Monday 23 January -- On the edge of sunset

After something of a mad dash to the tube that included running down to Twinings, being late for my taxi, and struggling through King's Cross with four items of luggage, one of which doesn't like to balance nicely, I finally ended up lounging on an impressively long train ride to zone six. Fortunately, the fact that I'd bought a zone 1-2 daypass to get to Twinings didn't end up costing me more money; an airport employee saw my luggage and used his card to help me through the barrier. I found the trolleys (carts in american), which were free (shocking), and took a circuitous route to bypass the elevators. Once I reached icelandair's checkin, my bags turned out to be underweight enough for me to actually unload some stuff from my carryons into them, which was a pleasant surprise.
As always, my liquid baggie got tested during my journey through security, but that was it. I had to wait about half an hour for my flight to start boarding, so I felt that I had timed things rather well.

Mine!

The weather was about the same when I left as when I got to England.

Flying!

I was hoping to enjoy iceland, or at least the keflavik airport, a little more than last time, but my flight was actually on last call by the time I got there.
Eight hours is a long time to be in the air.
It was dark when we set out from iceland, but once we got above the cloudcover, we flew in the dark for about an hour before we hit sunset.
 

If you embiggen the picture (and the next one), you may be able to see that I was trying to take a picture of the icelandic coast.

Atlantic ocean and also Iceland.

It was really weird, and I couldn't sleep (although I blame the fact that WE'RE FLYING! more than the light, because I could have shut the window if I hadn't been so darn excited. I was feeling especially poetical as I watched us flying backwards through the day, from night to sunset to daylight before circling above seattle through sunset until it was night again, and dubbed it "flying on the edge of sunset".
It was also pretty, but not like sunsets are on the ground. I think because we were so high, the sunset just kind of lurked around the horizon instead of dominating the sky, but I could see all the colours concentrated in a deep pink band that sometimes fuzzed into a really pretty purple.
Customs and baggage claim was really smooth, rather smoother than getting into England (probably because I wasn't wearing fancy, foreign-looking clothes, my suitcases are as cheap as I could manage, and I'm returning to my own country instead of being a slightly disreputable-looking person trying to get into another country that has some impressive immigration issues of its own). Even though I started off on a bad foot with the passport inspector by texting in line (in my defense, I didn't see the sign and it's never been a concern before), she warmed up to me by the time I was done being inspected. All my luggage came through, and I kept all my forms in reasonably decent order, at least for my first time solo through american customs and with four bags.
It was incredibly good to actually see my family in person. I kind of did the whole England thing on my own, and it was good to be allowed to let someone else support me (emotionally, that is).