Made it Back to Iceland

With blue skies and calm winds, we successfully made it out of Greenland and landed in Reykjavik, Iceland around 8pm local time. I am geographically further, yet mentally (and logistically) closer to home.

We had high hopes this morning when we woke up to sunshine in Nuuk. We checked the airport and saw some planes had taken off already and the forecast in Iceland was decent. Still, we decided to get another COVID test, knowing another unexpected delay would render the Saturday tests invalid (and we had no option to test on Sunday). We headed up in the frigid early morning and graced the COVID testing center with what we hoped was our final farewell.

Hoping its our last time following the yellow dots keeping us apart from others waiting for COVID testing (plane delays required a lot of retesting for timing of test requirements)

That done, we ate one last brunch with Hans before he drove us to the airport. Even after we boarded and the engine started, we were afraid it would somehow be delayed. We kept waiting for the Greenlandic wind to grace us with her presence, so we couldn't get excited yet. But we took off and had a smooth trip east, over the rest of Greenland and down to Iceland.

Beautiful views from the plane until we disappeared into the clouds.

Sketch by Alice: Traveling with an artist means watching her produce THIS in two hours of flight while you accomplish...basically nothing.

Landing in Iceland required a few steps including another pass through security (always delayed when one of you is carrying a structured light scanner), passing through two checkpoints to show passport, vaccine proof, COVID test results, and a barcode showing you filed your entry paperwork, and baggage claim. After all THAT a swing through the rental car line had us headed towards Reykjavik. We yelped with delight when we saw the Greenlandic Corona Secretary was working late tonight and answered our pleas for the extensive document needed to reenter our respective countries tomorrow. So we are officially ready to head home. Wish us luck. You never know.

On a separate note, a kind neighbor left the paper below in our mailbox over the weekend..I was in a Watertown newspaper! Always fun to see...even more fun that its an actual paper newspaper. When my kids are older, this might be cool for them to have. I'm not sure they will have paper newspapers at that point, so this may really look like an artifact of the past.