Day 139-stopover

   May 22-We spent the night in Keflavík, so we could meet Shan's parents at the airport early this morning.  Since the drive to the airport from Reykjavík takes 45 minutes, staying here allowed us to sleep a little longer this morning.  That is a distinct advantage, because flights from the States all seem to arrive between 6 and 7 in the morning.  So, we got up when their plane arrived, dressed, and ate breakfast, before making the five minute drive to the airport. 
   Janice and Larry Writebol, college friends of Shan's parents, accompanied his folks on this visit.  Since the Writebols have never travelled internationally before, we figured that they might take a bit longer to get through customs and passport control.  Alas, we were wrong, and we were 15 minutes late in picking them up!  Thankfully, they were jet-lagged and disoriented enough already that they could not work themselves up to being too upset.  We picked up their rental car and drove back over to the motel.
   We had these visitors today because they were able to take advantage of Icelandair's
"stopover" deal.  They were able to make an extended layover in Iceland on their journey between Denver and Copenhagen at no extra cost.  Since their flight to Copenhagen left the next day, we had reserved the rooms at the motel for two nights, so they could use the rooms tonight.  The kids were still asleep when we got back to the motel, so we woke them up.  While they got around to go, we packed our bags out and the Hays's and Writebol's luggage into the rooms.
   We headed to Reykjavík and had breakfast and then we began to show the Writebols around.  For the most part, Shan's parents had seen everything we saw today during their first visit, but they had wanted to see if things looked different in the summer.  We are not sure if this visit accomplished that, but it does look different here than it did seven weeks ago.  Mostly, it is greener and warmer. 

   Since this group loves to go junking, our first stop was Fríða Frænka.  We then walked over to the Harpa concert hall.  On the way, Norm got to see the steam locomotive near the harbor, which had not been on display when he had visited before.  We took them to the top of the steeple at Hallgrímskirkja so they could get a good view of the town and its surroundings.  Clouds had drifted in overnight and some rain had fallen.  This had cleared the volcanic ash from the air, so visibility was much improved.  Since it only rained lightly a little bit during the day and there were occasional breaks in the clouds, the weather mostly cooperated, so we all enjoued pretty decent views.  We ate dinner at the café in the Perlan.  By this time, jet lag had affected all of the newcomers for at least a short bit, but, overall, they did very well.
   When Shan's family visited seven weeks ago, they rented a car from Thrifty.  A week after they returned to the States, Thrifty charged them unexpectedly, claiming that the vehicle had been damaged when it was returned.  We do not think that it was damaged, so we stopped by the Brimborg business office in Reykjavík, which operates Thrifty in Iceland, to press our case.  Shan's folks managed to get a small concession, but ended up not making much headway.  I think we all learned to be more wary of car rental agencies.
   This is where we parted ways.  The Hayses and Writebols headed out to the northwestern tip of the Reykjanes peninsula to see the seashore, the lighthouse, and the museum.  They then went back to the motel, where they hit the sack early, since they would be flying out at 7:30 the next morning. 
   Before heading for home, we took our car through an automatic car wash, which is not available between Reykjavík and Bifröst.  Interestingly, we had to all get out of the car "for safety reasons" while the carwash was operating.  Then, we hurried back to Bifröst so we could join the rest of Iceland in front of the TV.  Tonight was the first semifinals of Eurovision.  This is a song competition for all of the countries served by the European Broadcasting Union.  Each country submits an entry, which is performed in the semifinals.  The top ten acts from each of the semifinals compete in the finals.  The top acts are determined by popular voting and by a panel of experts.  We had first heard about Eurovision when we had watched the Icelandic competition to determine the Icelandic entry back in January and this had piqued our interest.  Given its popularity in Iceland, Sally and Shan think that it is very odd that they had not heard about Eurovision while they spent their years abroad in England and Germany in the early 1990s.
   Einar and Sígrun Lilja invited us over to their house to watch the semifinals tonight since Iceland's submission would be competing in the first semifinal round.  They cooked supper for us and our kids played around, since their children are friends of Alex's and Spencer's.  Grilling is as popular here as it is in the United States and Einar cooked us up some fantastic grub.  We had beef kebabs, some lamb, and minke whale.  Einar had talked up his whale-cooking skills, so we were interested in seeing what it was like.  Frankly, it was tender and delicious!
   As for the Eurovision competition, it is difficult to describe.  The variety of songs and performances is impressive.  None of the songs were truly folk songs, but some did have cultural twists related to their country of origin.  Others were Europop songs, through and through, and probably half of the songs were sung in English.  The Icelandic submission was originally written and performed in Icelandic back in January, but it was rewritten since then and the two singers sang it in English for the Eurovision competition.  Overall, it was very enjoyable to watch the spectacles and listen to the songs.  Iceland was selected third of the top ten, so they will be competing in the finals on Saturday.  It sounds like it will be "Super Bowl Sunday" on Saturday evening over here with most public areas deserted as people all over Iceland throw large Eurovision parties.  We definitely plan to watch!