Finally, a vacation...

[WobblyHand]

Actually, the movie is too large to post. Will have to figure it out later... Tried from the hotel WiFi and no luck.

Spent the last day in Iceland spending. Wife bought a woven Icelandic blanket and some Icelandic yarn. About 16 or so skeins. She's happy and so am I. She gets a sweater with a story. (Her trip to Iceland.). Maybe I get a pair of socks out of it. Can't complain, she has made me many wonderful sweaters over the years.

The temperature right now is 55F and rainy, ie typical Iceland weather at this time of year. In a day we will be in Greece, where it's expected to be over 40F hotter! What a contrast. But on the days that counted, they were beautiful here in Iceland. Really glad we were able to visit here. Hope to be able to return again sometime.

 

[WobblyHand]

I see the file, I don't know if it will play. Basically HM gave no feedback if it worked.

 

[woodchucker]

so did you spend any time at diamond beach?

 

[WobblyHand]

Anyone have an idea why I have to try three times to use Google wallet before it finally asks me to login? It's kind of inconvenient when there's a line behind you!

 

[WobblyHand]

so did you spend any time at diamond beach?
View attachment 457202View attachment 457203

The diamonds weren't that big August 16th! We only saw little diamonds. It was rather warm 50F (10C) but with a healthy breeze to cool things down. Might have been on a different beach too...

 

[WobblyHand]

Weird night. Got skunked by the bus company who was to pick us up at the bus stop and bring us to the airport. This was after arriving 15 minutes early and waiting 55 minutes in light rain. The first bus to come by was the correct one, but the driver didn't speak English and when I showed him our voucher yelled at me in Icelandic and kicked us off the bus. Too make it weirder, for some reason, unknown to me, my phone got set to not allow me to make international calls, so I couldn't call the company. So we ran up the hill to our hotel to get a cab. The front desk had computer problems and was unusually slow. I was steaming at the time, literally and figuratively, but thankfully my wife interrupted the desk clerk and we were able to get a cab.

Our cab driver was quite helpful and spoke perfect English, like 90% of Icelanders. He even went into the airport with us to point out the bus company and told us to complain. He also showed us the VAT office to get some money back from one of our purchases. Unfortunately, the attendant at the airport could not directly help us, but gave me instructions to get reimbursed for our cab fare. She did corroborate that we were there on time for the bus, including the time that the crazy driver was there. 9:03pm. Cabs to the airport are rather expensive, that ride cost about $160! After I cooled down a bit, I found the errant phone setting. The weird thing was the error message was totally cryptic and misleading. If it had said international calls were blocked, I would have known what to do. Instead the message was uninformative giving me no clue what the issue was. The weird thing was it showed the number I dialed and the name of the company - so it actually had connected enough to do the lookup, but it wasn't smart enough to state that international dialing was disabled. But I was able to receive international calls. Glad that's all figured out now.

Flew the red eye to Copenhagen. Was actually pretty cool watching the sun rise, since we were on the "right side" of the plane. Took a bit of coffee to get going this morning! Waiting on our connecting flight to Athens...

 

[wachuko]

Thank you for taking us along.

 

[WobblyHand]

Thank you for taking us along.

Travel can be a lot of fun. At other times it can test you. The ways it tests you are unpredictable. But you have to perservere. It's all part of the experience.

 

[Just for fun]

I second what Wachuko said, thanks for taking us along!

 

[WobblyHand]

Made it to Athens. For a welcome change, not much excitement.

For some reason, the hotel has miniscule info on their website about their shuttle service. Finally figured out where the pickup area was, when it came by, and what it looked like. Why this basic information isn't on their website, I don't know.

There were four dozen black vans in the parking area, with tiny signs on either one side of the van, or in the windshield. The parking lot was chaotic. Everyone was pulling in and out of spots. But at the appointed time, the clearly marked bus showed up.

Since we were up a lot of the previous night, and are a bit tired,we've decided to crash here for the evening. Don't want to burn the candle at both ends. Feel a bit weird about that, but have a lot of stuff to take care of tomorrow. Tomorrow evening we can chill out and finally relax!