Iceland Visit 2024 Day 2

Documenting August 17, 2024.

This is day two staying on the south coast of Iceland.

Sherri is pretty sick today, with coughing, sinuses, fevers. She’s in bed all day. Despite some of the symptoms being different, it’s likely the same crud I had on the ship. There’s a high chance it’s COVID.

I went in the morning down to Faxi Bakery a few minutes from the Airbnb and picked up drinks and pastries for folks. While there, something surprising (for me) happened. I had four hot drinks to go in my hands and was faced with a exit door with a handle. A man was walking past the door and I quickly asked him if he wouldn’t mind grabbing the door. He responds “No English”. None of that is unusual, as Iceland attracts people from all over the world. What was noteworthy was that in a split second, I somehow clock his accent as Spanish and then respond “Puerta, por favor?”. His eyes light up in recognition, he now sees the 4 drinks in my hands, and graciously opens the door with a friendly demeanor.

I’m extremely self-conscious of my accent and limited vocabulary, so it was nice to have a mini-interaction with someone where my brain just did the automatic thing as opposed to my normal overthinking things mode.

The rest of the day was lazy hanging-around.

The black board-and-batten Airbnb with white-trimmed windows and a white Tesla Model Y parked at the side, set on a concrete patio at the foot of a dramatic craggy green-and-gray mountain ridge under a heavy overcast sky, with a green chair and a yellow gas cylinder by the door

A single green metal-and-wood chair sitting alone on the Airbnb's concrete patio, facing out across a field of tall golden grass toward distant mountains and a red-roofed farm under a bright blue sky with scattered white clouds

In the evening Siena and I drove down to see a waterfall. Brian in a black Columbia rain jacket and jeans walking up a grassy dirt path with a tall single-drop waterfall plunging down a moss-covered rock gorge behind him into a rocky stream, under an overcast sky

Close view behind a waterfall showing the towering layered rock face draped in moss, with three small figures (one in a bright pink jacket) standing on mossy boulders at the base for scale as the white column of water rushes down at right

We were scant on food, meaning I spent 45 minutes cooking bacon so we could have breakfast-dinner.

With COVID going through the family and the fact we’ve been traveling for more than two weeks now, there’s a feeling of travel weariness. We’re all craving our own beds and a return to more familiar routines.

Tomorrow we check out of this Airbnb and head for Reykjavik.

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