What’s kept me from posting anything in great detail about my trip is a new difficulty I’ve been facing on and off for a few years now, and that’s an inability to break down the steps needed to complete a large or complex task into clearly defined and achievable tasks. I used to be excellent at this, but I forgot somewhere over time that any and all things are finished not because one did everything at once, but because one did everything in sequence. How do I share almost three weeks of travel experiences and hundreds of pictures? The answer is deceptive in its simplicity: by sharing one story and one picture at a time. I read once solutions were easy—it was identifying the problems they solved that was difficult.
It’s now just before 6AM back at the end of January. I’m on a bus taking me from the airport in Keflavík to the capital of Iceland, Reykjavík. It will take about half an hour, and the same winds that were blowing the airplane around in the sky are blowing the bus around on the ground. I feel its crabwise motion down the road. The headlights of oncoming traffic dazzle in twisting chunks of sideways rain. We clear the storm and a quiet applause breaks out as we arrive at the bus station—our driver is congratulated on getting us all there in one piece.
The final leg of my journey is the 2.5 km walk I left for myself from the bus station to where I’d be staying. I’m prepared for it to be frigidly cold, but it’s not—maybe around 7 ºC—almost tropical with how warm and damp the air is. I vanish into the unfamiliar streets of city with only a vague sense of where I’m going based on the map I studied before, and then it hits me: I’m walking through the capital of Iceland at 7AM, and no one else is. I stop and look around. It’s just me. I scan the lit windows of buildings. Still just me. A brief moment of sleep‐deprived and disorientated panic spreads: no one else is here…
And then I hear something—something far away is slowly getting closer, a big, lumbering something: a street cleaner. I stare at it creeping closer to me, creeping closer down the empty and spotless street. There’s at least one other person here with me now. Panic fades. It starts raining and gusting wind. It’s the storm from the highway. I’m starting to notice I’m cold, tired, and hungry, but it’s still a few hours before where I’ll be staying is open, and at least an hour before anything else will be open.
I keep exploring the empty city as my legs grow officially tired of walking. My suitcase is too heavy now for either hand and I refuse to use the wheels built into the suitcase because the sound on the cobblestone everything is embarrassingly loud—although I don’t know why it matters as there is still no one outside to be embarrassed in front of—the rain no longer charming or tropical, it’s getting colder and aside from the operator of the street cleaner the only other people I’ve seen where warm and dry in a hotel dinning room eating breakfast.
Back home I know at any hour of any day I could find a coffee and croissant in most any neighbourhood of downtown Toronto. It may not be the best coffee or croissant or neighbourhood, but I know I could do it. As I’m thinking just that, I round another dark corner and find the block is bathed in the unmistakable omnipresent lighting found only in shops open 24 hours a day. It’s a convenience store, but with extra fancy things to eat and drink, including fresh croissants and fresh from the machine coffee, plus places to sit and watch Icelandic morning television. I am so happy to be warm, seated, and caffeinated.
Someone had left an English tourism magazine at my table, and as luck would have it there was an article on where to go for breakfast when visiting downtown Reykjavík. As double luck would have it one of the places in the article was down the street from where I was and would be open soon, so I waited and then headed over for second breakfast.
I’ve become one of those people who writes on their piece of fashionable technology in what at least looks like a fashionable place to eat breakfast and drink coffee.
After flying all night I found myself having walked for half an hour away from the bus station in Reykjavík with only a vague recollection of the way from there to downtown with the idea of watching the city wake up as I drink coffee and enjoy a croissant.
It’s 8:30AM and the sun is still two hours away from being up, and until around half an hour ago, the only people downtown were me and the guy driving the street cleaning machine—it would seem at least. I’m used to a larger capital city. It’s raining, but I find a 24‐hour grocery store after my third wander for something to eat. They have coffee and
…and that’s all I got down before my amazing breakfast arrived. More details are in this post from the day of. I did get a good picture of the restaurant, which to me felt like a mix of past and future breakfast nooks sprinkled with 70s decor via the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. I like it.
The sun is just starting to come up as I’m finishing eating. The streets are filling with activity, but I’m not able to check into my room just yet. I’m tired, but I’m also on my third wind from my second breakfast, so I head out to get some of my first pictures.