ICELAND
May 21 - May 25
Despite nearly a year of planning, the trip was still somehow quite unplanned. For the most part, the planning stopped once I had set a date for the trip and had bought the plane tickets. Like I always say, the best trips seem to be unplanned. On the afternoon of May 21, when my brother was driving me to San Diego Airport Lindbergh Field, I still didn't know exactly which countires I would be visiting, and for how long I was going to be staying in each city. I had a list of friends I was going to visit, a few "must see" locations, a fixed starting point and time, and a fixed termination point and time. The anticipation was unbareable those last couple weeks leading up to the trip. Now, enroute to the airport, the trip was finally for real. My backpack was loaded up and I was on my way. A few articles of clothing, a camera, and some plane tickets is all I had. This was my first time overseas and I was going solo, which added to my nervousness. I had learned enough French to get by with in France, but I knew only a few words of German and Dutch, and nothing of Icelandic. That didn't matter though, my trip was definitely going to happen now! Weeeeelll...the reality is life is never that simple and Murphey's Law dictates that what can go wrong, will go wrong! Soon I would find out just how lucky I was to even be leaving southern California.
My brother pulled up to that lovely white curb, you know, the same one that pleasant lady is always ranting about during the airport announcements. We were exremely early. You see, I had been anticipating the typical saturday afternoon slow down on the southbound 5, but for some strange reason, traffic was pretty much non-existant. We bid each other farwell and I headed into the terminal. I was flying United to San Francisco and then Iceland Air to Europe. Walking through the terminal building, a huge line of frustated and angry people caught my attention. I thought, grreeeaaaaaat, that's the line to the United ticketing counter. That can't be good. Luckily I'm hear early, cause it's gonna take me 3 hours just to get through this line. I take my place at the end of the line and prepare for the long wait. I had been there in line maybe 2 minutes when a United employee starts walking past everyone shouting, "San Francisco? San Francisco? Who's going to San Fran?" I shouted "right here!"
