Drinking: Samuel Adams Black Lager
As seems befitting, my journey started off with confusion
and things going slightly wrong. The ticket machine failed and I came
relatively close to not being able to get a ticket to the airport. At the
airport I needed the predictably longest line full of school kids on a
Geography field trip to Iceland. At least I escaped the rub-down and swabs for
explosive materials this time.
Sat down with way more leg-room than is usual for cattle
class. Thought that the arm-rest was a little odd, but it just turned out to be
a hold on the emergency exit. 3 hours to Reykjavik went pretty well, but the
airport is a little sparse of information with a trip past passport control,
only to be told I needed to go back through passport control.
On the plane there were plenty of adverts for Iceland
telling us that the most amazing thing about Iceland isn’t the glaciers, or the
geysers, or springs, or the fjords. Oh no! It’s the fact that the national dish
is cured shark, and that at New Years they send up 600 tons of fireworks, and
that every year they have an entire 10 bands trying to make it big. Personally,
I’m sold, and so with no need to go see any of the interesting stuff I can
consider Iceland as a country I have visited and seen everything worthwhile,
all from the discomfort of Kerflavik airport.
Second plane was much like the first: tons of leg-room, an
emergency exit, no entertainment system and no food. Only this one was longer
than the first. At customs, the queues were as fast moving as you may expect,
except mine which was even slower. I did however see that oh so rare sight of a
smiling immigrations officer. Carry on to get my bag, go to hand in the form
they give you and “you need to be over that way, Sir”. Turns out that the smiling
immigration officials were just to lull me into a false sense of security. Fill
in the form, hand over the passport, sit down and wait to be called. And wait
some more. Speak to one guy and get the usual questions: “What are you doing
over here?”, “How much money have you brought”, “When are you leaving?” – all
the usual questions designed to make one feel welcome in the land of the free
and founded by immigrants. For some reason, they just don’t seem to like my
story of coming over to travel for 5 months with nothing but a small rucksack
of stuff. I spoke to probably 4 people including “Supervisor Cullhan” who all
took great delight in going through all my things, item by item, including a
card written to me by Annie that I hadn’t read as I’d been forbidden to do so
before leaving. Eventually though, STAMP, STAMP, STAMP, free to go!
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| Everybody... awwwwwwwwwwww |
For the first couple of days I’m staying with a friend from
Uni and his wife, Mark and Lauren. Arrived at their’s at about half 9 (after
landing at 7) which was about half 2 AM for me. A couple of beers and a bit of food
really helped, especially the beers. Mark and Lauren foster kittens so there
are 4 kittens currently running round all over the place trying to catch the
static sparks on the back of the sofa I’m sleeping on. Today’s plan is to try
and get a bike, a phone and drunk.
