24 hours in Iceland

As many have heard, we were the lucky winners of a 24 trip to Rejkjavik, Iceland!  It all happened as our plane was delayed out of Minneapolis.  We knew about it ahead of time and left a little later for the airport.  The boys slept about 3 hours on the first plane from MSP to Iceland and we arrived in Iceland at 7:45am.  Our plane left at 8am (3 am local MN time), so we had very little time to run. We figured that since it was an Icelandair plane that was delayed, that possibly ours would be delayed as well.  We were in row 6 so we were out right about and the boys were fast...no line for customs and at 7:55am we were standing at our gate looking at our plane.  I told the worker we were ready to get on our plane, and she just replied "You have to go to the service desk"...I looked at her and said "why?"  I really had thought we made it!  She said the gates were closed and we had to go to the service desk.  I looked desperately at her, at our kids, at my big belly and said, "Are you sure?".... She checked something on the computer and came back..."You have to go to the service desk"..

Okay...that was that.  Luckily we were the first of many to get to the service desk so we only waited 20-25 minutes.  The nice lady there told us the best and well only option was to take the 8am flight...tomorrow!  Hmm...  We recieved a voucher for the taxi, meals and hotel and were told to get our bags.  We figured the bags were just waiting for us as we had used so much time already at the service desk.  Wrong again....finally after waiting 20 minutes, we asked someone and they said it could still be another 1-1.5 hours until the bags came.  Okay. We had some sandwiches and toys and went to the duty free store where the boys each got to get a toy. (Small legos for Silas and a helicopter for Benjamin)  Finally our bags come and time to get to the taxi and to our hotel.  We are so tired now after only sleeping 3 hours at night.  Once again we figured the hotel was close to the airport... Wrong...The taxi driver says...only 45 minutes.  By this point nothing was as we expected so we just stopped trying to assume anything.  We had no car seats, so in the back with me and the boys and they had a party just sitting on the seats.  The view was amazing and we enjoyed seeing some of Iceland.

Finally at our hotel...all our 5 large bags in a tiny elevator up to the 3rd floor...and our room is not ready yet.  "But you can just go eat lunch and walk around a bit, it should be ready in 1.5 hours"...Our energy level was not much for such an activity...but we had no other choice.  After a long walk to the restaurant and a little hectic lunch we finally got our room and slept for 2 hours...everyone!

Then we headed out into town and down to the harbor where we saw a beautiful view, had ice cream and visited a special church.  The boys were quite tired and wanted to be carried a lot, so that was hard on this mamma, but our moods were positive and we had a nice afternoon.

Our dinner was at a fancy restaurant all included and would have cost over 100 dollars, not quite kid friendly, but again the boys were awesome.  We got back to our hotel, went to bed all of us at 8pm and slept.  Benjamin had a party from 10pm-1am..but got to watch some Ipad as to not disturb all the other hotel guests and Silas and I.  By 5 am we are out of our hotel and heading back to the airport.  We arrived over 2 hours before departure, but the airport was mass chaos.  So many planes leaving between 7 and 8! Long story short....we ended up making it, but were able to go right to boarding.  No waiting at all.  We had been given 1st class tickets in row 2 so that was amazing.  There was so much room and we were given fancy headphones and a good breakfast.  Benjamins seat was so big he could lay across it and slept the whole 2 hours and 45 minutes!

All in all it all worked out and this was our best experience with jetlag yet! So maybe we will make this an annual??....or maybe not! :-)