Day Five - Iceland to Reykjavik

For breakfast I had wanted to get cinnamon rolls from Brauð & Co, a famous bakery in Reykjavik. The original location was a bit of a walk from our apartment, so I left at 6:15 am to get there right when they opened, since it’s very popular and known to get very busy. I got there a few minutes after they opened and there was already a bit of a line. I got us four very fresh cinnamon rolls and trekked all the way back to the apartment.

Mom was up so we sat in the living room and got to enjoy our piping hot cinnamon rolls fresh from the bakery!

Yes, it was absolutely as delicious as they say.

Aunt Vickie and Aunt Janet got up a little while later, and then I got another unfortunate text message. The whale watching tour for the morning also unfortunately got cancelled due to bad weather. So we had a free morning… We switched gears and changed what we were planning on wearing for the day, and had to repack a bit, but figured out an alternative indoor activity since the weather was being disruptive.

We managed to all get everything back in our suitcases (a small miracle in and of itself), and packed away in the car. We relaxed for a bit and then went down to the shops to do a size swap on a T-shirt before we head to our (indoor) activity of the morning, a virtual Aurora experience :)

Since we didn’t get to see the lights, the exhibit was a nice way to see the aurora and learn more about the science behind the phenomenon that creates the light show. I was amazed to learn that the man that discovered the cause of the aurora passed away very young and never got to see his theory proven, it wasn’t fully proved until the 1960s during the space age. We got to watch a film that showed the aurora all over Iceland and then they had VR goggles so that we could get a different perspective and see for ourselves. In the little shop I found Icelandic marriage cake and got to try that :)

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We piled back in the car and got on the road to Keflavik, since the international airport is about 50 min from Reykjavik. Along the way we topped off on gas, dropped the car off, and took the shuttle back to the airport so we didn’t need to walk in the windy, cold weather. Getting to the airport extra early is helpful, because you can take a minute to decompress before you have to go through layer after layer of security. After getting through (the equivalent of) TSA we went through our myriad of collected food stuffs and either ate or tossed things.

To get to our gate we had to go through passport control next, I guess to make sure we hadn’t broken any laws in Iceland while we were here? They have our fingerprints now anyway, I guess. We located our gate and got some seats to wait for our boarding time. It’s been a busy trip and we’ve gotten a lot of things done, but it’ll be good to get home as well :)