Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The first "Oh sh*t" moment of the trip

I'd been explaining to everyone who would listen about my epic trip.

"Yeah," I'd muse, "I take off from San Francisco at 11:30 PM on Thursday and get there at about 2 p.m. GMT (local time) on SATURDAY! Can you believe that?" I figured I must have had some crazy long layover in Minnesota.

I should have checked the itinerary more closely. Or at all.

You see, I don't do a lot with paper. I print about two pages a month at work, and I don't have a working printer at home. But tonight, I decided to check it.

It turns out I arrive in Reykjavik on FRIDAY afternoon, not SATURDAY.

This is great news for my trip, 'cuz I get an extra day, I thought. So I went to hostels.com and started booking a night at a (much more expensive) hostel in the city center. However, when I was just about to complete the booking, I got a message that stated, "We cannot verify availability for all nights you selected."

Well, shoot, I only selected one night!! Ut oh, I thought, but quickly formulated a plan. If I wasn't able to get into a hostel that first night (and wouldn't shell out $150+ USD for a 2-star hotel) I'd simply run the runtur. The runtur is the all-night party that happens every Friday and Saturday in Reykjavik that starts at 11:00 p.m. and doesn't end until the pubs close at 3, 4, even 5 a.m., and then it spills out onto the streets and continues until everyone's too blitzed to see straight. By that time, I would have been able to check into my hostel on Saturday.

This was not to be, however. Somehow, the gods of the Internet smiled on me, and the fourth time I tried to book the room, it worked. So I've got a place to land in the city now. Now I just need to figure out where this place is.

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