Iceland Day 15ish

Between packing and thumping night clubs and probably a bit of end-of-vacation anxiety I didn't get to sleep until almost 6am Saturday morning. I had scheduled to be picked up by the bus for Blue Lagoon at 10:30am so I didn't have much time for sleep, which was quite unfortunate considering the long 2 days ahead. I had allotted 2.5 hours at Blue Lagoon thinking that would give me more than enough time to relax, eat, and wonder around to take pictures. In reality, I was rushing to get showered and changed in time to make the bus to Keflavik airport. The lagoon is very well set up with a large array of showers, lockers, and other accommodations. When you arrive you have the option to rent or buy towels, swimsuits, and robes and then you proceed to the shower rooms. Iceland takes their geothermal spa/pool/sauna hygiene very seriously. You're not allowed into any of the hundreds of hot pots and pools, including Blue Lagoon, without showering fully. The Blue Lagoon even has signs with depictions of all the areas of the body they expect you to wash. They're that serious about it. Which is commendable...no one wants to swim in other peoples soupy ass. And then 2 hours disappeared without a clue.

The lagoon is a bit smaller than I had expected considering it's Iceland's most popular attraction, but that doesn't affect the soothing qualities of the spa. Overall the lagoon is the same temperature as a hot bath, but there are about a half dozen pumps the continually fill the lagoon with geothermally heated sea water. The water is indeed a bright, light blue as a result of large deposits of silica and an algae that grows in the heated water. The weather was gray, drizzly, and about 35F and I was afraid the lousy weather would hamper the enjoyment, but it actually seemed to help. The low temperatures made the spa a billowing chimney of steam and the cool drizzle was a nice contrast to the spots very hot water that seemed to be the most relaxing. Spread across the lagoon are boxes with concentrated silica/algae slush that makes an amazing natural exfoliant (which the spa sells for a ridiculous price in the gift shop). So it was no surprise in hindsight that time slipped away without a clue and I was in a hurry to make it to the final bus of the day to the airport.

And then the vacation was over and it was nothing but waiting. Waiting for the flight to JFK. Waiting on the plane for 6 hours to get to JFK. Waiting for 11 hours over night between flights at JFK to Charlotte. Waiting to get to Charlotte. It all ended. The 11-hour layover at JFK was boring but not terrible. The terminal I arrived in closed at midnight so I had to take the monorail to a terminal that was open all night. In the process of trying to figure out how to get there I met a couple that happened to have been on the same flight from Reykjavik and were leaving on a flight only an hour earlier than mine so they were going to kill the night in the airport as well. Initially I had just asked if I could tag along until we found where we were going, but in the end I spent the whole night chatting and hanging out with the couple from Virginia. They were both in their 60's and had done a wide variety of jobs. The wife having been a truck driver, teacher, nurse, and more while the husband had worked construction, a large variety of odd jobs, and currently worked at a mental health hospital. Having someone to watch out for my stuff while I watched out for their stuff made things go a lot smoother, but I was still unable to sleep. So when I finally got home I had been awake for about 30 hours while running on only 4 hours of sleep. So when I got home I went to sleep and slept for 17 hours without waking up once.

Now I'm home and everything feels odd. I still have that odd feeling of being on an airplane, I'm having to deal with the fact that I lost my wallet on the plane from Reykjavik, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. While in Iceland I had no real goals other than to enjoy my time. Now I have a day before going back to work and nothing in particular, other than laundry, that needs to be done and I feel kind of lost. I can't just walk outside and go a few blocks to hang at a coffee shop. It's going to take some time to readjust.