Leaving Iceland

After a quick breakfast at Reykjavik Lights on Monday morning, Myles and I checked out of the hotel. The drive to the airport, which is in Keflavik, took around forty minutes from the capital. Once at the Keflavik Airport, I refueled the car at a nearby gas station and returned it to the designated parking lot for Europcar. An employee then inspected the vehicle while I signed paperwork. Afterwards, the same man drove Myles and I to the entrance of the airport.

Myles flight wasn’t until the afternoon, so he waited in the lobby while I checked in. While inline for the ticket counter, Delta employees went from person to person to provide a basic security check. I was asked to provide my passport along with a series of questions. The questions included information about where I stayed, what the view from my hotel room was and how long I was in the country for. A green sticker was then placed on the back of my passport.

The airport security process was standard. Boots were took off and placed in a standalone container. My bag and camera were placed in another. It was no different from any other airport that I’ve been to. The whole process took about two minutes. Myles came along as well, even though he had quite a few hours to wait. Unfortunately, due to length of time before Myles flight, he wasn’t allowed to go through customs with me. We had to say our goodbyes there.

But it wouldn’t have mattered much if he was allowed to come. I had about ten minutes to visit the gift shop before my flight began boarding. I purchased a replica version of the bronzed Eyrarland Statue for around six hundred Icelandic Króna. The small statue is of Thor with his hammer Mjölnir. It was to be my token for Iceland. As on each trip, I try to find an object that reminds me of the location I went to. The tradition started on my trip to New York last summer when I purchased a small yellow taxi cab at the Museum of Modern Art.

The flight from Iceland to New York’s John F. Kennedy was smooth but beyond mundane. The electronic system for the seat-back tablets failed at the beginning of the flight and never came back on. I was just about to watch the latest Thor movie. It sort of baffled me that the Delta 757 was still running a dated version of Linux to handle their in-flight entertainment. With the tablet on, I could see the system log as it tried to boot up for a few hours. I spent the remainder of the flight either asleep or in conversation with the other passengers in my row.

From John F. Kennedy, I still had two flights to catch before I could go home. But the day went by quickly, with decently timed layovers. I flew into Minnesota’s Saint Paul International for the first time and was surprised at how big the airport was. I arrived at Terminal G and had a fifteen minute walk over to Terminal A. The flight back to Marquette, Michigan only took around an hour. It was a little past ten thirty at night when the plane pulled into one of the two terminals. I was beyond tired when I arrived back at my apartment and went straight to sleep.