March 4^th

I slept in the next morning. I wasn’t feeling well and in addition to my period, my cold was just raging. When I dragged myself up, we ventured out. First we hit up Bonus for our last grocery trip, and then we went to an amazing bakery. Kai got two croissants (boring) and I got a chocolate croissant and a cinnamon bun (adventurous).

We returned ‘home’ to eat and since we both felt a little draggy, we rested in the monster bed.

At dinner the night before, I had ‘surprised’ Kai with tickets to see a cellist and pianist, both Icelandic women, that she’d wanted to see since before we left Canada.

She’d been checking out Harpa and saw them on the playbill but couldn’t justify the cost. Since we had that day open in case of last minute rearrangements, I’d decided early on to get tickets if the day remained free. Since it did, I bought the tickets and I put ‘surprise’ in scare quotes because I’d said, “I have a surprise for you!” and she kind of guessed since what else could it be. But that was fine with me. It was the only thing she’d really wanted – everything else she was excited for but there was nothing on the itinerary that was just for her. She really loved the gift and despite being very tired, she loved the show!

Before we got there, however, we had to go and get the world famous hot dogs that everyone talks about. We got the ‘everything’ except raw onions, and they were SO GOOD and actually inexpensive, like half the price of the gas stations dogs. But… they weren’t amazing. In fact, I felt that the veggie dog from the cart outside Canadian Tire is superior. Still, really yummy and a must do. From there we headed to Harpa but stopped at a flea market which is apparently a very big deal. I almost vetoed it because I wanted to be super early for the show (we were anyway) but we went in and it was awesome!

We meandered about for ages and Kai finally found her salted licorice (though reported later it wasn’t salty at all really) and she bought me a beautiful stone bracelet.

From there we went to Harpa and decided we needed to get some ice cream, which is the thing to do at a concern hall in Iceland, right? Kai got mojito flavour, which was vegan and much like gelato, and I got chocolate and licorice, which was delightful.

When the concert started, we were in the third row. It was so thrilling! The two played together wonderfully and it was so creative and complementary. I hadn’t quite heard anything like it and it felt very intimate.

We left Harpa and it was quite chilly so we made our way back to our place for our last night in Iceland. We enjoyed the walk and you could see the stars. Kai was making us dinner that night so I just sat back and found a cooking show on Netflix. There was an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms which were so yummy, and the main course was potatoes, a stir-fry with snow peas, bean sprouts, and mushrooms, and these mysterious and inexpensive fish ball things. Whatever Kai did, they were so good!

After dinner we brought the laptop to the bed and watched a movie called Lovesong where, spoiler alert, the women don’t end up together. Missed opportunity! At least no lesbians died, but still.

After the movie, we stayed up late talking. We were sad that it was our last night but so happy that we were privileged and able to have the experience we did. We talked about our high and low points and our takeaways for the entire journey. It was nice to hear what she thought about it all, given that it was our first vacation together – though it never really felt like a vacation. It was actually a lot of work! But the best kind of work, I think. The kind you do, together, in hopes of knowing more about yourself, each other, and the world you belong to.