Raleigh to Reykjavik

 Wednesday, February 4, 2926

I'm off on my next big adventure - Iceland! My best friend, Charlotte, and I were talking about the places we would love to go and Iceland was at the top of our list. We both want to see the northern lights so we decided to go in the winter. Let's say that again - Iceland in the winter! Are we crazy?! No - just desperate to see the Northern Lights and experience all the other joys of Iceland. So we met halfway between our houses in Raleigh to fly to Iceland. Charlotte lives near Ashville, NC and I live near Charlottesville, VA so it was a handy place to fly out of and also because Charlotte's daughter lives in Raleigh and was able to drive us to the airport. Super convenient!

We arrived at the Raleigh airport 3 hours before our flight, so after an only semi-traumatic experience through TSA, we trudged through the airport in our heavy winter gear, located our gate, and settled down at a nearby burger joint for dinner and airport drinks (aka beer). Much excited giddiness ensued. We were finally called to board at 7:30 for a very full flight...which begs the question why are so many people flying from NC to Iceland in the middle of winter?

Charlotte scored us exit row seats so lots of leg room, thank you tiny baby Jesus! We settled in for a six hour red eye to Iceland with absolutely no expectation of sleep and we were spot on accurate, dammit! We arrived in Reykjavik at 6:30 am and were shuttled on a bus fro the plane to the terminal where we then stood in a very long customs line with hundreds of bleary-eyed friends. The zombie vibe was strong. Half an hour later, we were officially stamped and we moved on to the baggage claim. The path to the baggage claim takes you directly through the duty-free shop - you couldn't avoid it which is genius on their part. So, of course Charlotte and I were drawn in and had to buy a box-o-wine because it's half the cost in duty free and seriously stinking expensive in the shops in the city. 

We then finally collected by luggage that I had to check at the gate for being oversized which was a total falsehood perpetuated by the airline staff - not that I'm bitter about it or anything.  Since there was no clear  delineation between Wednesday and Thursday, I'm going to invent one and declare this an end to the Wednesday post. Follow along, why don't you while I continue our adventure for Thursday in the next post.