Arrival - August 4

On our flight to Iceland, I watched "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once," but it was hard to hear over the engine noise, therefore difficult to make sense of it. When dinner was served, I got a vegetarian stir fry dish, a salad, roll & butter, and a grain bar. They were stingy with drink, handing out small glasses of pop instead of the whole can, but I still had some Dr Pepper that I had bought in Orlando, so I got through.

I started to watch the latest Wizarding World movie, couldn't hear the dialog, so I turned it off and tried to sleep. I managed to doze some, but didn't get any deep sleep. Hubby says he got about an hour of sleep. He elbowed me awake when it was time for breakfast, which was Greek yogurt and biscotti and a small glass of tomato juice. Nothing to write home about, but here I am, writing about it.

We got to Iceland about an hour late. There was a long line to get through customs, which consisted of looking at and stamping our passports, and asking how long we'd be staying. That was followed by a long walk to find our luggage. When we got to the lobby and found the cruise line people, we joined another long line while they made sure we were in the right line, and took our major luggage to send it to the ship. Eventually, they put us on a bus. When the bus was full, we were sent off on a 45-minute ride to the ship.

So, despite the delays, we got to Iceland more or less on time. Could have lived without the excitement of nearly missing our connection, though.

We were told a new volcano had started erupting on 8/3 in a valley beyond a ridge that ran parallel to the road for a time. We couldn't see the eruption, but we could see smoke and gases arising from beyond the ridge. I tried to memorize the sight; the smoke looked like a rising cloud, and the gasses outlined the 'cloud' in a misty pale blue. I'd love to try to paint that some day. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of it, as the camera was buried in one of our carry-on luggage, now located in the bowels of the bus.

Once we got to the pier, we were sent to an interim check-in building. Several times we joined long lines before we got out the other end. The first line took us to a security check point, where we had to get our carry-on luggage x-rayed. The next line was for somebody to look at our passports. Then a line where we had to sign some papers and collect our on-board room key. And the final line was for Icelandic official to look at and stamp our passports.

So we finally got onto the ship, but our cabin wasn't ready for us yet. We took our carry-on luggage up to deck 12 to have some lunch at the buffet. One thing we learned very quickly is that food at the buffet was not the greatest. But it was something to do while we waited. So we ate, and then Hubby walked around the decks and snapped some pictures of the scenery as seen from the ship. I sat in the buffet with our luggage and pulled out a notebook to start writing. Eventually, the ship announced that cabins were ready. Hubby returned, and we went to drop off our luggage.

We had a balcony! Hubby had bid on an upgrade to a balcony room, and it had gone through. Hooray! We didn't just have a window, we had a balcony where we could sit and watch the water go by.

Our 2 big suitcases hadn't quite arrived yet, but we could relax in our room. And now I have to close this, because I don't remember where we had supper that night, nor what we did, except unpack when our suitcases arrived. And being sleep deprived, we went to bed early.