Easter Travel Chaos

The Icelandic adventure could not have started better. There we were, two of us in a sea of hysterical screaming car rental clients that had already been waiting hours to either return or pick up a car.

We had our own mishap as well: due to miscommunication, the front lines of the rental place did not get the memo that we would be arriving early that day. They did not have a car ready for us, and told us that we needed to come back at 3pm. At the time it was 7am.

No, no, no. We had plans. We weren't going to sit around for that long in a chaotic place. We wanted to go somewhere with a nice view with some nice food and relax, while we waited for four other people to join us for the trip. One way or another, we were going to get a car and get out of there.

Not these four fellows I photographed at the airport. They seem nice.

I got the idea that perhaps other car rentals had inventory. This rental place was overflowing with customers and nearby ones I saw were quite empty. Better advertising I guess. But I popped next door and found out that they have a car of the same size and at a much cheaper rate! That was an exciting find, and immediately set out to see if I could get myself out of the other rental.

Back at the busy dealer, we finally got a hold of someone and offered to cancel our reservation. It would not have been a bad deal for them, given that they already screwed up and were overbooking their cars anyway. But nobody there had the authority to approve a cancellation without fees, and I was not sure I wanted to chance it. Something like this should have been a no brainer for them too. Even they should have set up deals with the other rentals to allow for borrowing inventory for a small commission. Oh well.

At that moment, we found out that one of our fellow travelers was having trouble at check-in at a transferring airport. His name showed up as NO NAME, which meant that he would have trouble getting through security. (Note: if you have a one letter last name, this kind of situation happens a lot.) The check in counter fellow told him to call the airline to change the name, and this person had no phone plan (only airport WiFi). So I called on his behalf. I explained the situation, only to find out that they did not have power to change the name and that he should talk to the check in counter. Classic failure of protocol. We let him know he should ask again, and probably find a different check in counter to avoid the unhelpful one. WiFi cut out after that and we were left wondering if it worked out for a really long time.

Alright... With that situation handled as best we could, we were now considering the option of risking the cancellation and dealing with their customer service later. In the worst case, the savings on the cost may end up breaking even. So I go back and ask about all the details of insurances and all that fun stuff, until we get the first break of the trip: my wife notified me that they would give us a different vehicle. An upgrade. Sweet.

After three hours in that dump, we were now on our way. We thought first to travel to the town adjacent to the airport to check it out. A ghost town... there was nothing open. We drove to the sea side and I was happy to stretch and take some pictures. And take in the fresh Icelandic air.

The picture above does not capture the moment. I saw the sun beams parting the clouds and thought it looked really beautiful. Now that I see it, there's some blue orb that is just a lighting artifact of some sort. Looks like some kind of hidden power up.

A fellow traveler also was parked nearby and was picnicking in the car. My stomach growled at them.

Food... It was looking like we needed to drive towards the capital, Reykjavik. We were hoping we wouldn't have to, because that's a 40 minute drive. But left with no choice we started to drive in that direction, hoping maybe we could stop somewhere nice that was open. Navigated to quite a few stops and were finding nothing. We were starting to wonder if we'd have a more pleasant experience finding a place to nap at the airport! So on and on we go, until we hit a very busy place: a towering central church, the Church of Hallgrímur. Of course, that makes sense. Easter Sunday. Church time.

Finally a place with people! We found a nearby cafe with
a very nice view of the church and ordered some crazily over priced food. Not many options, and that's pretty much an Icelandic trend in terms of cost of living.

Church of Hallgrímur. Great view!

I decide to get this Skyr pancake.

Skyr is a protein rich yogurt that is common in Iceland. That's what's hiding inside the pancake, and there's so much of it inside that it overpowered the pancake/crepe. It was not much to my liking. Looks pretty though.

My wife picks bread with smoked fish.

I had a piece and it was tasty, but small. I liked this one better.

And of course, some much needed coffee. This came from some automatic all in one machine that grinds the beans and brews it drip coffee style. We'll take what we can get. And we would find out that just nearby was a nice smelling coffee roaster too.

Cute town. After the meal we were in better spirits. We wandered the town, which did have places open to browse, and made good use of the time to space out before we had to return to the airport to pick up the others.

Since this is getting long I will continue the journey in the next post! But yeah! What a chaotic Easter.

The journey continues...