Eagle Air to Vestmannaeyjar
I've come to the conclusion that a good number of small posts about my trip and weekend to Vestmannaeyjar is the best option for me. And you.
Starting with the prop plane ride not 20 minutes long, from Reykjavík's domestic airport, I'm flying there, which is slightly more expensive than the three hour bus ride to the ferry landing and hour's ferry crossing. Taking into consideration that time is money...
At check-in, I have my paper receipt, but she hardly looks at it and finds my name in the computer and prints off a small "electronic ticket", which is like a paper receipt from the grocery register, with my name misspelt, with seat assignment 4A. I put my luggage on a scale and it's thrown on the dolly and I'm free to sit down in the small lobby with regular wooden chairs and wait for 15:45. I'm there at the appointed 30 minutes before, but people are still walking in to get their boarding pass at 15:45. Note, I made no mention of baggage inspection. No confirmation that I indeed was Benjavin Doyle. No looking into my carry-ons, or stopping to tell me two is too many.
The couple on the other side of the room, they're opening a tall can of Viking beer to share.
Finally a boarding call, just the word "Vestmannaeyjar" and we file out the door on the tarmac to our prop plane. There is no under the seat storage, but there are seatbelts. There's no stewardess in a fashionable scarf. No one to explain how to use a seatbelt (don't you get tired of that explanation?), no one to explain how to use the oxygen mask should there be a loss of cabin pressure.
The captain and his co-pilot are in the cockpit, only separated from us by a curtain, which remains open. Fun to watch how to fly a plane. LOTS of buttons, which I really believe they just press randomly and hope for the best. The captain makes an announcement, only in íslensku. Then a few minutes later, another announcement. THIS time in íslensku. Then we taxi to the runway.
There's no cabin-pressure explanation because we won't get cabin pressure. We're simply not going to fly high enough except to make your ears pop a few times. There's a couple in front drinking that same beer. I had a left side window, so I could see the main island, but nothing lookt familiar, which was sad ("oh look, it's Ingólfshöfði!"), and suddenly the captain makes another announcement, again only in íslensku. Which was refreshing for some reason. And then begins the descent. We can tell that already, because he's changing that lever back. We've landed and we taxi to the terminal, a man rolls a trolley into, we grab whatever bag is in the pile....
If you're thinking, wow, the security is lax in Iceland or they're certainly naïve, take another point of view: Icelanders have near zero crime and it's one of the safest places on the planet, if not the most. One reason for the zero crime is that everyone is related to someone who knows someone related to someone who's related to.... There's not much you can get away with here.
I got a hitch into town without even asking. My stay at Gistiheimilið Hlíðarás on Faxastígur is going to be great. I'm kindly greeted by Hrefna Ósk. I ask about the pronunciation of everything, and they're impresst, so I am too. (I really have been trying.) I'm One of Seven here, and the only one not from Iceland. She makes it very clear: no guests and no partying.
I need to be off now to the state-controlled alcohol store where prices are reasonable. Otherwise, this trip will bankrupt me. A pub beer is easily $10. And the only point of this festival is to get wasted.
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