Complimentary first class upgrade!! Fabulous.

Enjoying some Icelandic vodka on the flight to Iceland

Tracking our flight from Anchorage to Keflavik

Approaching Iceland at about 5:45 am, Sept 3, 2013

Metal sculpture at Keflavik International Airport

Airport Hotel Smari – our accommodation just a 3 minute walk from the airport terminal

Sjavargrillid Restaurant — VERY yummy food,

Brennavin liquor – known as “Black Death” that is commonly drunk while eating stinky, fermented shark.

Another local delicacy, singed sheep’s head. Need I say more…?

Our exquisite seafood bisque at the Sjavargrillid Restaurant

Architecture was designed to resemble basalt columns prevalent in Iceland

Door of the Lutheran church

Description of “scientific” difference between blessed and unblessed water droplets – a display at the Lutheran church we visited

Images showing differences between consecrated and non-consecrated water droplets. Hmm…

Old city center street view

Many homes and commercial buildings are clad in corrugated metal siding like this one.

The Solfar sun craft sculpture at the harbor in Reykjavik.

Sue and I in front of the sun craft sculpture — and, no, we did not plan our matching jackets. Happens all the time with us…weird.

Geothermally heated swimming lagoon

Pods of polar plungers jumping in the icy waters near the harbor.

Two red-eye flights in four days is really not conducive to clear, creative thinking processes; hence the delay in my posts. Our schedule will be more reasonable from here forward with regular intervals of restorative sleep! Now back to Iceland.

Tuesday, September 3: As noted in my previous blog, we arrived in Iceland as people were just starting their day. Not yet able to check in to our hotel, Sue and I opted to take a bus tour that would offer up as much of southwest Iceland that we could cram into one day. Simple, right? Not so. Because our hotel was located at the airport, rather than in Reykjavik (47 Km to the east), there were additional logistical considerations. So…a 3-hour city tour of Reykjavik was the better option.

I didn’t know much about Viking history (and, no, I have not watched the new cable series either) prior to this trip, but have been enlightened recently about their legacy. Before the Vikings settled in Iceland, Irish monks were its first inhabitants. However, the hardy, saga heroes that settled in Iceland in 871 A.D. were much more organized, self-sufficient, and fiercely independent. After several generations, the Vikings had reinvented themselves into literary scholars and historians.  Icelanders are proud of their cultural history — even the societal and personal hardships they endured for 600 years up until post-World War II. They are tough, hard-working people. We encountered not one homeless, panhandling person in our roamings in the old city center that, because this area is swarming with tourists, would be a prime location for the down-and-out of society.

We now leave Iceland (the second red-eye flight) and continue our journey.