Operation "Bamboozle" Part 1

The immigrant song - We come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun to the hot springs blow.

I wanted to visit Iceland about 6 years ago but circumstances & other stuff prohibited at the time. I decided to make the trip this year & asked my good mate TK if he like to come, "yes" he said so we booked it, simple. TK had a couple of friends of there so we would be able to meet them & also we booked a couple of trips online beforehand.

TK arrived at mine at 7.30am on saturday 6th March & had actually forgotten his coat! Might be needing that mate so we went back to his, picked it up & set off to Heathrow airport. We arrived there, checked in, had a quick sandwich & pint of lager before boarding our Icelandair flight & setting off. The flight lasted about 3 hours, i watched "Max Payne" a film adaptation of a video game starring Mark Wahlberg. The film looked great but the plot was as thin as chrome plating on a window, i give it 6 on 10. Anyway i digress, we landed at Keflavik airport & got a transferring coach to Rejkyavik, where it was beginning to snow heavily.

I should point out that TK is a well travelled chap, he's been all over the world, Mexico, USA, Borneo, Sweden, Thailand, Milton Keynes to name but a few. I therefore decided that i would get off the plane & enter onto Icelandic soil before him. For the first time in my life i had been somewhere TK hadn't been, even if it was for only 3 seconds until he crossed the Icelandic threshold himself! Still, that is my claim to fame & i never let him forget it whole the whole trip!

We tipped up at "Hotel Cabin" and checked in, we had a room each & upon entering mine was amazed at how small it was, the shower was also tiny & i'd have had a better chance of cleaning my ample frame in a telephone box. I went downstairs & TK was in the bar our icelandic friend Oddny, we had a couple of lagers then Oddny drove us to her house picking up her friend Jenny on the way. Oddny's driving was terrible & i have never been so scared in a car before, the snow didnt help & we were all crammed into a tiny Daewoo, possibly not ideal conditions for safe driving. Anyway, by a large miracle (or a series of smaller ones) we reached our destination.

Oddny's house was very nice with a kitchen that was bigger than my living room & kitchen combined. She cooked us a great meal comprising of lobster, pasta, mushrooms, icelandic haggis, dried fish, lamb terrine & much more besides, it was a massive spread and there was enough to feed about 10 people! We combined this with wine & various shots/shorts of the like i have never heard of before, let alone tasted. I stood outside Oddnys house & noticed how incredibly quiet it was, i could see car highlights some distance away but couldn't hear them it was pretty much silent, excellent, i could live in a place like this.

After this Oddny drove us (still badly) to a bar for a few more drinks before taking us to her friend Kristins flat where we drank more wine & shorts. Following this me & TK got a taxi back to the "Cabin" where we had a couple of beers & met an Icelandic couple at the bar, Rakel & John aka "Ivan the Terrible". I was amazed to learn that Rakel had heard of my mate "Vlad the Impalers" ninja metal band called "Sudoku", small world. We finally made it to bed at about 5 am.

Things i learned today:

- The Icelandic for "Exit" is "Utgangur"
- Taxis in Iceland are extremely expensive.

Oh, before i finish this part of the blog i should raise some awareness about Vlad. He was working as a trowel monkey in Iceland last year & will no doubt have much to say about my blogs. I suspect he may even try to dispute some of the facts i write & which will follow shortly. DO NOT pay him any heed whatsoever, he has a physical human form but is actually an alien lizard wearing fake skin who eats live rodents whole & is actually on earth so that he & his cohorts can steal our entire water supply.