I was awake just before my 5:30 alarm this morning. I quietly slipped out of the house by about 6:10, with my train to Gatwick being at about 6:30. I was surprised that it was already light out at that hour. Moira had given me a heads up that the café at the Hove station is decent and inexpensive, so I grabbed from there a coffee to go with the croissant I’d bought at Tesco’s last night.

Train was on time and rather full as I’m imagine it’s a commuter since it goes to London Bridge. It was a quick trip to Gatwick, even with stopping to attach more cars at the stop prior to the airport.

Wow Air hadn’t let me check in online and their website said that the counter would open three hours before my flight, so about 7:50, but it was open when I got there at about 7:20. As I suspected, I had to check in in person so they could examine my carry-on luggage. Their scale is inaccurate as it weighed my suitcase as being quite a bit heavier than it is, but they let it through since my other bag was under the limit. I then had an absolutely painless and quick trip through security, complete with complimentary full body massage…

I then had a couple of hours to kill. I popped into a Boots to get some water and saw that they had a meal deal for just £3.50, so I grabbed a full litre of water, a bag of crisps, and what turned out to be an amazing Moroccan style chicken wrap complete with raisins. I would regret not buying more food…

We boarded on time and left pretty much on time. The cloud cover was very thick.

Before I knew it, we were approaching Iceland.

It looked like an alien world!

The highway seems to be out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

We arrived at Keflavik Airport a few minutes late. I only had a one-hour layover, so I was glad I was right at the front of the plane. I really wanted a bathroom and food, but my first priority was to check the status of my flight to Montreal…. Delayed one hour. I was actually happy about that! The bathroom and food lineups were insanely long and I wouldn’t have been able to do either with my original layover length.

The bathrooms were impressive. Each cubicle is its own complete little bathroom!

What was not so impressive was that the bathroom was flooding and most of it was about to be shut down. You can’t see it well in this picture, but water was pouring through the ceiling!

Food was incredibly expensive, and not just by airport standards. I knew that if something was, say, 1,500 króna, that meant it was roughly 15USD, and from  that, I could get to the rough Canadian price. I bought their cheapest sandwich, ham and cheese (no mustard as that was several dollars more expensive),a yoghurt, because I’d been told I had to try this brand…

and some Icelandic chocolate…

…which was very odd and not very chocolately. More vanilla-y. You can tell just by the colour that it’s not normal chocolate.

My meagre lunch will end up costing me about 20CAD. But, hey, I get an Icelandic charge on my Visa statement this month. 🙂

Before I knew it, my Icelandic stopover was done.

After a snooze, Greenland was upon me…

Which was good preparation for the mess that awaited me in Montreal!

It was a really easy and effortless travel day, yay! Now, I’ve been up almost 24 hours and it’s way past time for bed…