Icelandair planes are named after Icelandic volcanos. Our plane was the Hofsjökull, which is the largest active volcano in the country. On March 20, 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted and caused some flights to be rerouted or cancelled. Luckily, we didn't have any problems.
As if to calm the nerves of anyone who noticed their plane was named after a mountain that randomly spews fiery molten death, the captain spoke reassuringly to us in Icelandic. Or perhaps not…my Icelandic is pretty much limited to coffee (kaffi) and he never said that. Pity.
Stewardesses in their dark blue pillbox hats ensured our seatbacks were upright. In the event of a crash. we were now safely locked in that razor thin 3 inch zone separating “alive” or “dead”.
On a positive note, the seat was comfortable with at least reasonable legroom. My sleek personal seatback entertainment system refused to play Tetris, offered to teach me Icelandic and carefully pinpointed my flight’s progress. There was even a USB jack! I kicked off my shoes, took a sip of water from my Sigg bottle, popped in my earplugs, and settled back into my travel pillow in the yoga pose known as “airplane pretzel”.
An uneventful 6 hours later, we landed in Iceland. That was one odd landscape. Treeless, snowless and flat, the land was smoothly undulating yet also fissured. Fascinating geology. But in just a few minutes we were on the ground, quickly clearing EU customs, and off to catch our 3 hour flight to Paris.
Other than one exploded bag (figuratively, not literally), all our luggage arrived intact in Paris. Monsieur Blanchard met us at the gate. He spoke a little English; our sleep deprived, jet lagged brains didn’t offer up much French. After a 2 hour ride, we arrived in Rouen. And so, we begin the next part of the story at Madame Lejamble’s home, which will also be our home until June...
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