Flight from Bucharest to Stockholm to Iceland. Does that sound like a big day? You betcha! We kicked off at 3.45 am (that's 1.45 am Iceland time), breakfast at the hotel was at 4 am and we were on the shuttle to the airport at 4.45 am. We are now firm fans of Blue Air, Romania's budget carrier. We've flown them 3 times, they've always left early (and arrived early) and they've always responded well to sweet talk at check in (that's code for could we possibly have the exit row which we never, ever pay for...) We were through the check-in, security and immigration rigmarole and boarding by 6.30 am. It's lucky we visited Jordan a three years ago because it was there that we honed our 'queueing' skills. Jordanians don't. They scrum, they amass, they carry 20 passports for all their friends... But they don't queue. As it turns out Romanians are similar. Boarding was 1 person at a time with 200 people piled behind us pushing like the pressure behind a champagne cork. We were about 10th on board. Skills indeed (it's not that we are desperate to sit on the plane... it's more so we're keen for room in the overhead locker -invaluable real estate with so many people just with cabin bags. It was only 3 hours to Stockholm and the exit rows were lovely - in the end I had a lay down across 3 seats for a snooze while listening to music on our faithful noise-cancelling headphones - still going strong after 5 years. The scenery of the Swedish archipelago as we arrived (early of course) was glorious - in fact it was positively tropical... lots of beautiful blue water, sparkling in bright sunshine and fringed with white sandy beaches... er... that would be snow! Anyway - a glorious day. We were on a mission at Stockholm's Arlanda airport. Even though I've been to Stockholm before, it was via train from Denmark and then train again from Stockholm to Gothenburg in the west of Sweden - so the airport was uncharted territory. On the ground by 9.30 am, step 1 was to collect the bags and recheck them for the Icelandair flight at 1.30 pm. Pretty sure we were the first to do that. In fact it was so early that while we could check in... we couldn't actually sweet talk an exit row as online check in was still open (and thus the opportunity to flog the exit rows for hard currency to folks checking in online). There is, however, more than one way to get a skinned feline an exit row. Next stop was the baggage storage area to scope out the lockers and the info centre for some Stockholm guff - so we are 100% prepared for our 36 hour stopover on the way back. Painfully. Organised. Eventually we trundled through security, battled our way through duty free (thoroughly moisturised and scented) and headed to the gate. It was time for some more of our room service breakfast - bacon and egg sandwiches from our carry on bags (which in itself just saved €20). About an hour before the flight a nice bloke turned up and started readying computers and so forth... had a lovely chat with him (54... married... 3 children... 4 grandchildren... seat change from Row 27 to the Row 9 exit row secured)... and before we knew it we were en route to Iceland. Even had an entertainment system and free coffee/juice/soft drink... sort of a budget fare on a full service airline. We snoozed, stretched out and eventually watched the Mark Wahlberg movie, Deepwater Horizon. Turns out that whilst we came in the front door, this model of plane deplanes from row 9 - so we were first off the plane as well. Bags collected, kroner from the ATM, eventually got to our little 4WD rental and headed to the supermarket for a stock up of 8 days worth of roast chicken and fruit/bread/milk/yoghurt. It was around 7pm before we got to our overnight stop in Reykjavik - only €80/night including breakfast and a shared bathroom - that is hugely budget in this country - we booked it six months ago for that price - as of last week the same amount of money would only buy one bed in a six person dormitory. So very lucky we planned a long way out. We'd done a fair amount of restaurant research all that time ago too - how to eat out in Reykjavik without a second mortgage - and we broke the land speed record hoofing it down to the waterfront to get to a restaurant that did a full buffet dinner - turned out that was over, but we had a seafood soup & salads/cold course buffet for only €40 between us. Phenomenal value. Suspect it could have cost more to eat fast food. So that was us. By the time we had a stroll around the touristy heart of Reykjavik, bought postcards and headed back to the lodge, we were in bed by 10.30 pm (which would have been 12.30 am Bucharest time) - so up and at 'em for 22 hours+. Suffice to say we slept very, very well.