Vacation Blues

It's been far too long since I've posted here.  I have no excuse - other than jet-lag, a 1,000 mile round-trip car ride to recover my children from their grandmother, work duties, domestic duties, reminding my friends that I haven't forgotten their existence and actually do care about them, and just generally trying to get my life back on track since returning from almost 5 weeks away from home.  So, yeah, really no excuse at all for my hiatus.  Sorry! 

Anyway, you may be thinking that this post refers to the post-vacation blues.  Well, not so much.  I'm referring more to the during-the-vacation vacation blues.  The thing is, I really wanted to love Iceland.  And before I go any further, let me just say that Iceland was GORGEOUS and its people were nothing but kind and accomodating to us.  The fault for not loving it entirely was mine and mine alone.  My unpreparedness, my frailties, and my inability to adapt is the only reason that I didn't fall head over heels in ÍSLAND love.  

So let me just break it down.  Iceland is COLD.  I know, you're thinking, "Um, yeah, that's why it's called ICE-land..."  No, you don't get it.  It is SUPER-FREAKING COLD.  And this is only their summer weather!  I've always prided myself on my adapatbility so I thought the weather would be no problem, especially since I was visiting in June and July, their warmest months.  Weather.com predicted days in the 60's and nights in the 40's.  And I used to work outside all day in the Kentucky winters when it was so cold that my breath would freeze on its way up my face and frost my eyelashes and eyebrows.  So surely a little outdoor Icelandic sightseeing in my heavy parka wouldn't bother me, right?  Yeah, it did bother me.  A lot.  

Although weather.com predicted 60+ degree days, it actually never got out of the 50's and of course the nights were colder.  But what weather.com didn't factor in - or I didn't look for - was the windchill factor.  Windchill became my most hated and feared nemesis. Maybe my ability to tolerate the cold is forever ruined because I've lived in toasty warm South Carolina for thirteen years now.  Or maybe I just couldn't make the transition from hot southern US summer to kind of warm UK summer to cold Icelandic summer.  Regardless of the reason, I suffered!  It also didn't help that I picked up a stomach bug before leaving the UK, which didn't kick in until my second day in Iceland.  Cold wind and rain really doesn't help much when you're clinging to porcelain, just wishing it would all end, one way or another.  

So, yeah, let me just go ahead and say right now that I am not as sturdy as I thought and that if our country ever gets into a "situation" with Iceland, we should just go ahead and surrender immediately because these people will kick our fancy-car-seat-warmed tushies - while eating ice cream and clad in nothing but Speedos.  Our only hope would be to lure them into a desert and melt them...  But being from the land of volcanoes, I'm not sure that would bother them either!  

This picture just kind of says it all... ;)

Airports to Avoid

This was actually meant to be the first post of my trip but due to a questionable internet connection at what is quite possibly the world's suckiest airport, I thought I'd lost this and only recently realized that I hadn't...

When it comes to sucky airports, Boston's Logan International Airport has quickly moved to the top of the list, second only to the one in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  (Although to be fair, Tegucigalpa's rating is due more to sheer terror from the lack of runway than general suckiness.)  When we finally arrived in Boston at 9pm after the first flight on our way to Scotland, I thought we still had a chance to make our 9:30 flight to our next layover in Iceland.  Silly me!  Little did I know that the airport's terminals are widely spread and can only be accessed by leaving the secured area, getting into the regular airport arrival/departure traffic, and catching a bus to one of three or four other terminals, depending on where your next flight is headed.  Of course we landed as far away as possible from the terminal that we needed to depart from.  Bye-bye Iceland plane! :(  

I'll spare you all of the details of trying to find an Iceland Air staff member to re-route us and getting sent back to the original terminal only to be told that US Air could give a rip about us being stuck in Boston for 24 hours and losing what was to be our first day in Scotland.  The good news was that at least half of our luggage had definitely made it to Boston with us.  Probably.  We wouldn't know for sure for another two days once we finally made it to Glasgow, Scotland.  (We later learned that Mark's bag seemed to be the one in question and was apparently drug all the way from North Carolina!)

The silver lining in all of this was that my cousin and her signifant other live in Boston!  And she even answered my plea to be rescued from the airport!  (I have a feeling she might think about answering calls from me in the future though... ;)  Despite it being the middle of the night, all the highway tolls, airport fees, and crazy Boston traffic which apparently never sleeps, Erica and Tony drove from Belmont and rescued us from the airport of doom.  They even let us sleep in their home, although at that point, I would have been happy with the backseat of the car!  So even though our vacation was delayed for a day, we were fortunate enough to spend a little time with family and not be suck in limbo at the worst airport ever!  (On the way back from our trip, Mark got to spend even more time in the Boston Logan Airport when he had to lock himself into a bathroom stall to try to get some sleep since that seemed to be the only truly safe place for him and his luggage.)

Just say no...