Arrival in Iceland

Slept all of 90 minutes on the plane and I'm actually surprised I slept that much. The flight was about 5 hours long, and we had a 4 hour time change, so we landed at 6:30am local time. On the way through immigrations, we had to go through a security checkpoint where our carry on stuff was all x-rayed again. WTF is that about??? We've already done all that before getting ON the plane in Boston. Even stranger, the dude confiscated my open bottle of water. Coming INTO the country. The water was from the fucking plane for crying out loud!!!

It's about a 30-40 minute drive to the hotel, and there's 9 of us jammed in a 15-passenger van with about a million bags. The landscape flying by looks like a chocolate version of the moon. I think the whole island must be lava rock. I should read more about the places I've never been before.

Grabbed breakfast with the band dudes at the hotel, then went off to my room in hopes of a couple of hours of sleep. Here's the view from the seventh floor. Look close enough and you'll see the snow-covered peaks in the distance:

Click to enlarge.

Got about 90 minutes of sleep or so before Moe, our new production manager, called and woke me up because he needed me to come to the venue. After all, I've got all the money…

Spent the rest of the day there (inside, drats!). Catering was awesome – it was pretty much about forty different tapas dishes.

Worked until just before 11pm, then walked back to the hotel. It's all of 2 blocks from the venue and the walk is nice, along a paved path that looks like the Raleigh Greenway I ride my bike on every morning back home.

One of my friends back home told me that Reykjavik was known as a party town.

Click to enlarge

I guess it's from all the falkinn they do around here.

Sorry for that one - couldn't leave it be. BTW, that's not my hotel, just one I passed on the way. We're staying at the love Nordica Hotel. Beautiful rooms, they even have hardwood floors.

Here's a shot I took at around 10:45pm, yes, PM!

Click to enlarge.

And here's one I took from my window just past 11pm:

Click to enlarge.

Not sure this photo gets it across as well as being here, but the view is absolutely breathtaking. It's like a beautiful sunset that lasts for hours and hours and hours. I sure wish we had more time to spend here.

And here's one taken just past 1am:
Click to enlarge.

Finally got to bed around 2:15am.

Snnnnzzzzzz…