Vacation Day 8- The long day begins

Hello all! Today we made it to Iceland!  The morning/ Brittish part of our day was pretty uneventful.  We woke up, got on a train, got to the airport then waited around until our flight left.  Unfortunately, our flight was delayed about 50 minutes so we had to wait a bit longer than expected.  But that minor inconvenience was made up for once we got on the plane and sat down in first class seats.  Yep that's right we are flying first class.  Well actually we paid for the upgraded economy class, but since it was full when we booked on our flights we are sitting/flying first class.  It was a lovely flight largely thanks to being a big comfy seats.

 

Anyway we landed in Keflavik around 4:00 pm and after getting the rental car and everything squared away we started heading to Reykjavik.  Even on this short drive you can already get a feel for just how different Iceland is from anywhere else, it is barren and just primordial looking.  The driving was overall uneventful (despite it being the first time Ben drove a manual in about a year), although he did stall out once... On a flat spot, at a traffic light, in light traffic, after having been driving for 20 miles.  But other than that one stall and some rough gear changes everything was pretty smooth sailing. 

Once we were checked into our AirBnB in Reykjavik, we set out to find food.  Following our hosts recommendation we went to a little fish shack nearby and had some lobster soup.  It was delicious, but not very filling.  Since we were not full we then went and walked to the best hotdog stand in Reykjavik.  It turns out that Bill Clinton thought it was the best hotdog in Reykjavik as well, despite this it was still pretty good.  From there we just started to wander the streets and make out way to the big church, Hallgrimskirkja.  It was pretty cool to see and going up in the tower led to some nice views.  Reykjavik is a town that really just sprawls and it is much bigger than I ever would have thought.  See for yourself in some of the pics below.

After the church, we slowly made our way back to our AirBnB stopping for coffee and dessert along the way.  It was a weird feeling walking around at 9 at night and it still feeling like day.  Which brings me to the title of this post "The long day begins", I chose it because quite literally we will not see night until we are back in the States.  So really our whole stay in Iceland is just like one really, really long day.  This should be really neat to experience and supposidly on clear days you do get a bit of a sunset that just lasts for like a couple hours, before it starts to rise again.  I am excited to see this, though it does mean we will not be seeing the Aurora Borealis on this trip.  

Tomorrow we will be picking up our camping gear and heading out into the wilderness of Iceland.  I am sure there are going to be many amazing views and great stories.  However, that being said I am not sure how strong the data or wifi will be, so I will try to post but I may not be able to post anything until we get back to Reykjavik.  So if I miss a couple days I apologize, and just be sure to check back on the 1st.  That is all I have for now so all the best and until next time. 

Vacation Day 7- Planes, Planes, and Planes

Hello all! Today was a pretty solid day.  We went to the Royal Air Force museum just outside of London.  It was really very impressive how massive it was and how free it was.  They have a little bit of everything from old canvas biplanes and gliders to brand new fighter jets.  It was really an impressive museum.  I will say though it was a bit confusing on how they grouped planes, missiles, and other armaments.  There did not seem to be too much reasoning behind it in the the first and second large building.  For example, you would be looking at a WWII bomber and scattered around the plane would be a random assortment of modern missiles and bombs.  But even with the slight randomness it was still a great museum.  Below are a few pictures from the museum, unfortunately most of them did not turn out well as there was some weird lighting interactions with the overhead lights and the camera on the phone.

We spent about five or six hours in the museum so it was pretty much our whole day, especially once you throw in the 40 minutes it took to get there each way.  Tonight we are staying in a really very nice hotel right near Buckingham Palace that we got at a steal.  Anyway that is pretty much our day... Oh aside from a delicious dinner we had at a nice Chinese restaurant near the hotel.  The food was delicious.  The service was fantastic.  The tea was bottomless and delicious (I may have drank about three pots).  I think that is now about everything from the day.  Tomorrow we get on a plane for Iceland and I can't be more excited!  I am mostly over my cold now too, so that is more good news.  Anyway with that I think I will end this post.  All the best and until next time.

Vacation Day 6- Burrowing into the Borough Market

Hello all!  Today was a bit more engaging of a day, I even took some pictures.  Today we went and explored the Borough Market and ate our way through it.  We had planned originally to go to the Borough Market briefly to grab something to eat in it and then go the the HMS Belfast (a WWII light cruiser permanently moored in the Thames that is now a museum you can go through) and to the Tower of London.  Well we ended up spending a lot of time in the Borough Market eating some brownies, some roast goat, some cheesecake, some bratwurst, and then drinking a fair amount of hard apple cider.  It was quite fun to walk through the market and see the different foodstuffs.  All in all we spent around three hours in the Market... Which meant we could walk to the other sights we wanted to see, but not actually go in them or really see them.  So that is what we did.

The HMS Belfast was really cool to see from the outside, it is a pity we didn't get to go in (gives me something to do next time).  Also the Tower of London was not what I expected to be honest, but it was cool to see from the outside (this also would have been cool to go through).  In hindsight we should have gotten started a bit earlier with our day... But we decided to just take it easy.

In other news, Ben got a haircut from a barber nearby, which did mean yesterday he had a pretty good little footballers cut.  His haircut did make him look a lot more like a local, largely because literally everyone has the same style of haircut here with short sides, and a longer top with a bit of a comb back. Also my cold is getting better, so hopefully I'll be over it soon.  For dinner we ended up going to Nando's again... It really is pretty darn good.  All in all it was a good day, tomorrow we are going to the Royal Air Force Museum, which I am pretty excited for, since it supposidly has over 200 planes.  Other than all that though that is really all I have to say so best wishes and until next time.

P.S.  Come Sunday afternoon we will be in Iceland!!! Going to be awesome!

Vacation Day 5- A Tale of Two Museums

Hello all.  For starters good news, the bikes are at the bike shops and should be all squared away for shipping.  Hopefully sometime next week they will begin their voyage to the States.  With all that squared away, the bikes are truly done with now, which is nice.  Other exciting news is that Britian is leaving the EU, so it will be exciting to see what all is going on around London today (I am writing this post the morning after Vacation Day 5) in that aftermath.  Anyway back to the rest of our day, as getting the bikes squared away only took about an hour or so.

After taking care of the bikes we went to Exhibition road on the suggestion of the man at the bike shop who was helping us.  Exhibition road has three major museums on it, all of which are free to enter.  So we did some real museum-ing.  First, we went to the Museum of Natural History.  When we first got there we decided not to go in because there was a line that looked to be a couple hours long.  As we were walking around the museum to go to a different museum, we saw a side entrance with a line of about 10 people and about five minutes later we got into the Natural History Museum... This find made the museum all the better.  Much like the British museum this was a very cool museum, and we saw a bunch of stuff but I won't bother you with an exhaustive list (if you are curious, give it a Google).  After the Museum of Natural History we hopped down the road to the Museum of Science.  The Museum of Science was a very neat museum with some cool exhibits on various tech and machines.  It was not quite as good as the Berlin Technical Museum, but it was still pretty good and I enjoyed walking around it all.

After the Museums, we made our way to the hotel and checked in.  For dinner we ran out to a great little Thai place, and had arguably the best meal I have had yet in London.  Aside from that though, that is pretty much our whole day, a lot of museums and a lot of walking.  All in all it was a good day, I am still not over my cold but it is slowly getting better.  Not sure what is on the docket for tomorrow but perhaps a massage will be in order.  Come Sunday we will be in Iceland, so hopefully the posts will become a bit more exciting and have some nice pictures again.  Anyway that is all I have for today so best wishes and until next time. 

Vacation Day 4- British Museum

 Hello all.  This is going to be a rather short post, as we spent about the entire day in the British Museum.  I really do mean the entire day.  We were in the museum from about 10:00 until 12:30, when we took a quick break for lunch.  After our brief lunch, we were back at the museum and we stayed there until about 3:30-4:00.  The British Museum was really very cool, so many artifacts and pieces... And it was free! We saw a whole lot of stuff, way to much to mention, so if you are curious about what all we saw give the British Museum a Google and you should be able to get a good idea. 

 

After the museum we came back to our apartment, had some dinner (I had some yummy duck ramen), and got our laundry done... I know riveting.  Sadly, I am still feeling the effects of my cold, so I am not too crazy about going all out and about all too much.  I really hope I get over this quickly.  Anyway like I said this would be a short post and that is all I have to say really.  So best wishes and until next time. 

Vacation Day 3- One last time into London

Hello all.  Today was another exciting and riveting day... I'm just kidding we were on a train for 4.5 hours.  We woke up in Glasgow and killed some time in the morning just lounging around, I still am not feeling quite better yet, so I was not much interested in going and trying to see anything before leaving.  We did eventually get out of bed and made our way into the town for some breakfast before our noon train to London.  We had a pleasant little breakfast in a small basement cafe near the train station.  After eating some porridge and yogurt (I ate the yogurt, Ben had the porridge), we hopped over to the train station.

We tried to get onto the train we were suppose to get on only to be told we could not bring our bikes with us... Which is a bit of an issue, so we had to go to the ticketing office.  In the ticketing office the ticket man wrote us a note asking that we please be allowed onto the next train with our bikes (I am not joking he really just wrote a note).  Regardless we boarded the 12:40 train to London, everything was squared away, and our note was accepted as good enough.  The train ride was lengthy and all together uneventful, I did take some picture though so please enjoy the lovely English countryside.

Once we rolled into London we went to go check in to our AirBnB.  This will turn out to be an interesting stay.  We are staying in a little studio apartment all to ourselves, but we are the first guests in this particular AirBnB and it shows.  The locks to the door did not work at first, there was no cooking equipment, many of the light bulbs are burnt out, and so on... Luckily we are only staying here two nights so it won't be the end of the world.

After checking into the AirBnB we ran out to the bike store that we had communicated with about shipping our bikes home.  I will say this if you want to fear for your life and feel very alive then try biking during rush hour in London... It is terrifying and more than slightly mad.  We did eventually make it to the bike shop alive and unharmed.  The people at the shop were very helpful and they took our bikes and told us to come back in a couple days with the other gear we want to shove in with the bikes and they would take care of it for us, which is great.  That means that Ben and I can both get rid of about half the things we are carrying in our bags for the rest of the trip.  

After getting all this stuff squared away we went to dinner and had some "proper" hamburgers, in other words American style hamburgers.  The burger were actually really quite good and the milkshakes were really good and thick.  Since we were now bike less and I was tired we decided to get an Uber to drive us to our apartment from the burger shop.  This was an interesting experience because I sat in the front passenger seat of the car, meaning I sat in the front left hand side of the car, while the car drove without my input.  My brain was really confused for the whole trip as to where the steering wheel was, and what was going on... Because normally when I am sitting in that position I am driving.  But alas we did eventually make it back to our "great" apartment and just settled down for the night.

Tomorrow we are going to go to the British Museum and see about finding somewhere to wash our biking clothes so that way they are not biological weapons at the end of their shipping experience to the States. Anyway that is all I have for you, I apologize for yet another bland post (if you stop reading the blog until Iceland on June 26th I would understand.  We are going to be camping in Iceland so that will probably be more exciting, not to mention all the amazing landscapes and the fact that I had better be over this cold by then).  Best wishes and until next time.

Vacation Day 2- I'm Sadly Sick in Scotland

Hello all.  Today was really rather uneventful, aside from taking a train to Glasgow from Oban we did not do much else.  The reason for this sadly, is that I woke up feeling a bit sickly and as the day went on I got worse.  To be honest I think the sickness may have begun the day before, but I was ignoring it and it wasn't all that bad.  However this morning I was not feeling very well at all.  We began our day with some breakfast and then went over to the train station to catch our train to Glasgow.

The train ride was quite nice and had some pretty views, but mostly I slipped in and out of sleep the whole ride.  Once we arrived in Glasgow we first tried to find someone who could ship our bikes back to the States.  This turned out to be a futile endeavor and after a couple hours and after we had visited all the bike shops in the area we decided to just head to our overnight lodging and deal with the bikes in London.  

After checking in and getting squared away we headed out for lunch (mind you it was about 2:30 at this time). We went to a little pub and had some pretty good food.  By this point I was really struggling... So we went to a pharmacy, I got loaded up on some Sudafed and throat drops and we went to our lodging.  I then proceeded to pass out and just slept.

At 8:00 I woke up, and we went out to get some dinner.  We went and had some yummy curry.  Shortly after eating we came back and I again just went to bed.  I know I live a very exciting life.  It would appear that my body fought to keep going throughout the biking, but now that it is over and I think my body is getting some pay back.  I am writing this post the morning after Vacation Day 2 and I am feeling somewhat better, but still not quite all the way.  Hopefully after a day or two more I will be all recovered... Really I just hope I am all better in time for Iceland.  I apologize for another rather bland post and for the lack of photos.  I just realized that I did not take a single picture yesterday, I blame my cold.  Anyway that is all I have for now, so best wishes and until next time.