Heading Home

Out Flight was at 7:50 and the airport is about 30 minutes away so we set the alarm for 5am. We were on the road by 5:30 and light traffic to the airport. The car return was easy, just park the car and drop the keys, then to the usual bottleneck at airports, check in. They seem to work on those parts of air travel that save the airlines time and money, but not the parts that save the customer any time. Iceland Air had 1 person checking people in and a line of people strung out across the whole checkin area. They finally realized that they were not going to get everyone checked in before the plane left, so they added another 2 people and it got caught up. We thought we had lots of time, but went right to the plane from check in. I sat with a Danish couple who were meeting their 2 daughters in Iceland for a 2 week family vacation. The husband was a full fledged Dane but his wife was American and had moved to Denmark 35 years ago. So of course I had to flush out the idea of taxes, health care, retirement and why those Danes are so darn happy. He was a software guy for Hewlett Packard. His take on American health care was that America is too big to have a country wide health care program but is crazy not to have something better than what we have. Each European country has it's own system and they are all different because the local cultures are different. He was thinking each state should have their own system. The other difference he pointed out was that in Denmark people and businesses sort of proudly pay their taxes to support the public parks, transportation, health care, old people, etc so the idea of ducking out on taxes would be sort of shameful. At the same time he pointed out, they do not over-use their system or try to take advantage of it (more shame). Maybe that is why we ride on trains and noted that they do not check for your ticket and everyone seems to still buy tickets. Someone pointed out that nobody jay walks in Denmark and we noticed the same thing. There can be no traffic at all, and people still wait for the walk light. I suppose it would be shameful to do so. Interesting.

We landed at Reykjavik, Iceland with it's lava fields. Today it was pretty clear out and we could see the mountains in the distance. Iceland basically has one road that goes around its circumference and I am guessing you could drive around it in 2 days based on what the Danish couple told me. We had leftover Danish Kroners so we bought some Icelandic beer for Jacob as thanks for guiding us around Boston. We got change in Iceland kroners so I thing we have coins from every country. Watched 2 movies on the plane to Boston (5 hrs) which gobbled up the time.

Boston went very smoothly and Jake met us and got us on the SilverLine to the bus station with a little time time spare so we could chat. I waited forever to get bus tickets (same issue as the airport checkin) but we were soon headed north out of Boston on the bus. The bus takes longer but is very quiet compared to the plane and the seats have more room and for some reason our tickets were very inexpensive today ($49 each). Can't drive (or park) for that. It is also nice to have wi-fi so I coulld catch up on mail, news, etc. We napped a bit and realized that we had been awake for a long time. Fifteen minute stop at White River to stretch the legs and get a drink then the home stretch back to Burling. Got in around 7 pm and a taxi to work in Williston where our car was waiting (thanks Seth). We picked up the dog who was excited to see us (but he gets excited about seeing anyone, so who knows) and then home. Still no kitchen but it looks like it getting there. Now we are really tired so off to bed.