Trip to Europe, Part 2

As the day starts, we wake up in Europe preparing to land in Iceland at the Keflavik airport. Not having a window seat, could not see a tremendous amount of the terrain outside as we approach the landing strip. After a smooth landing, we are able to disembark the plane and head inside the airport to go through customs. I'm guessing it was due to the time our arrival on a Sunday morning, but the process of going through the Iceland Customs was fast and painless.  I think our plane was the only one at the airport that was bringing international travelers to Iceland this particular time of the morning.  After getting my first passport stamp, we head begin to wander the airport.  

We knew that we already had a 5.5 hour layover before catching our next flight to Copenhagen. Erin notices that there is an earlier flight and she checks to see if there is any availability on the earlier flight. There was no seats available so we continue with our original plan. It's probably a good thing as our baggage was not scheduled to arrive until our original flight anyway.

We are both dragging somewhat as we are tired and look for a place where we can relax a bit.  The Keflavik airport is not tremendously huge and there were not many people in the terminals that early in the morning.  We make our way to the food court/shopping area. We find some food and a place to sit and hunker down for our layover. 

While traveling, I like to try different foods that we don't have at home.  While I must say a ham and cheese sandwich is something we do have at home, the Viking Snacks are new to me. It was a toss up between these and some fish jerky. Something about these snacks that won me over. I opened the package and a strong aroma of fish begins to waft from the bag. I would kinda expect that as it is a bag of dried fish. I tried a couple pieces and I didn't think they were too bad.  The aroma quickly removed any interest in Erin wanting any.

After a while, we get up in shifts to move around a bit and explore some of the other shops in the vicinity. As it is getting later and I notice a number of other planes coming in for landings, the presence of more people increases.  After a bit, we get up and get ready to head back to the gate area for our next flight. Planning ahead, Erin suggests getting some food so that we'll have it for our flight and when we get to Copenhagen. We stop at this one food spot and instead of getting food to go, we ended up sitting down and eating. No worries as we found out that our next flight was delayed.

After eating our food we head back to the terminal areas weaving our way through the people heading to the food/shopping area kind of like fish swimming up stream. We end up finding an area without a bunch of people and wait to find out what gate we will actually be departing from.

After a while, we finally get notification of the gate we are departing from and begin to head in that direction; which was not very far from where we were seated. 

About two hours after we were supposed to initially depart, we finally take off. This flight is only about 3.5 hours.  I'm in the same seat as before and try to get a few more zzz's before landing in Copenhagen in the dark.

After landing and retrieving our checked bags, Erin directs us to our hotel for the evening.  Previously, she had mentioned that the hotel was only ~800 feet from the airport. Given my experience of hotels around airports, I was thinking there would be some extended trekking that would occur before reaching the 'edge' of the airport to start that 800 foot route. Fortunately, I was pleased that the hotel is actually attached to the airport in that it has specific route to take - all while staying indoors - to get to the hotel lobby.

Once we get (self) checked in, we make it up to our room. Both of us were ready to go to bed but really felt a shower would be in order as it had now been the end of our 2nd day of travel without a shower. The shower felt good.  We had some food to eat that wouldn't have lasted so we finish that up while figuring out the charging of our electronics while not having a converter for European plugs. It all worked out. 

Off to bed before waking up for our next leg of our journey...