Iceland Day 13 - Home Away From Homecoming

I awoke in my tiny bed in my tiny room to the sweet sounds of a small bulldozer scraping the ice and snow off the street in front of the hotel. I wasn't ready to be awake, but there's not much point in arguing with a bulldozer. Since I was up at what most would consider a respectable hour I decided to give hotel breakfasts another chance. I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much, or I'm just too American, but toast, pickled fish of some sort, and rather pathetic looking fruit wasn't what I was looking for. I tried the fish and at first bite it was OK, but after a few bites I realized one was enough. So I filled up on bread and orange juice and then I went back to sleep. It's my vacation and I'll sleep if I want to.

Once I was done wasting my precious time indulging in oversleeping I made my way outside to see if I couldn't see a little more of Ísafjörður before I had to leave. The obvious first stop was the bakery, Gamla Bakarið, to make up for the crappy hotel breakfast. I've yet to be disappointed by a bakery here in Iceland. Even a mediocre one by local standards is worth visiting. This one was a competent bakery, where a young Indian girl that spoke English with an oddly American teenager accent told me that it had been a surprisingly mild winter...up until about 2 or 3 weeks ago when Winter finally hit. I clearly picked the perfect time to visit Iceland. Finally I set out and started walking around town. About an hour later I was done. Now I'm not going to claim I walked the entirety of Ísafjörður, but of the central part of town that lies on the spit of land in the middle of the fjord I walked the perimeter in about an hour. There's a long strand of road on the mainland that is part of Ísafjörður but it's mostly residential and there didn't seem to be anything of interest over there. I had checked out the book store, another bakery, liquor store (I hadn't seen one since I got here), and a convenience store that sold pizzas and guitars where I paid about $3 for a Cherry Coke and had a guy ask me if I was lost after he asked me where I was from.

Finally I ran out of things to do and setup camp in the restaurant I had eaten dinner at the night before and had a few beers and read until it was time to head back to the airport. I showed up at the airport on time, thanks to a handy bus service that runs from the hotel to the airport in conjunction with flights, but the airplane was an hour late. I didn't know until I got back to Reykjavik that the airline had sent emails about 2 hours before the flight advising of a delay due to weather and sent updates about ever 30 minutes with ETAs and such. Had I been better connected at the time it would have been extremely handy. The plane finally showed up and I squeezed my fat ass into the smallest seat I've ever sat in, but after a bumpy flight of less than an hour I was back in a dreary, rainy Reykjavik. I was surprised at how much coming back to my room in Reykjavik felt like a mini homecoming. I've grown very fond of my little Icelandic home and didn't realize until I stayed at a couple other places just how spoiled I had gotten, and how much of a deal I was getting on top of it all. I'm a little nervous about how leaving Iceland completely is going to feel like. Tomorrow is my last night here and I will be finding out sooner than I care to.