Reykjavik

August 17, 2022

Hi to all our family and friends from Reykjavik, Iceland.

We started our trip on Tuesday with the good news that Ric and Vicki were at the airport ready to fly to Newark, then from there to Iceland. This was good because Vicki was sick over the weekend, and we were not sure they would be going. The bad news was that Ric started having digestive issues that day, but they decided to fly anyway.

Our flight was scheduled to depart SNA at 2:15 pm but when we got all boarded, they called a ‘ground stop’ because of storms over Palm Springs and the air traffic controllers had to reroute all flights from Southern California airports around Palm Springs air space. One hour later we were cleared to go but we had to fly over San Francisco to Chicago. This made our flight an hour late and we only had an hour to change planes, so we had to make a mad dash from our airplane to our connecting flight to Reykjavik. Fortunately, the flight was at the next gate and United decided to hold the flight for the six people who were on our flight. When we got into our seats, we got a text from Vicki saying that Ric was in a lot of pain and after talking to his doctor, they decided to return home from Newark where they were to change planes. We are so very sad that Ric is not well and we are going to miss them on a trip that they have looked forward to and planned on for over a year.

After a smooth flight we landed on Wednesday morning in Reykjavik. It was rainy, cold and very windy but we had a driver waiting for us to take us to our hotel.

Since our room wasn’t ready yet we took advantage of the time and first went to a lovely bakery to fuel up. This would have made Carla’ pastry tour.

After the great food, we walked to the Hallgrinskirkja Lutheran Church – a well known landmark in Reykjavik. It is beautiful inside and out and we enjoyed the organist playing the 5,275-pipe organ.

Next, we got a taxi to take us to the Perlan Icelandic Museum

Look close - we are sitting in an ice chair...burr.

We enjoyed the show in the 360 dome theater showing the northern lights, learned about glaciers, and walked through the 130-yard-long ice cave. It was beautiful and very cold (-10c), so we didn’t linger too long in it.

When we finished at the museum, we were able to get into our room. After a short rest and a spell in the hot tub, we strolled along the main street and enjoyed the shops.