The Fosters Take Finland

After roughly twelve hours of deep sleep we got up and conquered the breakfast buffet. Brian walked to pick up our rental car and about 5 minutes after he texted to say he'd be back in 5 minutes, he texted again: "I just got hit." He'd been rear-ended by one of those adorably compact delivery trucks. Not his fault at all, but it rattled him, and seriously cracked the bumper. Part of it was dangling off. The guy who ran into him was chill and stuck around while Brian called the car rental agency to tell them what happened. They said is it driveable and he said yes and they said keep driving. So he did!  Our first stop was The Blue Lagoon because we didn't want to listen to "when are we going to the Blue Lagoon?" the entire day, and it was the right call. It's a tourist trap--just a mill churning people through--but you kinda can't tell while you're in it. Our tickets got us a drink each; we adults chose green juice and the kids chose a slushy ...

It's 6:20pm in Reykjavik: pyjama time. We're all telling each other we aren't going to bed yet while we get suspiciously, dangerously under the covers. But it's ok if we fall asleep. It's a miracle, and a testament to the girls' fortitude, that we're still awake at this hour. We left Halifax at 3:20pm local time, spent 4:30pm-8:30pm bumming around Pearson Airport waiting for our connection, and then flew the ~5 hours from Toronto to Reykjavik, landing in Iceland around 6am local time; if you're keeping track, you know this felt like 3am to bodies that started the day in Halifax. The girls got a little bit of sleep on the plane--2 hours, maximum, and even that was uncomfortable and broken up by the airplane's many interruptions. Brian and I got no sleep at all. Needless to say, by the time we arrived in downtown Reykjavik via the $170 bus ride (gasp) and found that our hotel room wasn't ready (an understandable situation 8 hours before our schedul...