helen-louise's journal

Well, I was right about our general inability to get up this morning. I set my alarm for 8.25 am but was so sleepy I fell asleep again as soon as it stopped ringing. Eventually staggered next door to discover that Alexa & Ludy were equally out of it but planning to go downstairs for breakfast before going back to sleep. I lacked sufficient coordination to manage walking or stairs so went back to bed without eating. Richard did not stir at all.

We eventually got ourselves up and packed and checked out of the hotel about 11.45 am. This left just enough time to rush to the Culture House and see their exhibition: Surtsey – Genesis. It explained how the island of Surtsey came into existence suddenly on 14th November 1963, how it has changed in shape since, and how it became colonised by plants and animals. ( Surtsey and books. )

After the Culture House, Ludy went back to the Icelandic Handknitting Association shop, where she bought a quantity of wool that would cost £50 at home and was around £15 here. She would like certain people (e.g. oilrig) to be informed that she only spent 8 minutes in the shop and would have been 2 minutes faster if not for the confused Dutch people in front of her! Meanwhile I went back to Á Næstu Grösum and bought some more cauliflower and peanut soup to take away, and to Kaffi Garðurinn where I obtained the dish of the day, a Moroccan chickpea casserole with couscous. Then we ran downhill to the hotel to catch our taxi. We were planning to get a taxi to the BSI Bus Terminal then get the bus to the airport, but there turned out to be a flat rate to the airport which was only around 1500 kr more. We figured that the reduced hassle and spoon conservation more than compensated for the extra expense.

I ate my food at the airport (delicious), we obtained hot drinks in Kaffitar, stood in an endless queue to check in, went through security (MUCH less paranoid than in the UK), got our VAT refund (Iceland isn't part of the EU, so we got 10% of the purchase price back on all purchases over 4000 kr. The remaining 5% goes in administration and into the government earthquake and volcanic activity insurance.) then RAN to the departure gate, because it was gate 30, about as far from the entrance as it's possible to get, and there hadn't been audible announcements to tell us the flight was closing. Now we're sitting on the plane spodding or drowsing. As we ascended Alexa noticed Surtsey out of the window – we were lucky to see it, because it was only visible from the right-hand side.

All in all, I think this has been an excellent trip.

P.S. Back home now :(