July 30: "Trials and tribulations of a big green box"
Upon arrival at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, the difficulties began.
To start with, security inspection of our green bicycle case. Yves was
astonished that the inspector was not satisfied with his very visible inscription
"BICYCLE" which he had written on the side. As if terrorists wrote
"BOMB" on their bags! I had to undo 4 screws at the corner of
the box (thank you Topeak, the small all-in-one tool that every cyclist should
carrry) and by lifting the corner and with the help of our small head lamp,
it was possible to get a peek at the interior. Our inspector being overly
busy she was fortunately satisfied with a furtive glance. The sales manager
was also undoubtedly too busy to discuss and finally agreed to load our more
than cumbersome package in spite of it's 53 kg and that at the price of a
single bicycle at a very reasonable 25 euros (one-way ticket).
At the Keflavik airport
(under horizontal and icy rain, faithful to Iceland's reputation) our case
arrived with a large hole the size of a volleyballl. That was for me ample
proof of the need to protect our beautiful machine with solid armour and the
undesired opening will become an inspection window for the return journey.
Contrary to several authors' accounts which I had read on Internet, our first
contacts with the Icelanders were friendly. Their friendliness even turned
into mirth upon seeing the size of the bicycle box and my naive hopes of it
fitting into one of their Flybuses, the shuttlebus between the airport and
Reykjavik! The first large bus was taken by storm by the passengers flowing
out of our plane. The two following were small buses with a capacity of 10
passangers and corresponding luggage space. No room for our box. 45 minutes
later a big white bus arrived but it's hold was just a few centimetres short
in height to be able to accommodate our treasured machine. It was only after
two hours of waiting that finally a bus answering our ambitious requirements
arrived. And sublime surprise, the charming Icelandic ticket collector (smiling,
blond, and deep blue eyed) who had sold us our fares, reimbursed us 500 kroners,
the price of the oversize baggage transport, to compensate us for our long
wait. (While shivering in the cold, I observed several young punks who
I was sure to meet again at the youth hostel in which Yves had told me that
we would spend our first two nights of holidays in separate dormitories. It
goes without saying: I was in a very bad mood, fear of the future adding to
my anguish. The trip between Keklavik and Reykjavik made things even worse,
the bus being buffeted by cross winds and the cars spraying buckets of water
reminding me of the most fearsome pictures I had seen in the guides I had
looked at. ANXIETY…why in the world had I accepted?????)
The reception at theYouth
Hostel was as friendly as at the airport in complete contradiction with the
observations written in the "Guide du Routard". Unfortunately I
had made my reservation too late to have a private room and we had to sleep
in separate dormitories. But the place was impeccably clean, very well equipped
with a television room, washing machines, and storage space where I could
leave our box until the end of the month. Also a kitchen allowing us to prepare
our meals equipped with dishes and hotplates.
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The bicycle
case
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It's contents
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