Two Iceland Travel Tidbits for Americans

This is a puffin running away from us. I have 22 frames of him (her?) trying to get airborn.

This is the little guy doing a fly by. I hear they each have unique designs on their beaks; like fingerprints.

1.  Know your PIN number for your credit/debit card.

If you are driving, you’ll need gas. Gas stations now require a pin number.  All of them. Everywhere in Iceland. (Someone told us it was new this year.) Shell stations wouldn’t take our cards but the N-1 stations were accommodating.  (This kind of assumes you won’t be using cash.  (I never use cash. I always use my credit card. I do not know my pin.) But if you were using cash, presumably you’d need your pin to get cash out of an ATM.)

The only time I needed a PIN was for gas pumps.  (And I only needed to sign my credit slip when outside of Reykjavik. No one asked me for an ID – except the guy renting us the car.)

This whale was just hanging out, eating. No hurry, no stress, no interest in us whatsoever. Just eating. Given that he (she?) came up and dove about 20 times and I have about 47 gig of pix, you'd think I'd capture more of the ginormous beast (humpback).

2. Phones* – when you turn on your phone, on the plane, on the runway it will pop up with a message about Iceland call charges and data charges.  Promptly turn off your cell data use.  (iPhone instructions here.)

Cell data charges result from all those automagic things your smart phone does.  I’ve heard tales of $1000 phone bills.  Use your Wi Fi.

In Reykjavik, it seemed that every place except hotels had free Wi Fi. Outside of the capital, Wi Fi was a little harder to find, but not much. (Also – outside of the capital, all our hotels had Wi Fi.)

Whale footprint. This is the mark whales leave in the water when they dive. And this is what most of my whale pictures look like.

* A note on US federal gov’t issue phones: Ask your agency. Some will work, some won’t. Contracts differ. ASK your IT department.  Also, “Iceland” is not “Europe”; be specific.

A note on the Color Addiction: I’m so glad I frogged. I’m three-quarters re-knit (by ridge count. Each row is longer than the next …) (In two days. That says I spent a week thinking about it in Iceland. Counting stitches. Stretching it out. Plotting. Planning. Refiguring. …  /sob.)