples for salinity, carbon, plankton, and nutrients, in an ongoing decade-old program to monitor changes in the North Atlantic. My reward was a few days in Iceland. I wish I could have fit a few more into my schedule.
Well if you want to go to Iceland, Icelandair is pretty much your only choice, unless you're flying from Scandinavia or on a charter from the UK. Unfortunately for me, Icelandair do not share miles with anyone but SAS Eurobonus, and I bank my Star miles with United... but apart from that, they're a friendly little airline and they've got a nice hub operation going out of Reykjavik.
FI 543 CDG-REK
23 April 14:15-15:45, seat 21B
I arrived at CDG T1 later than I wanted to, as is my usual and seemingly unbreakable habit, with my backpack, briefcase, and a large metal trunk filled with empty sampling bottles and other science gear. I'd checked the baggage limits on icelandair.com (http://icelandair.com), and thought I'd have no problem with the 2 x 32kg piece limits. What I didn't realize is that economy class between Iceland and Europe has the much more restrictive 20 kg total limit (icelandair.com being for the US audience, the tighter European limit is on icelandair.fr). Oops. I waited in line (I remember these...), where US-bound passengers were sent off for a manual checked luggage search before checking in, but fortunately I escaped that. Watching the luggage search on a side table is a bit like staring into people's shopping carts in the supermarket, only most people don't buy dirty underwear at the supermarket. I discovered the restrictive weight limit once I got to the desks, who were staffed by ADP (Aeroports de Paris). The trunk itself was 23kg, and they wanted me to check the backpack at 9kg since it was over the cabin limit of 6kg, which made a grand total of 32kg. They told me they usually allow up to 26 kg without penalty, and hesitated about letting me slide by. The consultations went on. And on. I should have shut up as they might have eventually let me slide, but was a bit impatient and volunteered that I'd pay, as I would get reimbursed by work. They decided to only charge me the 3kg overweight for the trunk. This unfortunately required me to go, with all of my luggage ("for security reasons"), to another desk on the other side of the terminal to pay. Typical French efficiency... By the time I'd found the desk, waited to pay my 48 EUR fee (for 3 kg!), and made it back to the Icelandair checkin, the line had disappeared. I got the same young woman again, who apologized for my inconvenience, then told me she only had middle seats left. And apologized again. Then wished me a good trip despite the inconvenience. Was I still in France? Perhaps age will bring on the time-honored "je m'en fous" attitude.
I went straight for the boarding area, passing through security just in time for the beginning of boarding. Taking us to Iceland today was a 757-200 in the old blue-and-white colorscheme (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/092878/M/). With only my computer bag to stow there was no hurry to get on the plane, so I relaxed and finally got on board with the last few stragglers. There was a proper business cabin with 2x2 seats up until the second set of doors, but it had a moveable divider about halfway down and lacked headrest covers in the second bit, which I guess was filled with lucky Saga elite flyers on economy tickets. The flight was pretty uneventful, I dozed through most of it. French and Icelandic newspapers were passed out while we were still on the ground, and there was a cold chicken lunch on this 2.5 hour flight. The flight attendants were all female, and as another FTer has recently noted, quite beautiful. And I'm not usually one to look (at the female ones, anyways). They have jaunty little caps which they take off once in the air.
The passengers looked to be mostly a mix of Icelanders and Americans taking advantage of cheap transatlantic fares. An exception was one of my seatmates, who had just started working for an Icelandic fish company in Paris, and was on her way to their headquarters for the first time.
Keflavík airport is surrounded by lava fields and nothing much else but a bit of ocean, it's impressive to come into. The airport is quite small, with something like 12 gates, but quite modern and easy to navigate. Our luggage was waiting for us on arrival on the other side of all the arrival shopping, surprisingly quick. Once clear of customs, who didn't bat an eye at my impressive luggage, I stopped at an ATM and took the FlyBus into Reykjavík (1000 Icelandic kroner, 80 Isk = 1 EUR), which is about 45 minutes away. At Reykjavík's domestic airport, which is nearly walking distance to downtown, I bailed and took a taxi to the Sundahöfn harbor where I was to meet the ship, only to discover that it was late, so I continued to the nearby Reykjavík youth hostel (http://www.hostel.is/heimilin/Reykjavik/Eindex.htm) (1500 or 2500 Isk / night, with bathroom down the hall or in the room). Which I have to say is the nicest youth hostel I've ever seen, though it's still a youth hostel. Why a youth hostel? Did I mention the "cheap science" aspect of this trip? Turns out it was also a nice way to meet fellow travelers.
First impressions of Reykjavík
Wow, it's small! The whole country, geographically about the size of England (sans Scotland), has barely over a quarter million people, and 180,000 of them live in or around Reykjavík, the only real urban area in the country. When I first took the bus into Reykjavík from the hostel, I nearly went right past downtown as it didn't fit my conception of it. Everyone getting off was my big clue though and fortunately I followed them. By the way those buses have books (in Icelandic) hanging near many of the seats to help pass the time, befitting Iceland's status as one of the most literate countries.
There's only a very few streets with any kind of street life, but they house an inordinate number of funky coffee shops and bars for a town this size. When the fog lifts, the mountains lining the fjord just behind Rekjavík dominate the skyline, but other than the tiny center, it really is a sprawling city, almost American in design. In fact, a lot of stuff in Iceland seems American, the SUVs, the strip malls, the gas station convenience stores, the Cheerios, but the people and the culture are clearly very European.
The highlight of Reykjavík though for me was the Laugardalslaug (http://www.spacity.is/English/Pool3.html) geothermally heated pool complex, right by the youth hostel. There are places like this sprinkled all over Iceland, though not all as luxurious. It had a 50m outdoor pool, 5 jacuzzis each with a different temperature, a steam room, a water slide, and a big wading/wallowing pool. All for a 220 Isk entrance fee. I easily spent hours in there, and it was clear that it was a center of social life. If only I could speak Icelandic and properly eavesdrop!
I finally met the ship the morning before our evening departure and settled in with my equipment.
M/V Skógafoss
Reykjavík - Argentia, Newfoundland - Boston, MA
The Skógafoss (http://www.heimsnet.is/iceship/hsmyndir/Kaupskip/Eimskip/Skipin/godafoss.html) is fairly small for a container ship, but at 103 m and some 5500 tons the largest I've been on. The crew tower is at the back of the ship, and my quarters, including private bathroom, were only one level below the bridge, about 5 stories above sea level. A few minor modifications have been made for scientific observations, most notably launching tubes for expendable temperature probes, and a van (small portable room) for launching weather balloons. But it's a far cry from the facilities on a science-dedicated ship, and I had to set up an ad hoc lab in my shower. Most of all I missed the running sea water taps one finds on science ships - instead I had to descend six flights of stairs to the engine room every 3 hours, day and night, to gather water from the engine cooling intake. I guess that's still better than a bucket over the side.
The crew, though it took a few days to get to know them, were very friendly and helpful, and were particularly eager to discuss the differences between Iceland and America they observe every trip. The cook was happy to introduce me to Icelandic cuisine, which featured fish, potatoes... and yet more fish. Fish every day for lunch, often with a sauce of mör, or sheep's tallow (tastes much better than it sounds). Breakfast was pretty Scandinavian, with bread and different kinds of meat, fish, cheese and eggs, and dinner was often lamb, an Icelandic specialty, and quite tasty. Saturdays, unfortunately, another kind of Icelandic specialty was served, a putrefied fish that's prepared by taking skate, raw, and burying it in salt in warm weather for several months. It is truly an acquired taste - to me the scent and flavor of ammonia overwhelmed anything else. Oof. But I did acquire a taste for kleinur, a kind of not-so-sweet Icelandic donut, the dark brown bread rugbroed, and the Icelandic lamb.
The rhythms of life at sea are nice, you can really shut the higher parts of your brain down, and connect a bit with the waves, the birds, the sun. Eimskip (http://www.eimskip.is), the company that runs the Skógafoss, takes passengers on some of its trips - it would certainly be an offbeat way to travel and learn about a different culture, that of the sea and of sailors.
We had a port call of about 12 hours in Argentia, Newfoundland, an old fishing town and former US Navy base. Unfortunately now it has 50% unemployment, and the setting, while beautiful and rugged, is difficult - they had 5 straight months below zero this past winter. I'm happy to report though that this particular set of Newfies seemed to maintain their good cheer (I went out with some of the ship's crew to the only bar in town that evening), and that yes, they really do talk funny up there.
A few days later found us arriving in Boston, whose familiar skyline first appeared on the horizon hours before we arrived. Having lived in Boston nearly a decade it was a welcome sight, and certainly a novel way to arrive in a city. In an age before FlyerTalk though, this was the norm! The dock on the inner harbor was in a rather seedy and industrial part of town that I'd never even known existed. Immigration was cleared on the ship, but the ship's agent had to drive me to Logan airport to clear customs, as I was the only person debarking, and they couldn't be bothered to come out to the ship. I didn't even have to bring my luggage - an easy way to smuggle in some forbidden French raw-milk cheese, if only I'd known!
I spent a few days visiting friends and family in Boston and New York before heading back.
FI 614 JFK-REK
10 May 20:50 - 6:20 (+1), seat 12D
Check-in for this flight is done by BA personnel. Despite this also being the UA terminal I'd never been in it, it's fairly nice, though many of the terminals at JFK are improving. It was one of my last chances to see the Concorde up close, and to witness the impressive JFK-LHR traffic, with a 747 departure every 2 hours on BA alone.
The Icelandair 757-200 was looking quite handsome, if small next to the BA jumbo, in the new blue-and-gold (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/073329/M/) colors. There was plenty of space on this flight, and I had an aisle seat on an empty row of 3, so once dinner was finished I curled up and slept for a few hours. I woke up to the golden glow of the engine, just outside my window, in the early morning sunlight.
More impressions of Iceland
I'd rented a car from a local company called Berg (http://www.carrental-berg.com/), who had a good 3-day off-season special that I'd spotted on my first swing through Iceland, and met the representative at the airport. I drove away a few minutes later in my copper 0.8 liter Daewoo Matiz (http://www.mymatiz.com/), essentially a tin box perched on scooter wheels (perhaps I exaggerate slightly), feeling very tiny next to some of the giant 4x4s...
This first day I took it fairly easy, and went to the Blue Lagoon (http://www.bluelagoon.is/english/), which is near Keflavík. This spa was apparently created accidentally when the nearby geothermal power station discharged excess heated and supermineralized seawater onto the lava fields. It's heavily promoted to the tourists, so I was a bit wary, but it was very nice. The water is warm-to-hot, salty, completely opaque with minerals and algae, and the bottom of the lagoon has a nice squishy/gravelly texture. There's silica mud to play with (it's supposed to be good for your skin). You can enter directly from indoors and pass through a door to the outdoors already safely ensconced in the warm water. It's easy to just lie back and forget the world exists. Until the military-precision every 2 minute take-offs of the next Icelandair departure bank pass overhead. Though that only lasted about 20 minutes at most.
Continuing on the way to Reykjavík I looked at my map and thought it would be cool to drive via Grindavík and Krísuvík, I was promised a wild volcanic landscape and boiling mud pots. What the map didn't promise but I quickly discovered is that secondary roads in Iceland have worrying tendency to suddenly become gravel roads, lurking around that next sharp bend. I gave it two attempts, on the first I turned around after a bit of gravel, thinking I'd taken a wrong turn. After verifying I was in fact on the right road, and seeing a few normal-sized cars coming from the other direction, mixed in with the giant 4x4s, I gave it a second attempt, and drove a good 20 minutes down the gravel part of the road. Finally though I had to give up again as the road started climbing a steep grade on switchbacks, and I started skidding and fishtailing all over the place - my little Daewoo just wasn't up to the task. So I gave up again, and drove to Reykjavík the boring way.
My roommates that night back at the Reykjavík youth hostel included a very recent law school grad from LA, a Boston-based administrator of a student exchange organization on a brief stopover, and a Dutch pilot for the UK charter airline Monarch on vacation - definitely an older (still under 30) and more eclectic crowd than I remember meeting in youth hostels... I had some interesting conversations with PJ, the pilot, on how he felt ferrying British holidaymakers around the globe ("they're a special breed"), on how he keeps his mind sharp on longhaul sectors (essentially he's always imagining potential problems and solutions), and just about the fun of flying in general.
The next day I decided to strike out into the countryside a bit and found a youth hostel in Fljótsdalur (http://www.hostel.is/heimilin/Fljotsdalur/Eindex.htm), at the end of a road leading into the Thorsmörk valley in south-central Iceland. It only took a couple of hours to drive out there in the morning, and I encountered yet another secondary road that devolved into gravel. At Fljótsdalur (which consisted of the fairly primitive sod-roofed youth hostel, sort of a glorified mountain hut, and one farmhouse), the road turns into a mountain track and fords a river, definitely the end of the route for the little Daewoo. The site is magnificent, being surrounded by three ice caps at the mouth of the Thorsmörk valley. I spent the rest of the day hiking up towards the Tindafjallajökull ice cap, starting on the mountain track but later following one of the many paths the sheep have worn in the steep meadows, and napping in the sunshine. I saw lots of sheep, many birds, a good handful of horses, and exactly zero humans the whole day. The hostel had one other guest that night, a German woman who had just finished university and was biking around Iceland for several months before working in a hotel for the summer. She told me about having slept in her tent in the snow in a dwarf birch forest, very cool. But the strong wind that blew everywhere in Iceland apparently made the biking difficult at times.
The next day I continued to Skógar, home of a folk museum recommended by the Lonely Planet, and home to the namesake of the ship I'd recently left, the Skógafoss, a thundering 60m waterfall. The museum displays many artifacts from Icelandic country life, which for many people remained quite primitive until the 1950s or so. The curator, Thor, about 75 years old I'd guess, adopted me and showed me around, eventually taking me out to the restored sod-covered farmhouse and church. He actually got me to sing with him while he played the small organ, which was great fun, especially after he assured me I'd made his day.
I finally made it back to Reykjavík with a brief stop at the national park in Thingvellir, where dramatic cracks in the earth sit on top of the spreading mid-Atlantic ridge. There I rediscovered my hostel friends, who'd been on some of the many day tours out of Reykjavík, and we headed into town for the evening. Hitting the town with a bunch of brand-new acquaintances is an interesting exercise, the different reasons why we travel jump out immediately. Some people come to see the big sights, I tend to want to see a few, but mostly avoid the tourists and try to get a taste of how local life is lived. In this case that meant steering my new friend the Australian away from the deal of the Italian buffet restaurant (empty but for a few tourists) and towards that busy café we'd just passed that did food as well. This is my usual method when restaurant-hunting in a new city, looking for atmosphere and lots of locals first, it's worked reliably all around the world. Mmm, I'm just remembering those masala dhosas I found somewhere in Tamil Nadu. But I digress. The cool café probably didn't have as good a price/quantity ratio as the buffet, but I'm sure yielded a more interesting evening watching the young and trendy of Reykjavik, and feeling caught up a bit in that atmosphere. And not bad food to boot (this was at a café next to the Hotel Borg on Pósthústræti facing the Austurvöllur, though I have a feeling what's hot and what's not changes very quickly in Reykjavík so who knows if the crowds will be as interesting next time). I think I might have even converted Pete, the Australian, and PJ to my method of restaurant-hunting.
FI 542 REK-CDG
14 May 7:45 - 13:05, seat 16D
Time to bid Iceland goodbye again with ideas for another trip already dancing in my mind... I arrived at the airport via the FlyBus around 6am, rather early it seems, as the lines grew longer as I waited for a few minutes, and I managed to snag an exit row seat. Without even asking, so maybe I look the part?
Again, not much to say about the flight. It was completely full, Icelandic newspapers were offered while on the ground, and Gameboys were available on request, as on all Icelandair flights, for entertainment. The meal was a full breakfast of omelet, potatoes, and warm rolls, actually quite nice as I was rather hungry by this point.
The landing into CDG was interesting to say the least. There was a bit of cloud and rain on approach, and we got zapped by lightning on the left side, a first for me. Freaked a few people out. Then, as we came in for landing a couple of hundred meters above the ground, gear down and flaps at full, the engines suddenly spooled way up, the gear retracted, flaps came in, and we lifted up sharply, flying right over the airport. My first go-around, and source of a sudden flood of adrenaline for me as the usual sounds and feels of landing abruptly changed. The captain soon announced that "for reasons of air traffic control" we had to abort our landing. The French girl next to me was hanging on to her Icelandic boyfriend's arm and refused to look out the window. After a few sharp turns, always slightly alarming that close to the ground, we had a clean (if rough) landing a few minutes later. There were a lot of relieved looks.
On the ground, my first indication that perhaps there was labor trouble brewing in France (I'd been out of the country for 3 weeks) was the inordinately long delay waiting for our bags to arrive, even for CDG terminal 1 where at least 30 minutes is the norm. More than an hour after landing I finally had my bags and was off, only to discover the RER and metro weren't running. So it was off in a taxi in an hour-and-a-half (usually a 25 minute) ride home. I capped off my reaquaintance with the Paris rhythm of life (always takes me a day or so before it feels entirely like home again) with a quick stop at the local café, then a baguette from the corner boulangerie and some cheese from my favorite fromagerie. Until my next adventure...
And that is the end of one long trip report. Thanks for making it through!
edited to fix ubb coding + other errors
[This message has been edited by puck (edited 05-21-2003).]