Iceland, on the Rocks

Patty and I are holed up in an indescribably quaint little hotel on the oceanfront near the airport. Patty's still sleeping. I'm wondering why I'm not. It's 9am according to the unpronounceable, Icelandic cell network that has taken over my iPhone (enough with the k's already). My brain is still telling me it's 5am, however. Of course, that has just as much to do with four time zones as it does the 3000 miles of non-stop, in-flight vodka and champagne that fueled our arrival. Thank God (er, Odin), these people are known for their coffee. I think I'll pour some directly into my eyes.

Speaking of people, it's probably polite to introduce you to ours at this point. 

From right to left (because I have temporary travel dyslexia), that's 1) Abby, my nephew's girlfriend and seemingly most pragmatic of our little sub-posse, 2) Nick, my nephew and unofficial stress tester of airplane bathrooms, and 3) Abby's brother, Hayden, of yet-to-be-determined personality traits or quirks to mock or otherwise deride.

So far, it's been a blur: the construction filled crawl through a vanilla bland stretch of Ontario's heartland, the amazing Italian meal in Downtown Toronto (Dear Detroit, that's how you do a city of over 2 million), the Park 'n Ride shuttle that smelled of poutine and body odor (as if there's really a difference), and the aforementioned, flying bar that dumped us onto this little volcanic nub in the middle of the North Atlantic. 

The sun was setting when we got here after 11pm. It was coming up again when we went to bed at 3am. Stupid sun.

Anyway, Reykjavik, the capital, stands before us today, where we will meet back up with the kids, check into our urban digs, and begin our discovery of Iceland (primarily by way of it's bars and bar-adjacent restaurants). But since I need more coffee now, we can discuss that later.