I made it!!

Leg one of my journey: complete! I'm in the hotel (Room with a View) in Reyjkavik now, and I just got the wifi to work. This hotel is soo nice, and it's not even one of the pricier ones! It's only about 150 a night, and it's got a HUGE bathroom, a great looking kitching with microwave, fridge, etc., a giant flatscreen tv, red leather couch, and everything's all brand new looking, with glass and metal table tops and fixtures, tile and wood floors, etc. I'll post with pictures later, when I've unpacked all my stuff in Copenhagen maybe.

The bus ride was amazing. Not in any particular way, just that it was so light out (it looked like 4 am light, or like manhattan at night). That was the first thing I noticed. Cody's first comment was "welcome to maine!" and that really is what it looked like. On the plane when we were nearing Iceland, the sun in the plane looked like it was maybe 6 or 7 pm, not 11:45! The whole thing felt like a dream, I went through security (they check AGAIN when you get off, make you stand in line, take your shoes off, that whole thing) and then made my way out of the airport and onto the bus. When we left keflavik we drove on the highway (i guess, it was only like 40 or 50 mph) and the clouds lightened a little. I gotta tell ya, this landscape is amazing. I was just so fascinated staring out the window, everyone kept turning left and right so as not to miss a single image. The busses have nice huge windows, so you can take everything in. The land was pretty flat, but rocky and volcanic-y looking, with moss over everything. It's just so different from anywhere I've seen! It reminded me of when we drove into Moab, Utah, and you just want to soak every single sight in and notice every detail, and everything is just so foreign you don't even have time to stop and think how far from home you are. It also kind of felt a little bit like driving up to Canada this winter, the trees in Reykjavik look a little similar, and it's got this foreign-old world-modern vibe and everything is just so cute and quaint. I love it!

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Rewind!

My flight was good, there was a minor issue when Cody's seat was not where it was supposed to be, but we waited till the new passengers (there were transfer passengers coming also) were seated and then they switched him back to next to me. The flight was good, my nerves settled down once we got in the air. There was very little turbulence, which is almost unusual (but very lucky!) according to the lady next to us, who said the wind around iceland makes it very rough sometimes, so all the pilots are really good pilots because they have to deal with crazy wind most of the time. Cody and I first watched the movie they were playing, some sappy movie about this nyc boy who has a giant crush on this girl, and the whole thing is like him second guessing what to say to her. Then watched my new pushing daisies dvds, and the lady (same lady) next to him (I was at the window) points at the screen and was like, oh, that actress? Kristin Chenoweth? I went to high school with her, we like grew up together. NO. EFFING. WAY. but it's totally true! They weren't like best friends, but they were both drama kids at Broken Arrow High School, and she's known her since middle school. Cody and I ended up switching seats when I got up to use the bathroom, and this woman (who was extremely nice) and I (and cody somewhat, amidst his snickering) got to talking about Kristin and looking at the old pictures in her book (which of course I have) for maybe a solid half hour? at least. I'm sure cody will tell you it felt like an hour and a half. She had lots of little cute memories about what "Kristi" was like, and we both shared our joy at finding fellow Cheno fans. Cody just laughed at me the whole time. It was like in Cat's Cradle, when he talks about the people you meet who are part of your "group" and you just know, well I had a feeling something interesting would happen with someone I met on this flight, and I was right! Ohh, Kristin, I just love you! I know I'll never hear the end of this from Cody (who already made fun of how nervous I was during takeoff), he got a full glimpse of how much I am a fan of hers and how much I know (and will talk about) her to someone who shares my interest.

Now, it's already close to 3 am here, so I have to go to bed! Natalie gets in in only about 3 or 4 hours, and then we have a bus at 9:30 to the blue lagoon (!!!). I'll post more tomorrow, I am taking lots of pictures and I'll post them soon, like I said probably from Copenhagen.

TWO DAYS!!

I can't belieeeeve it! I really cannot. Two days from now I will be at Logan airport, and two days and 2 hours from this very moment I will be boarding the plane to Iceland. AAHHH!!!! I just called Iceland Air to see if they could seat me and cody together, because we're on the same flight (he called and said they said no, I didn't trust that he tried hard enough) and it's a good thing i called, because now Nina from Iceland Air customer service is my new best friend. She moved me up 4 rows and kept my window seat, and now im next to cody! yaaay! and she changed the flight home too so i never have to fly alone!! (Natalie and I are flying together to and from copenhagen-iceland together) I love Nina. And now I have a person to call, MOM, if something goes wrong with my booking. Which it won't, because this isn't the 70's, but still. Now I have a name to drop, feel better?

I have my list of every item I have to pack, and the measurements of my giant pink suitcase are juuust under the limit, i just hope it weighs under 50 lbs.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next time I post will be from Iceland!!! IN TWO DAYS!!! AHHH!!!!

Travel Plans & Plane Tickets!

[All times listed are local to the host cities to which they reference.]

Yesterday morning Cody's mom got him his tickets for Copenhagen, only she didn't leave him any time (well, an hour and a half) to stay in Raykjavik (where there's a free multi-day layover if you want it, when going on IcelandAir to Europe) so I didn't immediately buy my tickets to match his. Brekke already had hers and is staying for like 3 days in iceland before heading over to Copenhagen. Natalie hadn't bought hers yet though, and so we met last night and in about an hour and a half had finally worked out which flights we were taking. I ended up being able to take cody's flights (last seat! so they said!) to iceland and then the whole way back from copenhagen.

Natalie, who is flying out of NY rather than BOS was originally going to take a flight which, she discovered, transferred in boston on to OUR flight. But then she also found out her total order was somehow 4,400 dollars. US dollars. I joked that there was a 3500 dollar Boston Fee for new yorkers, but she checked her dates and they were all right, and the only flight that DIDN'T stop in boston was the right price. Somehow. So she's not going to stop in boston, which she didn't want to do anyway, but somehow her flight is 40 minutes shorter than mine will be anyway. The unfortunate thing is that the only ones that didn't stop in boston were redeye flights, so when cody and I get in at midnight (he moves on to copenhagen to get in early morning) natalie will be in at like 6 am. So Basically the only time I will have to be alone in a foreign country will be the 6 hour period in which i will take the shuttle (which they have) from the airport to the hostel or inn or wherever we end up staying, and pass out til natalie gets there. As I pointed out, it will be so light there for so long in the day it doesn't really matter when we sleep or get up, and as she pointed out, our sleep schedules will be so messed up anyway from having been on overnight planes and time differences anyway.

So then natalie and I, after some more sleep, will have the whole day to spend in Raykjavik, which i am SUPER EXCITED about! Although my frame of reference for iceland is hearing about my friend's trip in elementary school, and Lazytown, I have wanted to go there for a long time and I'm glad I'm taking the chance to do it now or else it may be a long time before I really have an opportunity to go there again. It's just enough time to go to the hot springs for a little while, eat, and go to a museum or touristy place, eat again, and walk around the city. They have a horrible economy in iceland, so they ship in foreigners to spend money there, and it's worked with us; as my dad said,"we'll be KINGS!"

Then, early the next morning, we have to get back to the airport for a flight around 7-something, and we'll get into copenhagen by about 12:30 on the 3rd day of our whirlwind European travelcation, and as exhausted as we will inevitably be by then, and our biological clocks so confused the hands will just be reeling around in circles and frantically throwing us into states of narcolepsy, we have to check in to DIS by 2 and then make it out of the orientation information events alive, and then we can spend our first night in Copenhagen.

I'm really excited to have one whole day in Raykjavik, and I look forward to years from now when I can look back on this whole trip and say, "I got to see Iceland for a whole day, too. I'm so glad I did that."

And I can't wait to meet Sportacus.