Iceland Preparation, Flight, and Arrival
July 15, 2019 Filed under Stress
For years I was obsessed with the idea of taking a trip across all of Europe and Asia. The idea chewed around in the back of my brain, and I did my best to ignore it, because it was weird and scary.
Then some events in my life forced me to confront the idea directly, and I realized that even if I wouldn’t or couldn’t do the entire trip, I could at least do the starting portion: A zig-zag across the country of Iceland, during the summer months.
My most ambitious route crossed down the center of the country and took 31 days at 30 miles every day. With the six-day middle crossing included, and the ferry cross up from Vatnasafn, plus time to prep gear and sightsee, the entire tour would probably take six weeks (42 days) and most likely approach 8 weeks (56 days).
While putting this crazy plan together I made several pages of notes, divided into three phases: Entering, Crossing, and Exiting. If you’re planning your own bike tour of Iceland it’s a nice info dump.
Why indeed!
Good question, Dad. Essentially the reasons are: Low crime, good infrastructure, fantastic terrain, and not much of a language barrier. Plus it’s the extreme western point of what could be called Europe, and connects to the mainland by a ship that sails on a regular schedule.
Of course, even though I had months to put together a great set of equipment and study routes and terrain, it still came down to a mad dash over the last few weeks, when all this happened at once:
- I laid on the floor in agony for several days and passed a kidney stone.
- I went in for a series of doctor appointments and blood tests, for the kidney stone, allergies, and other things.
- The water heater in my apartment began to leak all over the floor. (I can’t pass this responsibility on to the landlord — I am the landlord.)
- I gave tours to and evaluated a dozen renters, in order to rent out my apartment so I didn’t blast through my savings on the road.
- I drove several loads of furniture to Southern California.
- Full time work.
But somehow, the boxes got packed. I was up until 4:00am for most of the last week, but I didn’t quit. It was time to make this happen. I was done looking, it was time to leap.
Andrew gave me a ride to the airport, hauling along the massive bike boxes in his massive car. I was running on less than four hours of sleep and very grateful for the help. Hiring an airport shuttle with luggage this big is a total crapshoot. We chatted about his camping plans, his car, and his middle child Nora, who was going through a strange punk phase and making some strange decisions. There was an accident on the Bay Bridge but we got to the airport in good time.
Andrew helped me unloaded everything at the curb, and we exchanged hugs. “Send pictures!” he said. “You bet!” I said. Then he drove off, and I stood there with a backpack, two suitcases, and two huge boxes, wondering what my next move was. Find a handcart perhaps?
As I was swapping things around in the backpack, a man wandered by with a large cart and said I could use it for ten dollars. I had to get rid of my American cash anyway, so I agreed. He hauled everything onboard and pushed it inside to Icelandair check-in desk. Usually this is the point where a lot of haggling over box sizes and regulations begins, and that’s why I planned to be here several hours before the flight. Was I going to have to pull out my phone and quote from the airline’s own website, and speak to several managers, like I had last time? Yes, a box this large can go on the plane. Yes, it’s sporting equipment. Go ahead and look inside.
The attendants weighed all my stuff, and then brought up my baggage purchases on their computer. I’d put three check-in bags on my ticket, plus the carry-on, and then I’d called earlier in the week to add an oversize bicycle to the list. With only a few words exchanged, the attendants agreed that my third checked bag could be the smaller bicycle box, because I was only bringing one bicycle but dividing it between two boxes to meet weight requirements. That was it. The boxes were checked and wheeled away in less than five minutes and I didn’t have to open my wallet.
The security line was long but moved well. I had to discard my entire bottle of root beer before I got to the x-ray, which was aggravating. Then I was at the gate, with almost two hours to spare. Time to charge up all my gadgets!
I admit I would have enjoyed the flight a lot more if I haven’t been a sleep-deprived zombie. I discovered that while the exit row did have more room, it was also stone cold because of the way the air circulated in the cabin. I pulled out my fluffy pillow from my backpack, crammed it in the corner of the chair, and tried to sleep for about two hours.
I woke up somewhere over Canada and felt a bit better, but I missed the meal service. So I summoned the flight attendant – a lithe Icelandic woman with a sharp voice who spoke impeccable english – and she confirmed that I had a paid-for meal, which she then brought. A tasty falafel salad that was a bit dry, so I gulped water with every bite.
Greenland passing below…
Another nap, some cool views over Greenland, and we were there!
Packed shuttle from the plane to the terminal.
Everyone here is on their way to a groovy Icelandic adventure. Wearing my backpack, I fit right in… But soon I would claim my massive amount of luggage, and start looking like a weirdo and getting curious looks, like bike tourists always do.
Oversize items creep down that ramp on the right and slide into the room, a few at a time. In the digestive system of the baggage conveyors, this is the appendix.
It’s like the backside of some giant box-eating herbivore. A boxivore!
Miraculously, all the suitcases and boxes got here intact.
I’d already bought an Iceland-compatible data plan on my phone to keep costs down, but it didn’t let me make local calls. I had to bite the bullet and invoke my roaming charges to call up the hotel and ask when their shuttle would arrive. Turns out I needed to: They weren’t running the shuttles unless someone specifically booked them, and so far no one had booked any today. I would have been waiting forever if I hadn’t spent ten dollars on roaming charges. So … worth it?
The boxes were opened up for inspection, apparently. Good thing they didn’t lose any of my stuff.
Once everything was safely inside my hotel room I discovered that someone had opened up the larger of my two boxes and inspected it, and dropped in a tag. Now I know who to yell at if something’s missing! Arrr!
Contents settled during shipping — but only a little.
For the next four hours I unpacked, organized, and repacked everything. I’d been doing trial runs with this gear for quite a while, figuring out how to pack it down. Laid out on the foor I have to admit it looks completely impossible to fit on a bike. And yet it all does.
Everything laid out for taking inventory. That’s a lot of stuff, yah?
And that was it for me. I fell onto the bed and slept. It was early evening, seven hours had vanished into jetlag, and the day was gone.
At least technically, since the sunlight never completely leaves the sky… Welcome to the far north!!
For the next week, the limit of my mental capacity was playing video games and petting the cat. Forget working — even answering emails. I couldn’t read more than a few lines without forgetting where I was. Part of my brain was floating overhead in a balloon, doing its own thing, and there was no way it could participate in waking life. To keep the few appointments I had – one with a contractor, one with a mechanic – I clutched my phone like a spool of thread in a labyrinth, and set a dozen alarms.
Did someone just say something stupid? Now it’s here on your screen, and you have a tiny chance of saying something back to the author. How dare they say something so stupid where you, and others, can go read it. It might reach other people – not the stupid author, not you, not your fellow angry commenters, but some potential other third party that is gullible or equally stupid – and reinforce their stupidity. You must stop it! You have to drown it out in recrimination and mockery or sarcastic politeness! Quick, the chance to strike a blow against some stupid words that are on your screen is passing with every second, as the replies stack up and the crowd grows. Swing your fist before the target is obscured beneath other fists!
He always, always deserves it – not just the snarky ripostes, but the insults, the crank calls, the petitions for firing and destitution, the fraud and vandalism and trespassing. And hey – you didn’t want it to go that far, you just left a comment, and passed it on. … Which is exactly how and why it came to the attention of the worst actors in the mob.
Remember the conspiracy theorists on the liberal fringe ten years ago, who liked to scream “wake up, sheeple”? Well there’s no conspiracy required here. Just the extension of marketing tactics into social networking technology. We’re all wide awake; our only failure is in failing to understand that our online activity is now subject to such heavy filtering and interference that our political arguments and virulent “public” shamings are almost entirely self-referential, like yelling “booo, hiss” at the rich oligarch on a movie screen after we’ve wordlessly paid 15 bucks to get inside the theatre. In our enthusiasm for what’s on the screen, we forget that everyone around us is already a customer, viewing something constructed by others to gather an audience: Rage is cathartic. You’ll pay for catharsis, and the net is designed to deliver.
When you’re online hunting for a product, presenting the right search result to you is worth a nice chunk of money. But when you’re online because you’re following a compulsion to “make your voice heard”, that’s a whole lot more time online, during which you can be distracted by anything – because you’re not looking for anything in particular, except validation. An ad thrown at you just as you’re finding that validation is worth a lot to an advertiser. How many times have you finished making your comment, or airing your fetid complaint, or satisfying your righteousness, and sent your eyes wandering around the screen for the next thing to explore, while those happy chemicals are still percolating in your brain?