We arrived in Iceland December 23, 2010, we were suppose to arrive December 18th but were delayed five days in London due to weather. The first two nights we stayed in a hostel, spending most of the two days praying, calling the airline to work out our next flight, traveling to the airport in the attempt to get some kind of help, and figuring out how to stay on budget. Finally we got a flight booked for Monday night. It wasn’t unlit a few hours before we were leaving to go to the airport for our second attempt at leaving England that we realized we were staying right across the street from Kensington Gardens.
Our second attempt to leave failed Monday the 20th. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have the money to stay anywhere or to travel to find a place to stay. A few minutes after we made our final decision to go back to Holmsted, a lady that worked for the airport came up to us and asked if we wanted to stay on the floor of a conference room in a hotel for free, food provided. We had to make a quick decision, and decided to take the offer. God really blessed us the next two nights. The first night at the Hotel (our third night in London) we were in a smaller conference room , it held 30 people total. They gave us free internet, really really good food, opened up a couple empty rooms so we could shower, and everyone was extremely helpful and nice. The next day we were moved to a different hotel, a bigger one closer to the airport. This conference room held around 100 people or more. We continued to get food, internet, showers, help, and a good story.
Our third attempt at leaving was Wednesday night December 22. God continued to bless us (with the help of some friends) we were upgraded to first class, and was able to hang out in the first class lounge complete with free food and drinks. We also met really cool Icelandic people.
Arriving five days late we landed in Iceland after 1:00 a.m. and got to the Salvation Army Guesthouse about 3:00 a.m. December 23rd.
Something that we learned right away was that pretty much everything shuts down from the 24th until the 27th . So there wasn’t much to do besides enjoy Iceland at Christmas time.
During the first two weeks we got to know the DTS that was on their lecture phase here in Iceland. They had about about 2 weeks left before they left for their outreach in Kenya. They were very welcoming and fun to hang out with. They showed us the ropes and taught us a little about Iceland. From Christmas until after New Years we helped where we could, made friends and a few contacts, brainstormed a lot of our ideas, and spent a lot of time in prayer and worship. During the holidays the Icelandic people and business schedule is all over the place, in a good way, it just made it harder for us to make a concrete schedule.
New Years was absolutely amazing, I have never seen so many fireworks in my life. I could combine all the fireworks of 4th of July and New years that I have seen and this still beats it. Everyone buys their own fireworks, and not just small ones, but the ones that are illegal in most states...the big dogs. It sounded like a war zone outside. You could be walking down the street and fireworks would be going off 20 ft from the ground. Iceland also has a tradition of going to huge bonfires, they are set up all over the city and they are huge! The holidays were so lovely and definitely something I will never forget.
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