Today is our last morning on our Scandinavia adventure. I will admit though, that the whirlwind adventure has caught up with me a bit. The time changes, hotel changes, flights, driving, and hiking has taken some of my endless energy out of me today. But that's okay. I get to travel home with my love/best friend, and we get to hug our beautiful children tonight. I am blessed. We ate one last breakfast at our hotel www.hiltonreykjavik.com, and then checked out to make one last drive about the ever changing landscape of this country. Jason has done very well with the driving, of multiple countries, and multiple vehicles. Olaf in Norway and Thor here in Iceland. I am always the map reader, he is the driver when we are places we are unfamiliar with. I am the map pro, or the maphappymom. Jason will admit to that as well. After 25 years together, we know what works for us, and what will cause the least amount of driving conflict. (Yes, all you couples know exactly what I am talking about). Here is our friend Thor, who has served us well her in Iceland: Today since we are headed to the airport which is an hour south of Reykjavik in the most southwestern corner of the country. We decided to do two things in that region. The first, since Jason is a fan of shows like Vikings, and Game of Thrones, he wanted to see a little bit of the Viking history, so we took a chance on a museum called Viking World. The museum spoke a lot about Icelandic explorers, and even focused on Leif Eriksons landing in Newfoundland, and the ties of our two countries which was a nice exhibit to explore. It also had a large reconstruction ship called the Islendingur, which was sailed across the Atlantic in a recreation journey following the footsteps of the early Icelandic explorers. Another exhibit they had at the museum was all about the Norse Gods, and the Mythology and Folklore legends. We were given headsets and then took a walk through a giant colourful diorama of different scenes. After the Viking World Museum we drove about 15 minutes to the tip, and took a step closer to returning home. We stopped at the Bridge Between Continents. It probably seems impossible to walk from Europe to North America within a matter of seconds, but Iceland is a unique place where seemingly unimaginable feats are completely real. Midlina, also known as ‘Leif the Lucky Bridge’, is a 15 meter (50 ft) footbridge in the Reykjanes Peninsula spanning a gaping rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. Jason and I taking pictures of each other across the bridge. I am still in Europe, he's already on the North America. And now the time has come. For us to actually go home. We drove back to Keflavik airport, checked the car back in at the rental firm, and walked into the terminal. We quickly filed our tax form, so that we can claim some of the tax back on the very few things we actually purchased on this trip. But it will be nice to get almost 20 % back. Then we checked our baggage in, printed our boarding passes and made our way through security and customs. Again customs at this airport was very easy, and we received another passport stamp showing us leaving Iceland. After grabbing some lunch/dinner and wandering through the duty free shops and some of the other airport stores we made our way through the once again very crowded airport to our gate. A quick bus ride from the gate and we were out to our plane on the tarmac ( because there are not enough gates for the number of planes and people). Icelandair is a great airline, when they can they board the plane from both the front and the back, making it a quick and must easier for those who are close to the back of the plane. We were greeted by the airline attendants with another bottle of their Icelandic water, and soon we were on our way home. A great in air entertainment system helped pass the time quickly.. a few episodes of Downton Abbey, some other shows and the movie Gifted ( which I love), and the time went by quickly. Our views of Greenland on the flight home again was outstanding. Clearing customs in Toronto was relatively easy, and then we just had to wait for our bags at the carousel. The best part of our day, was being met by Ethan and Emmy at the airport when they came for the ride with Janin. So happy to be back with them, we missed them immensely. Very tired, after our long journey today. We will make our way home tomorrow, and then I will post a a final thoughts for all of you. Stay tuned, at least one more to come.
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