{"id":4475,"date":"2016-08-16T16:30:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T20:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=4475"},"modified":"2016-08-16T18:21:41","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T22:21:41","slug":"august-16-2016-iceland-ho-sleep-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=4475","title":{"rendered":"August 16, 2016 – Iceland Ho! Sleep No More!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ugh.\u00a0 Maybe 10 minutes of sleep on that final leg.\u00a0 Not altogether at once, either.\u00a0 It was just the wrong time for me to be flying, an inexplicably too short 5 hour trip to enable me to get to sleep for an extended period of time, and the seats on that Delta 757 were incredibly uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

All of this is to say that we landed in Iceland with me more Frozen Caveman Cro-magnon and less rational, understanding homo sapien.\u00a0 On top of this, I withdrew WAY too many Icelandic Kroner from the ATM.\u00a0 I assumed I would want the maximum figure on the screen and clicked that, hoping to avoid future ATM fees and incur but one foreign currency exchange.\u00a0 But apparently the top figure on the ATM is an OBSCENE amount of kroner.\u00a0 We’re trying to spend the cash whenever possible and ignore ever using our credit cards but holy schnikes did I screw this up.<\/p>\n

The weird FlyBus that took us from KEF to our hotel had us transfer from one large coach bus to a smaller minibus at the city center.\u00a0 All well and good but I don’t know if it was a language shortcoming on my part or a short fuse due to sleep deprivation.\u00a0 Whatever the case, I couldn’t figure out what the transport company wanted me to do and I was sadly and definitively a bit of the ugly American.<\/p>\n

Laura at the desk of the Hotel Central Plaza told us our room wasn’t quite ready at 9:45 AM when we showed.\u00a0 Perfectly understandable since check-in doesn’t officially begin until 2 PM.\u00a0 We wandered around the city of Reykjavik; it’s small for a capital city… even if it IS the northernmost capital in the world.<\/p>\n

For lunch I had the fish of the day, assuming that if I’m in Iceland I should embrace the seafood proximity and quality.\u00a0 Char with carrot puree.<\/p>\n

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Ambling back to the hotel, we sought refuge in one corner of the lobby as a workman sanded, buffed, polished and just generally stirred up dust in a maddeningly screeching manner.\u00a0 It wasn’t enough to quiet the sounds nor to prevent the hacking coughs… but Laura rescued us, rushing our hotel room into readiness and getting us all checked in.<\/p>\n

We met up with Mari Mar, founder and current tour leader for TravellingFit.\u00a0 She gave Mom and me our commemorative shirts and jackets which should prove useful on race day Saturday.\u00a0 We were on our own for the evening so we set off in another direction from the hotel to see what was out there.\u00a0 What we found was this:<\/p>\n

If the Easter Bunny lives on Easter Island, then it makes sense that Icelandic Santa would leave in Iceland:<\/p>\n

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***<\/p>\n

The Lebowski Bar *sounded* neat and *supposedly* featured an attention to detail to rival the greatest Cohen Brothers set decorators’ afficonado.\u00a0 I never loved The Big Lebowski<\/em> (1998) but even I know there should’ve been a rug to tie the room together.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a> \"IMG_1346\"<\/a><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Just up the street from the Lebowski Bar?\u00a0 The Chuck Norris Grill.<\/p>\n

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***<\/p>\n

Other sights to see in the land of ice:<\/p>\n