Reykjavik

  

We do drive around the town near the airport and see some lighthouses, make our first stop at Bonus grocery to get some food, since we didn’t get anything on the plane because of COVID and nothing at the airport.  So, breakfast is on our minds and we get some things for several meals since we’ve heard over and over how expensive the food is here.  In the grocery store it’s not and we stock up.  After a couple more lighthouses, we can head toward our hotel

in Reykjavik because it’s finally late enough.  Now, we’re driving into the capital city of a country where I don’t speak the language, don’t understand the signage, and I’m operating with no sleep and very limited use of a manual car.  Roundabouts….I like them.  They’re easy and good when you don’t want to make everyone have to stop or put up a light.  They keep traffic moving, but when you have 14 in a row coming into a major city where the inside lane has the right of way if they want to exit…..and I need to downshift and

keep up with all this…I don’t like them as much.  Downtown Reykjavik sounded like a great place to stay, next to all the sights to see, but doesn’t seem as fun when I’m trying to find a parking place that doesn’t have me parallel parking on a hill please.  We finally find one and I don’t care what it takes to park at this place while John goes and checks in to the Hotel Fron to find out that they have no more parking for the night.  The car is

staying here, maybe for the rest of the trip.  I just want to check in and have a nap.  We get to our room at the Hotel Fron which is very nice, but when you heat things with geothermal heating, it’s really warm.  We open the windows to let in the cooler air, but you would need to open a sliding glass door with another window to pull a breeze through to cool

  this room down….how can it be so cold outside and so hot inside?  It doesn’t make sense….but I try to get a little nap and the boys won’t shut up.  Oscar wants stuff, they’re playing on their phones, they’re bickering.  I finally give up after an hour and decide I have to go look for a pharmacy because I realized when we got to the room that I didn’t pack my mouthguard.  Now, some people have nightguards to help them not grind their teeth, or to help with TMJ, or snoring, or any other use.  Mine are so I don’t break my teeth and increase my facial pain.  It’s a must have.  So, Oscar comes with me to explore the downtown street we’re on.  There are a ton of cool shops,

restaurants, and a pharmacy.  But they tell me that the only place that would have these is a dentist or a sporting goods store that is in the mall.  Well, I’m not getting back in the car and driving around this town again, so that’s out.  So, now I’m thinking about how to finagle a solution….wax that you cook with that I could maybe mold?

  Something else in the dental aisle that would work and then I see it…a pacifier.  I’m going to look like a baby for the night, but it’s better than nothing and because the pharmacy person and I have bonded over this subject because she says she needs a mouthguard too, we ask about where to eat tonight.  John is determined that we are going to stay up to a reasonable hour to get on the right time schedule and we have 4 more hours to kill.  Oscar wants pizza and we tell her that we don’t and she suggests the old bus depot that has been turned into a great food and bar scene where you can order at multiple places and have a food court.  Oscar loves this place because he gets to have pizza, we get to get what we want and there’s alcohol too.  And this is our first encounter with the money to eat out in Iceland.  A very modest meal for all of us with three drinks costs $85.  And with that, we decide not to care anymore what the exchange rate is or what it costs to eat, because we didn’t come on vacation to worry about what it might cost to eat.  And the food is good, the beer and cider, not so much.  We’re going to walk to the big church, but we’re all too punchy to make it.  You would think that all three of us had been drinking heavily the way that we’re laughing about nothing in the streets, but it’s 36 hours without sleep that we’re going on.  We call it a night and Oscar and I lose consciousness in a way that is something I wish I could bottle.  I didn’t get up, move, pee or even really care or notice that the sun never went down much, that the nightlife never shut up or that it was too damn hot in the hotel.  For 14 hours, I think I was in a coma.  I haven’t slept that long since I was a teenager and not even half that long since having a kid….