Oh hey, we’re in Reykjavik!

And once again we are wearing dorky matching backpacks!!!

First of all, nobody freak out. We are VACCINATED. The generous citizens of Iceland are letting in vaccinated tourists, so we jumped.

Normally I laboriously plan our trips, but I didn’t do any of that this time. I never thought much about traveling to Iceland—not because of lack of interest, but because it is expense and (pre-covid) often quite touristy.

We arrived in Reykjavik early this afternoon and here’s how that happened. Three days ago we registered online with an official Iceland site, and received some barcodes to show at the border. Two days ago we got covid tests, not for entry into Iceland, but for a 3 hour layover in Frankfurt. This morning, we successfully proved to the customs officials at Frankfurt that yes, we were allowed to enter Iceland as tourists (after showing much documentation and nervously sweating in terror that we’d be sent home on the next flight to Chicago). On arrival in Reykjavik we had our barcodes scanned, showed our vaccine cards, took another covid test at customs, and we allowed to proceed to our hotel, where we had to promise to sleep in separate beds and not go to tourist sites or enter any businesses until we received negative test results.

But we still needed to eat, so I ordered groceries online. We were allowed a walk, and when we came back, we already received a text that our negative test results arrived, in fact before our groceries, which were mininimal anyway.

Now it is 9 pm, and still light out. I’m a little mad at HOB because he slept through both flights while I suffered through my usual fear of flying. But I was the one who got to see the active volcano spewing a delicate, pink-hued plume from the surface-of-mars landscape of Iceland, while HOB snoozed.

How we got to Reykjavik: flight from Chicago.

Where we slept: Reykjavik Downtown Hotel.  Price: €76 for a double.  Recommended: yes.