ICELAND DAY!
I don’t shout this on the plane, because I am an adult now and know that shouting things make people think there’s a fire and that is how you get kicked off a flight in midair for sure. But it is Iceland Day, and as I wake up and shoot a last glance at Window Lady, who I still hope trips on her way to baggage claim (have an inconvenient day, bitch), I realize Dan and I are touching down in Iceland. This is a strange feeling, because Iceland is only the place where my favorite show is from, which is a kid's show called Lazytown where all the kids just eat donuts and a hot man comes to show them how to do jump splits and they just keep eating the donuts and watching him do jump splits because what ELSE are you supposed to do in that situation, your own jump splits? Forget it.
Sometimes he does regular splits and sings songs.
Top of my Celebrity Hall Pass list.
We deplane and end up in the Iceland airport, which I realize has campaigned super hard near Portland because it IS Portland, and is full of artisan chocolate and artisan people and artisan sandwiches. I ask if we can have any of these things and Dan says we already have artisan sandwiches made by an artisan person (Dan) so we head over to the first class lounge because we are now on the Fancy People leg of our trip.
I told Dan on the flight that the only thing I wanted was to go to the first class lounge and have some pancakes, but then I remembered we were going to Europe and therefore pancakes mean something different, which is sad pieces of flour paper and not the hearty flapjacks of American lore. So when we arrive and I see pancakes, I am skeptical, but it is 11pm our internal clock time and 6am local time, which means my stomach is a freshman college girl ready to believe anything anyone tells her.
I'm the best you'll ever have, baby.
Here’s the thing: these pancakes ain’t wrong. These are officially the Best Pancakes Ever. They are dense, they are chewy, they are fluffy, they are perfect. If these pancakes were an ass, they would be Jessica Alba in Sin City, CHAPS ON. After inappropriately succumbing to orgasmic pancake ecstasy in public, whereby Dan asks me to please conduct myself appropriately in the first class lounge, I tell Dan to try a pancake and confirm that they are R-rated and should not be served in public and maybe also try to do a jump split. He says they are the best pancakes ever but also I should calm down and stop making the other business folk uncomfortable and also no to the jump splits. I say PANCAKES I AM HAVING MROE and he goes back to doing regular Dan stuff while I stuff my face with the best pancakes ever and onlookers try to avoid my glassy drugged-up pancake stare that is normally reserved for people who are smoking crack or smoking crack and realizing it's actually really good crack and they better buy more before it all runs out.
Dan reminds me we have a nine-hour layover in Iceland in which we’ve decided to go to the Blue Lagoon. We succumb to the touristy nature of the venture because honestly we do not give a fuck and there is no better way to spend a layover than in nature’s giantest bathtub. For some reason, the internet screwed up our reservation and said we were going to the Blue Lagoon on July 7th (probably because European dates are the worst) but the very nice people in Iceland don’t care how much we are changing our journeys and let us go wherever we want and do whatever we want and, contrary to all of my Icelandic TV show viewing, eat as many donuts/pancakes as we want.
We get on a nice bus with WiFi, because everyone in Iceland has WiFi, which is impressive for a volcano. What is not impressive is literally everything else about their landscape, but I have a feeling they know this because every ad they have they throw in some ponies, which is like sprinkling gold dust on your dinner, you know it’s just a piece of chicken but now it’s CHICKEN CON GOLD.
This seems nice.
Iceland is not chicken con gold. It is mostly rocks.
After fifteen minutes, we see some blue steam rising above the rocks, and I point it out to Dan very calmly.
“DAN THAT STEAM IS BLUE DAN LOOK IT IS BLUE
HAVE YOU SEEN BLUE STEAM DAN DAN DAN BLUE STEEEEAM"
He says blue steam is cool.
We are happy that we booked at 8am time for the hot springs because we have heard they are very touristy, but one thing that is universal with tourists is that they do not do stuff before 10am unless your plan is to never sleep and start hallucinating. This means for two hours, we have a pretty empty hot spring that is milky blue and relatively deserted. Also hot. ALLEGEDLY. I assume I am the first person who has ever visited a hot spring ever and tell Dan I will confirm the hotness of the spring. Dan, who has lived in Montana and maintains he has been in many natural hot springs says of course they are hot, but clearly he does not know because I am the first person to visit a hot spring ever. I tell him I will let him know if this is true and then I get in and the water is in fact hot and I am impressed. I tell Dan he can also be impressed and he does not answer me because he is busy being Dan which is normal and used to hot springs.
JUST A REGULAR DAY FOR DAN I GUESS
I bring my phone to the springs because it seems this is the Done Thing, and after a few pictures, I realize the Done Thing sucks because we are in a goddamn pool and carrying your phone around sucks.
Am I an Instagram celebrity now or
do I need to actually use Instagram
I run back to the locker room and throw my phone away, and when I return to the hot springs I instantly regret this because Dan agrees to wear a silica mud mask with me and now I have no way of capturing it for all time. He puts it all over his face and I put it all over my face and chest and we are finally the perfect depiction of the White Family, because we are literally covered in whiteface. I consider retrieving my phone to recreate the moment, but instead here is an accurate representation of Dan's face:
After a few hours, we decide it’s time to go back to the airport, and we prepare ourselves for our journey, only to the have the bus driver tell us he will not be returning to the airport for another hour. This is hard for us because we were planning to return to the first class lounge to drink until we had to leave, but we are well-seasoned travelers used to changes in plans, so we go back to the Blue Lagoon cafe to drink there instead.
The cafe only has weird liquor and dried haddock, and as we are one alcoholic and one Jew, we congratulate ourselves for making the Right Choice.
Party in Iceland and Only We Are Coming.
Finally, we notice that is time to go and we head out to the bus. I see the bus driver running down the Blue Lagoon path and recognize the face of a man who needs to poop badly, so I prepare myself for a long wait at the bus stop. Dan rubs my arms vigorously to keep me warm, because it is fucking cold in Iceland, for some reason (if only there had been some context clues, honestly). I mention he can rub my chest if he really wants to keep me warm, and he says I have been watching a lot of Batman Begins. I say clearly I am just very good at survival skills but he does not rub my boobs to keep me warm, and I loudly reconsider our relationship. He offers to continue feeding me, so I decide to stay with him.
We re-arrive at the Iceland Airport, ready to kick it in the first class lounge again. Because Dan’s life is blessed, the entire food arrangement is smoked fish and deep-fried shrimp. I mix a cocktail that tastes like garbage and it is so overwhelming that I decide to spend the rest of my time in the delightfully comfortable lounge sleeping. Dan says please don’t sleep because we will probably miss our flight and I say that is a him problem because clearly I am the type of person to miss a flight so he needs to save me from myself.
The saintly Dan stays awake while I snore in the middle of a public place.
Not what I meant when I asked Dan
to take photos of me on this trip.
Eventually, we decide we need to leave this lounge because it is the Garden of Eden, full of smoked fish and coffees and cocktails and we will never leave unless we make the jump. So we leave the lounge to get to our gate.
Nothing is happening there. We realize we’ve made a huge mistake.
Until some ridiculous children start making hilarious sounds next to us. I am on their wavelength because I am kind of drunk and sleepy and there is no reason to be standing in line for a flight without making ridiculous sounds and/or crying hysterically. We start making fish faces at each other, and then popping our lips, because we are standing in line, and what the fuck does one do in line but entertain oneself with one’s own facial sounds?
Kids just get me.
We board the plane and immediately fall asleep. Did I mention this leg was first class and everything was super fucking comfortable? I probably did not, but this leg was first class and everything was super fucking comfortable.
Dan, in his inimitable Dan wisdom, recommended that we fall asleep for an hour and a half in order to beat jet lag. He probably slept for that length, while I slept for way more than that time and then grunted and flailed every time he mentioned I should wake up. Eventually he manages to wake me, and I immediately order gin and tonic and Campari because we are fancy and also it is very free and then I immediately order another and the very sweet flight attendant doesn't speak perfect English so she says, "Another?" and I say yes another and prepare for a delightful flight.
She's probably right to ask.
Dan, unhappy with the prospect of another sandwich, orders cured fish on a plane, like a madman.
I, too, like to live dangerously.
Somehow, by this point, I've ordered many drinks, and according to Dan, I am very drunk. I tell him I am not drunk just very excited to be doing sky stuff and he says we have landed and also to hold it together because we have to navigate customs. But it is Spain and we are well-versed in Spanish customs, which basically means you walk through the door and you're in the country and maybe someone waved at you when you walked by, but probably not.
We magically teleport to the center of Madrid, where we are staying at a place called Sleep'N Atocha. It is adorable and amazing probably but I am now admittedly quite drunk so I tell Dan FOOD NOW PLEASE and we wander down the street to find food. After a few minutes, we pop in to a place which I do not know the name, but this guy greets me.
"May I get you a drink?"
A giant octopus on the wall who looks like he will pour me a beer is always a welcome sight, and we order lots of food and wine. Because I am drunk and can only partially claim to know how to speak Spanish, and definitely can't claim to know how to read English or Spanish, we pray whatever words I say turn out okay.
Look, food!
After gorging on delicious food items and drinking all the wine, we stumble back through the streets of Madrid to pass out in our cute little hotel room, because I've achieved blackout status.
Getting drunk on airplanes is fun.
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