Not much in Vogar

Fragmented sleep again.  Still getting used to the time difference and the light.

I had a very unpleasant dream that I’d recently moved house, and suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen my cat Mira for three days.  I went wandering around the property noticing all kinds of things that were dangerous for an old three-legged kitty:  Steep hills, a muddy creekside, animal dens, a road, rival cats.  Then I saw her, in the middle of a flooded pit filled with dead branches, swimming weakly, trying to move toward me but stuck in the debris.  I rushed down and plucked her from the water and cradled her in my arms. 

She felt warm, which was a good sign, but she had a wound in her stomach that was bleeding.  I implored my neighbors for help getting a towel to wrap her in, and finding a car to get to the vet, but my neighbors just stared, so I set about doing things myself.  Then I woke up, in the semi-darkness of the tiny cabin, with the wind streaming by outside.

“Mira is safe in the little Oakland back yard, and your nephew feeds her every day,” I reassured myself.  “She may be far away but she’s in good hands.” I took hold of the thought like a tiny brush, and ran it across my mind, settling myself. The wind outside ebbed away leaving absolute silence.

I unfolded myself from the bed and ate some chips and peanuts, aired out the room a bit, and then laid down for another long nap.  By the time I woke up again it was noon, five hours later.

I dressed and boarded the bike to have a look around town. Top of my list was food, because all I had for the day was one package of peanuts, and my metabolism was awake and burning in “tour mode” now.

A groovy black sand beach. But a bit cold for swimming.

There were no shops, except for one small place that was closed for the weekend. There was a decrepit restaurant that had shut down some time during the pandemic. I asked at the local hotel but the clerk had no idea where I could eat, unless I rode to the next town.

I decided to stay just for the day, rather than two, and booked a hotel partway to Reykjavik. I could nap here some more, then get up early.

Next to an abandoned building I found a large dumpster heaped with scrap metal, and this perched on top:

Anyone trying to drive this is definitely quackers.

I sent a photo to Andrew, and the chat pinged for the next half hour as I rode around.

Andrew

Oh wow! I saw one of those cruising around locally about two months ago.

Technically not legal in the ‘States, but there’s a program that will allow you to import the occasional non- compliant personal vehicle.

I love how they took the rack/ladder and just mangled and crushed it against the front.

Me

So what the heck did this one go through? It looks like someone cut the cab off and welded a metal sheet across it, then painted Donald Duck there to hide their shame?

Andrew

World’s coolest treehouse? I don’t know!

Me

Hah! No tree big enough in Iceland!

Andrew

That rusty junk in front of it is the frame/undercarriage.

Did they completely disassemble it just out of boredom?

Me

Check out the rusty metal bar on the right edge. It’s “welded” on!

Andrew

Hah! It’s a leveling jack! Maybe this was a treehouse minus the tree!

Me

Dang, I think this monstrosity was used as a tiny “cabin” and rented out to tourists.

The town of Keflavik had clearly benefitted from the international airport nearby. The town of Vogar had clearly not. The government had built an excellent, wide highway connecting Keflavik to the capital, and it blew right past Vogar.

A little bit of history everywhere you go.

Nevertheless, the township had a little money to spare for preservation, and I learned about some early post-Viking settlers.

Local lore of Vogar.

When I got back to the cabins, I saw a giant row of tents appearing all at once. Some package tour no doubt. Hello fellow explorers! I was tempted to ask if they had any food.

Lots of campers setting up together. They pulled all this gear directly out of a large van.

It was another windy night. I had the electric heater cranked up, but the lack of air circulation in the tiny space felt a bit dangerous, so I used some of my gear to prop open a window.

Keeping the window partially open in the wind.

That weird hybrid sense of comfort and dread that comes with being isolated in a rugged place was upon me again, and in a few minutes I was asleep.

Flowers and trails and boats, oh my!

Only a few hours of irregular sleep, and when I opened my eyes it was half an hour before my 10:45am “oh crap get out” alarm. I always do this; calculating the absolute minimum amount of time I’d need to get out of a hotel room in the morning and then setting my alarm based on that. The idea is, sleep is super important, and I’d rather stay asleep if my body wants to, for as long as it wants, and then pack up in a rush, instead of waking myself up pointlessly with an hour or two to spare. But if I wake up organically before that alarm, that’s great.

As it was, with only half an hour difference, I’d never fall back asleep in time. Might as well get up and start packing…

As soon as I rolled out of bed, the shriek of a wood-cutting instrument pierced in from the hallway just outside my door.  I peeked outside, and saw two workmen cutting a hole in the drywall above my bathroom, trying to find the extent of a leak from an upper floor.

I jammed in earphones and finished my few remaining packing tasks, then shoved the bike into the hallway and pushed my two empty suitcases out behind it.  The workmen had a ladder and a lamp on a stand blocking the way to the lobby, but there was a rear exit so I muscled the bike around to that.

So, with the bike loaded, the box shipped, and the hotel room cleared out, there was only one thing to deal with: These cheap-o suitcases I’d used on the airplane.

A container big enough to dispose of a suitcase.

Getting rid of trash in Iceland is quite hard, actually. It’s rare to find an open-access dumpster you can just chuck things into. Luckily there was one behind the hotel. I was probably not supposed to be using it at all. The very idea that one person would generate an amount of waste that would require a dumpster is appalling to Icelanders, no doubt.

But no one was looking, so I stuffed them in.

Only one of these gets you back into the room...

They handed it to me before I knew what it was! I swear!

Checking my pockets afterward I discovered there was one more thing to discard: The hotel key. In fact I had two of them. How had that happened? And this plastic bottle of “Icelandic water” they gave me on check-in… What an embarrassment. It was empty so I chucked that in too.

I took off down towards the city, and stopped at the shoulder of the hill to look out over the bay, thinking, “This will be the last time I get this view.  Better enjoy it.”  Then I realized, “It was the last time last time as well.  You never know!  If there’s a next time perhaps you’ll be sharing this view with a nephew or a girlfriend.”

At the bottom of the hill I turned right, headed for the Subway again.  I wanted a meatball sandwich but they were out of meatballs, so I got a tuna salad in a to-go box and ate it sitting near the window while I organized photos.

Several dozen pop songs from the 80’s played as I sat there.  I remembered hating most of this music when I was young because it was always being piped into my consciousness at what felt like very inappropriate times.  It was the same now.  I wanted to eat my tuna salad and look at my little collection of Iceland photos.  I did not want this activity underscored by some flashy vocalist doing a go-for-broke screaming chorus about how broken his life was since his lover vanished.  “WELL TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOOOW-OOWWW!  THERE’S JUST AN EMPTY SPAAACE!”  Shut up Phil Collins, and get out of my Iceland photos.

How do people just carry on with their lives in these spaces – eating and talking and thinking – with this stuff burrowing into their ears? I will never understand it.

After an hour I packed up again and cruised around town, debating with myself about whether to buy more snacks.

I don't know what it means, but it's compelling.
This is how you grow sunflowers up here.
The massive Skipasmíðastöð Njarðvíkur in Keflavik
This is growing all over Iceland.
Iceland is a pretty safe place from predators.
Gotta stick close to mom's butt!

I couldn’t help stopping by the Viking museum for a photo or two. It’s just so cute!

I prefer my two-wheeled vessel!

Perhaps I should put some anachronistic horns on my helmet?

Actually my plan was to spend the night in the little camping area in front of the museum, but when I went inside to pay for my spot, the outrageously attractive woman behind the counter told me that the campsites had all been shut down for the season due to lack of cleaning staff and tourism. She offered to find me alternative lodgings using her phone, and in less than a minute she did, pointing me to a campground in the tiny hamlet of Vogar that offered sites for ten dollars a day. I reserved one on my phone, and thanked her.

There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the whole museum. A slow day in a slow season. I asked if there was still food left in the brunch area and she told me in her melodic English that they weren’t doing brunch, but there were some pastries in the kitchen area if I wanted to go pick one out. I wandered over there and grabbed one, then wandered back.

She asked if I wanted museum admission too, but I told her I’d already gone through it top-to-bottom a few years ago. We chatted about the best times to visit Iceland, and what tourists usually tried to see in a rush on their typical one-week timeframe.

Her eyes were almond-shaped and angled downward towards the bridge of her nose, giving her a catlike gaze, which she held on me for much longer than seemed necessary in a simple shop transaction. They were an intense, otherworldly green. She put her elbows on the counter and leaned forward to talk to me.

In the back of my mind, some lunatic part of me jumped up and shouted, “Hey! Forget about this bicycle trip and just hunker down here, and ask this lady on a date! And then stay for three months and then apply for a work visa and then get some of your stuff shipped here and then get an apartment and get hitched and have some Icelandic kids! IT’S A GREAT IDEA DO IT. LOOK AT THOSE EEEYES.”

That lunatic is not in charge. I threw a chair at him and he ducked back down. Then I tore myself away from the woman’s gaze, wished her a fine day, and walked outside.

I had a work meeting coming up and the museum closed at 4:00pm, right in the middle of the meeting, so I couldn’t have it there.  The Subway had free wifi. I decided more snacks was a good idea after all, and rode back down there a second time, ordering a steak sandwich in the form of a wrap.

Meeting done, I used the bathroom a final time (very important!) and then set off for Vogar, hoping to be there before my next work meeting started so I could use their wifi — assuming they had any.

The pace was casual. I could have cycled the shoulder of the main highway but I knew there was this fine coastal path. I slowed way down and waved hello to four different people walking dogs of various sizes.

I remember these cliffs from last time. So lovely.

Some time in the last few years, whimsical residents had started painting little heart shapes all along the path!

Little hearts all along the path!

Apparently other people love this path as much as I do.

I zig-zagged out to the main highway and began to plod along.  The wind intensified and began to deliver sleet into my face.  I realized I’d forgotten to put the rain cover on my backpack, so I stopped to do that. I also noticed that my gloves were leaking a little bit at the fingers.  Why do gloves always do this within a year, no matter how expensive and fancy they claim to be? Am I just getting unlucky?

“I hope there’s a place to dry some of this stuff in Vogar,” I muttered, “Or I’m gonna hate being in my tent.”

The dense skyline in the roadsign is a little misleading...

Vogar was not very far away. The shoulder was narrow but there was zero traffic. The sleet turned into rain, blasting sideways into my eyes and forcing me to put on sunglasses even though the cloud cover stole the light. After a while I remembered that I brought a new piece of gear for this very situation: Little plastic goggles!

Too much water; not enough light.

Aaah; that's better!

They were pretty effective. I could see and my face was a little warmer as well. After a while my gloves got so wet that wiping them clear was difficult, but they were still better than the sunglasses. Good job, previous me!

When I got to the campground I discovered that they also had cute little cabins for only a bit more money. I had an AirBnB scheduled in Reykjavik but I had budgeted two days to get there, and I was a day ahead of schedule now, so I rented a cabin for two days. If it proved comfortable I would rent it for a third night and fill the gap.

Yep, it's tiny, but that means the heater is more effective!

Four coathooks but just one coat? No problem!

There wasn’t enough room for the bicycle, so I parked it next to the door. I briefly thought about trying to lock it to something, but … This is Iceland.

I arrayed my gear around the room, pointed at the space heater, then did some corresponding with workmates.  I was too fatigued to write code but I could do all my other job-related tasks.  By 10:00pm I was pooped, so I deployed the sleeping bag onto the bed and played some ambient music.  Only halfway through the playlist, I was out.

As dark as it gets in this tiny room.

Boxes and coffee

Now that the bike was unpacked and ready, I had to deal with the box.

I made some improvements since the last trip. Now the box had crude cardboard end-caps, so I could hold all the little foam bits safely inside. I still had to seal it with tape, but I didn’t need a whole dang roll.

Innermost layer of the box, folded up.

The endcap makes a little holder for foam blocks!

Ready for shipping.

The next step was to get the box shipped out of the country. Like last time, I couldn’t be sure of my eventual destination, so I couldn’t just send it ahead of me. I needed to ship it to someone who could hold onto it for three months or possibly longer, and then be willing to send it somewhere else. This time the (dubious) honor would go to my nephew James.

Last time I thought perhaps DHL had a desk inside the airport itself.  Nope!

Super bonus expert strategy time! I booked a free shuttle ride to take myself and the box over to the airport, but instead of getting out at the airport like a sucker, I asked the shuttle driver to take me directly around to the DHL office one street over, saving me almost an hour of pushing the box around on a pilfered airport trolley. He was fine with it, since I was the only person left in the shuttle.

I would have handed him a cash tip, but I didn’t have any cash yet. Bonus expert strategy failure; boo!

The lobby was closed but a guy came out and started to tell me that the nearest DHL shipment center was quite a ways away. Then he paused mid-sentence, shook his head as if to clear it, and told me to come inside because they could just ship the package there.

He led me back into the rear office, and I sat in a chair by his desk. He opened the website shipping interface on his computer and walked through the forms with me. All around, people were moving boxes and loading up a van, listening to 80’s-era rock music loud on a stereo built into the wall. In about ten minutes they shut the van doors with a bang and it sped out of the loading bay.

My friend clicked the last button on the form and saw that the site intended to charge me 900 dollars to ship an empty box. He hissed in his breath, then without saying a word to me, he put on his earphones and made several phone calls, talking rapidly in Icelandic. During the second call, he leaned his head close to mine and said, “bear with me,” then got up and left the desk for a while, still arguing on the phone.

Eventually he pulled out his earpiece and sat down again. He opened another window on his computer, typed a few things, and presented me with a bill for $450 — cutting the cost right in half.  I had never asked for a discount, and he had no obligation to give one to a wacky foreign tourist like me, but there it was. I could only conclude that charging so much to ship a box was morally offensive to him, and he had the freedom to do something about it, and so he did.

It’s kind of morally offensive to me too, frankly. $900 is a huge amount of money. But on the other hand, I have an object twice the size of the average suitcase, and I’m asking a company to transport it over an ocean about 1/4 of the way around the entire planet, and deliver it right to the front door of a specific house, without damaging it, in less than a week. And I want them to do this without my oversight, while I’m off doing something else, and not screw it up. What’s that supposed to cost?

I admit, if the man hadn’t given me a discount, I would have tried to bargain for one. But I would have eventually accepted the bill no matter what, because I really like my bike, and I really like keeping it safe in this box, and these boxes are really hard to find … and so on. It’s a complicated problem, and I’m lucky there’s even one way to solve it, even if that way is expensive.

It reminds me of what my friend Tavys says about batteries and electricity:

“You have a battery. You have a machine you want to power. But the voltages are different, so you get a converter. You look at the specs and it says you lose 10% of the power from the battery, just to do the conversion. That seems crazy, right? Well, only if you don’t know how complicated the problem is, turning one voltage into another without losing power. And trust me, it’s really complicated. Besides, if you don’t do any conversion, you can’t use the battery at all, and that makes the power loss 100% right? 10% loss is way better than 100%!”

Anyway, while the paperwork printed and he ran my credit card, I applied some additional tape to the box and we chatted about traveling the island and the weather projections. I used all the tape I brought and it still didn’t seem like enough. Another note for next time…

I showed him a picture of the bike. He seemed pleased that I was traveling in a slower way than the usual tourists, and wished me a good journey. I walked over to the airport, then caught the shuttle scheduled at the top of the next hour and rode it back to the hotel. Box handled!

It was now evening – at least according to my watch – and I was hungry, so I visited the cafe I’d grown fond of on the last visit.

Cafe Petite in Keflavik
Excitedly showing me the sketches for the remodel.
The local motto of Cafe Petite
Piggy bank butt! Oink!
My gut says this is Bach or Mozart, but I'm probably wrong.
One of my favorite bands.
Comfy and eclectic.
I just love old maps. Even when they're useless artistic prints on bathroom walls.

No one else was there when I arrived, so I got to chat with the proprietor for a while. He was glad that business was picking up again, and showed me some sketches of plans for a remodel of the cafe. He almost had enough money saved up. He said he could actually make money a bit faster if he put out a tip jar, but had strong feelings against it.

“I think a tip jar is just thievery.  People in Iceland get paid a living wage.  But it’s complicated, because sometimes visitors feel obligated to leave a tip, or the custom is too strong and they feel weird if they don’t.  So I have a jar at the end of the bar there.”

He pointed to a glass jar hidden partway behind a plant.

“But I don’t label it.  Really though, don’t tip.  It’s just businesses taking money for no reason here.  It’s almost stealing.”

“I see what you mean,” I said. “Yeah, I wish it was like that back in the U.S.  Employers can hire someone and pay them very little, because they count on making money from tips.  But then they also take a cut of the tips. That’s just sick.  It’s like, people are trying to be nice, but they’re undermining the need for a living wage. And now they feel like it’s compulsory, with this electronic stuff. You hand out a tip at the beginning of the transaction, before anyone does anything. What kind of sense does that make?”

He nodded. “Yeah.  Also it’s confusing for me when I travel. I was back in the ‘States, and I gave a tip to a waiter who did a really good job.  My friends told me that he doesn’t actually get the money; it goes into a pot and all the waiters get a cut, and also the chef in the back.  It gets split evenly, so…  How do I reward good service?  And if a waiter is doing badly, the other waiters will want to punish them, because they don’t bring in as much tips.  Plus the taxes are different in every state.  I feel bad if I don’t tip, but how much is right?  So, I don’t know.  But there’s two things I tell everyone who comes to Iceland:  One, don’t tip for anything.  And two, don’t buy the bottled water.  The water from the tap is better.  And it hasn’t been sitting in a plastic bottle on a shelf for who-the-eff-knows how long, pardon my language.”

I like this guy.

Mmm. The first of probably many slices of cake.

This time I was ready for the fully electronic payment system. Between 2019 and 2021 it had spread extremely rapidly back home, and was now the default payment method for nearly everything. No hands touching money — perfect for pandemic safety.

I ordered a tasty looking slice of cake, and what I’ve decided to call an Icelandic-style mocha, which is more like an elaborate hot chocolate with coffee mixed in. They call it a “Swiss Mocha.” I ain’t complaining — it’s delicious!

A familiar-looking painting.

There’s that guy again… I suppose it’s time for me to hit the internet and try and figure out who he actually is.

Aha. It’s a painting of a fisherman by a German-born artist named Harry Haerendel. Apparently it’s become popular in a semi-ironic way. “You come to Iceland thinking about stoic old fisherman, yeah? Okay, here he is. The rest of us don’t fish much, but he does.”

After my pie and coffee, I went riding around in search of more substantial food, and came upon a tiny little fish and chips shop:

Room enough to dine in ... For maybe three people!

While I chomped my order inside and away from the wind, I read the little “about us” poster they were displaying on the wall:

The charming story of this tiny Fish And Chips shop.

Across the street I could see a situation unfolding that I’d never seen during my previous visit. A police officer pulling over a motorist.

It's the coppers!!

A little more riding around town and I came upon something I never thought I’d see in Iceland: A vandalized car.

Local hoodlums must have stolen this car and taken it for a joyride?

It's pretty messed up in here. What are the rocks for?

For a brief moment it was just like being back in Oakland. And not in a fun way.

But then I saw something that made me laugh out loud, as I was riding back to the hotel for a nap:

TWIN OLSENS. Get it? GET IT??

I suppose you have to be of “a certain age” now to find it funny that a shop is making an oblique reference to “Olsen twins”. (But it’s not really worth explaining, so if you don’t get it, go poke the internet…)

I crawled into my hotel bed and tried to sleep for five whole hours, but tossed and turned with my brain racing instead. “Don’t Stop Believin'” kept echoing around in my head, to my extreme annoyance. The restaurant I used to frequent back in Santa Cruz would play that song every night as they shut down, and I’d grown to dread the way the few remaining patrons would burst into song during the chorus. Now it was filling the silence of this room. Arrgh!

I had coffee but it was seven hours ago.  Would it still be that strong? Was my resistance to Icelandic coffee weaker? Is this some ricochet from jet-lag?

Assembly Day

After catching up on sleep and checking in with work, it was time for the traditional (by now) all-day bicycle assembly, where I carefully turn a box and several bags of parts into a self-contained touring machine.

The traditional all-day bike assembly.

This time things were a little more complicated because I had to locate a box from DHL. It contained a kickstand, taken from my other bike.

A week earlier I was double-checking my boxes in Portland and realized I didn’t have a kickstand, so I called up my nephew James in Oakland and walked him through removing the one from Alice. He boxed it up and sent it ahead to the hotel at considerable cost, but it was either do that, or go without a kickstand for my entire trip, which would be extremely annoying. James had never taken a bicycle apart before. And Alice is a greasy bike. It took him hours. He’s a real mensch!

As an aside, I still can’t believe that cycle tourists go without a kickstand just to save weight… I stop at the side of the road dozens of times in the average day and sometimes there’s no place to lay the bike down, or it’s raining and laying it down would soak my gear. Maybe those other people are just younger and they never slow down, and they only have to pee twice a day instead of ten times like I do when I’m on a trip?

It was still light out when I rolled the assembled bike outside. Well… Of course.

Do I look pleased? Well I am!

For my first outing I left the big bags and camping gear in the hotel. It was time to scoot around town and see the sights, and see how much I recognized.

Valoria is back together and ready to look around!

There was that familiar, scintillating line of the ocean in the distance…

The ocean beckons us to our doom.

There’s that giant sword, like a radio beacon for tourists…

Whosoever pulls this sword out of the stone shall be -- way too damn tall, even for an Icelander.

There’s the hilarious Icelandic graffiti. Perhaps a few new scribbles since last time…

Icelandic graffiti wants to be edgy, but it's just cute.

But hang on. There’s something new this time…

What's that in the distance?

Okay, that giant orange light definitely wasn’t there two years ago.

Apparently a mountain is exploding nearby.

It’s the volcano Fagradalsfjall, further north along the Reykjanes peninsula, erupting for the first time in at least 6000 years. Pretty cool!

I perched on the hillside and stared at it for a while, then decided I was too tired. Back to the hotel for a nap, and then I need to deal with the bicycle box…

Landing in Iceland again

Some uncomfortable dozing brought me near Iceland, and we began the slow descent into the clouds.

Like before, we exited the plane directly into the cold open air and a light rain. A short walk brought us to a bus, which brought us to a building, which funneled us to a long line for checking paperwork.

Exiting the plane and heading for the shuttle.

I was too tired for an audiobook so I just stood around and gazed at people. Ahead of me, an older woman with a smart-looking jacket and a wheeled suitcase was talking to a couple in hiking gear. She explained that she was returning home from Portland, after spending six months tutoring a woman there in the Icelandic language.

“I go all over the place teaching people,” she said. “It’s a good job because I get to be a tourist too. Usually it’s business people that want to learn, but this woman said she wanted to find an Icelandic husband and get married.”

She had just a hint of exasperation in her voice, as though she thought the woman was wasting her time. I couldn’t decide if it was because she thought there was no chance of impressing an Icelandic man… Or because she thought Icelandic men were not worth so much effort. Maybe both. I didn’t have the guts to ask.

The immigration desk went easy on me. I just handed out my passport and that little card I got from CVS Pharmacy declaring that I’d had two shots of the Moderna COVID vaccine, and they rubber-stamped me and let me in. No warning about quarantine, no request for a more official document, no reference to the questionnaire I filled out online before I left Portland. And just like that, I was back in a world where nobody wore a mask indoors.

“If I end up getting sick in the next few days,” I thought, “I’m going to feel like a complete idiot for taking this trip.”

The airport pooped my box out of the wall, safe and sound.

Just like before, the bicycle was waiting in the oversize area, unattended and unmolested. I stuck it on a pushcart and collected my other bags. From there I manhandled the cart out into a very crowded post-security waiting area.

I couldn’t figure out where my hotel shuttle was, or the next time it was due, and though I had an Icelandic data plan ready for my phone I couldn’t call any local numbers. The shuttle had to be booked a day in advance, and I’d forgotten to do it, so unless someone else booked it the shuttle might not appear at all.

I walked my tired, hungry butt up to a taxi driver, who quoted me 40 dollars to get to the hotel — a steep price because my baggage would fill up his entire minivan. Ouch. Well, this luggage will pay for itself in the coming days. I’ll be out of the red again as soon as I hit the first campsite.

I think this is supposed to symbolize exploration and transformation. Instead it makes me think of parasites and aliens.

The hotel was the same one I’d used before, and I was delighted to see that I remembered the landmarks along the route.  There’s the jet on a stick, there’s the guy playing guitar… Somehow I’d expected the place to feel as consistently foreign this time as it did the first time.

Turns out I arrived way too early for check-in. It would be four hours before the room was empty and clean. The desk clerk very kindly let me store my enormous luggage in a utility room.

I was starving, and found a vending machine in the lobby that sold candy (hello again, Prince Pollo bars!) but I had no idea where to get cash. I couldn’t remember where I’d got it from last time. A bank in downtown Keflavik maybe?

There were restaurants over there, but it was a very long walk. I asked the desk clerk what she thought I should do, and she opened a drawer and handed me a slip of paper, then winked at me. It was a ticket for the upstairs breakfast buffet. Thank goodness!

This time I was ready for the milk carton that actually contained yogurt.  I poured it on a pile of granola, then poured soy milk on top to loosen it up, and chomped down my American breakfast abomination.

First Iceland meal. Anything's good after eleven hours.

When I came back downstairs there was a crowd of people in military uniform gathered around the desk, reminding me that this hotel was next to a military base. It seems weird from my perspective, but in fact the military base could be credited with the existence of these hotels, and this airport, and most of the city of Keflavik; and the existence of the base in turn can be credited to World War II, and the ensuing nuclear arms race. All the infrastructure I’m using to have a nice vacation is here because taxpayers in my Dad’s generation financed it, as America tried to reduce the chance of yet another global war.

I sat around for a while thinking that over, and texting hello to friends and family back home, and eventually just dozing. When my room was ready I had just enough brainpower to haul the box and suitcases inside and crawl onto the bed.