Iceland and Azerbaijan

Viv & Rob Kleinjan
May 13, 2023
13 min read

Updated: May 15, 2023

On Thursday April 6th Rob and I flew to Iceland, for a short trip to explore Iceland. We arrived around 23:30 at Reykjavik airport. One of the reasons we went to see Iceland is that we had so many vouchers from a trip with Loes and the children to Canada we never had, due to the Corona pandemic in 2020. We had to use these vouchers this year as it would expire soon. Easter weekend was stormy, and it rained cats and dogs, nevertheless we were excited! We rented a small jeep, Rob barely fitted behind the steering wheel. We arrived at the hotel room at 01:30, we were exhausted. The next morning, we decided to leave early, well, at least for our standards early. We drove to the Golden Circle. We saw the Geysir and Strokkur hot springs and the Gulfoss waterfall. I think this was the first weekend of the year that many tourists came to Iceland. At the geyser and waterfall, we weren’t the only ones. But having said that it was stunning, and we felt overwhelmed by the beauty of the country. We missed the spots sometimes and had to drive back. It’s all one lane roads with maximum speeding limit 90km/hr., it took us a few times some kilometers to make a u turn to drive back.

At the end of the day, we went back to Reykjavik to eat something. Rob saw a nice Japanese restaurant downtown Reykjavik. We drove around to find a parking spot but couldn’t find one and we drove around again, until Rob had enough of it, therefore we decided to eat at the hotel, we normally don’t do this often. The next morning, Saturday morning we drove to Diamond Beach and on our way there we say a totally different landscape of Iceland. We stopped at a little wool shop and bought some yarn there, from Iceland sheep! We had to hurry at a certain moment, we needed to check in at the hotel first and then hurry to a meeting point for a tour on the Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon and Skógafoss and Seljalandfoss waterfalls. This was the only tour we participated in, the rest we discovered it all by ourselves.

The glacier was impressive, 500-800 years old, 8000 square meters, the biggest in Europe.

After walking half an hour towards the cave of the glacier we could go underneath this huge ice pack. Amazing. It was the last tour they did as spring was coming soon and due to the the melting water it wouldn’t be safe. The tour car we were in had huge tires, I am small but next to this massive car I was extremely tiny, so funny. Rob made a photo of it. After this tour we ate at the hotel, there was nothing else in the area for many kilometers. Dinner was delicious. After dinner we went into the hot tub outside. Nice note: we had a room with ocean view, but the ocean was kilometers away, we couldn’t see it at all!

The next morning, we drove back the same road we came and stopped at places we didn’t see on Saturday. It was dreadful weather that Sunday, rain and strong wind were coming down on us, but it didn’t stop us. We drove to Vik, where we saw Reynisfjara and Dyrholaey. I will not explain what they are but you will see on the pictures in the blog. At Dyrholaey when I put one leg in front of the other it went a totally different way. I had to hold on tightly to Rob. But the view was breathtaking, and it was an adventure we won’t forget. We drove back in the direction of Reykjavik and stopped at a point Rob saw the day before when we were driving past. We didn’t had time to stop so we decided to come back to the pinguins the next day, hoping they would still be there. The next morning Rob directed me to the parking lot he recognized from the day before and there we discovered ….three pipes coming out of the ground and from a distance it really looked like three pinguins. It was so funny.

Sunday afternoon we went to the healing water of the Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik in pouring rain. We went into the blue water and got some face masks to put on. It was hilarious to see women and men with clay masks on their faces strolling through the water in pouring rain. Thankfully there was a bar in the pool where we got ourselves some refreshments.

We ended the evening with dinner at the hotel. The next morning we went into Reykjavik center. It was the first day with sunny weather, the world looked differently. Rob bought some nice jumpers and a beautiful coat made of wool of course of Iceland’s sheep. Just after 2pm we brought our car back and took our flight back home to London.

Noa took care of our Ayo, but she was going to start a new job on Tuesday after Easter, so we had a gap of a couple of hours that no one was at home for him. Through the daughter of friends from Warsaw I was able to find two students who could pop in for a few hours. They left when we confirmed to them that we were on the plane and did not have any delays.

Noa is now working in Rotterdam at the Hilton again, this time as Cluster groups, conference and events coordinator.

The weekend after our fabulous trip to Iceland we went to see Bill and Brenda, they live in a tiny village called Lighthorne in Warwickshire. We took the train to Leamington Spa and met them there. We started with a small lunch and explored this lovely city Leamington Spa. On the way to their house, we passed the Cotswolds with Statford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare’s born. Rob and I visited this village 30 years ago. Next time we go down to Bill and Brenda we will visit this lovely but also slightly touristy village again. Ayo had a great weekend too; Bill and Brenda have two lovely dogs. The three dogs really went on well together.

Bill and Brenda live in a great house surrounded by a stunning garden and an amazing view.

We had a typical British weekend when it comes to food. They have an Apag, a typical English stove to cook on, you'll see it in the photo. It looks old fashioned, but it's not. Saturday we had Indian curry and on Sunday we had Sunday roast at the pub. We saw Warwick and Warwick castle. Although we had not seen each other for some time, it's always feels great being with them. We took the afternoon train back to London.

Hugo called us to inform that he had swollen glands and that his throat was painful. He went to the GP, she took blood and a few days later he learned that he has mono/glandular fever and in Dutch we call this Pfeiffer. Luckily his girlfriend Anna was there in St Gallen to give him a lot of TLC.She stayed three weeks, I bet both of them were disappointed and had totally different plans.

Friday after our Warwickshire weekend Rob and I had a night out to ShenYun in Eventim Apollo, near Hammersmith station. We walked to Paddington, jumped on the wrong underground, had to go back again to Paddington, it took ages before the next train came, we saw three times Paddington station before we came to the right station. After 6 months in London we still get confused sometimes especially with the Circle line. Because although it's called Circle line, it is a bit more than a circle. About the show, forget about the show, we won’t recommend it. It was classical Chinese dance, narrated by a Chinese lady and an American lad. Often I missed the clue. It was like 6 same dances in different clothes. Not our cup of tea! But the positive is that both Rob and I did not snork during the performance.

At the end of April Herman and Mariel came to London. They flew in at Heathrow and I thought I gave them a great route description, but they choose another exit of the trainstation and missed all my marking points. My biggest mistake was that I never wrote down our address for them, oops! We stayed home the first evening. Rob came home from Edinburgh and Elvira stayed for dinner as well. She is going to take care of little Ayo the week after when we planned to travel to Azerbaijan. I showed everything to Elvira and she sat down a bit with Ayo. It’s wonderful that she and Callum can stay in our flat to look after Ayo.

The next day Mariel and Herman went down town, first they walked to Camden Market and afterwards they explored the center. Friday night we took them to a show Newsies. It was our present since both just turned 60/61 recently and we could not make it to their party. Newsies is about the paperboys in New York who wanted to get better paid. It was a show full with dance and singing. When we walked to our seats behind the seats, it was like walking through barracks, it hang full with laundry and hammocks from early 1900’s. I liked it. Also, lots of the cast were often standing near us in the audience. Overall, a great show.

The next day Mariel and Herman went to see St Paul’s Cathedral and afterwards we would meet at the Ivy in South Kensington, for us just on the other side of the park.

In the evening they took us to an Indian restaurant near Paddington. A very basic restaurant, but we were with great company, that’s all that matters. And the good news the restaurant announced with signs in the restaurant that restructuring would start soon….. although it looked a bit weird to have a sticker with “under construction soon” directly above your head. When we asked about it, we got the great line, that they would start already in December….. On Sunday afternoon the two flew back to the Netherlands. There are also some photos of our communal garden.

On May 3rd we saw Morgan Zuill in London, we were happy to see him and had a wonderful evening together.

On Thursday May 4th we opened our doors for Elvira and Callum, and we left for Heathrow airport to fly to Istanbul and after a stopover of several hours we then flew to Baku in Azerbaijan. We landed around 10:45am local time. Pat and Nastiya had organized a taxi driver for us, who was patiently waiting for us. At the hotel in the middle of the city we had a little misunderstanding whether we would stay two or three nights. It was only for two nights. After changing into clean clothes and a quick shower Pat, Rob and I went for lunch in the center and Nastiya took Dennis and Mathilde to an old timer show and a museum in an epic building in Baku, the Heydar Aliyev Center, this is named after a former president and the building is a symbol of modernity. The interior holds a museum, conference hall and gallery. You also have the flame towers; a trio of skyscrapers with curved and triangular designs resemble three flickering flames. After dark when the towers light up the magic starts, it alternates between the colours of the Azerbaijan flag and the colour of fires we’ve been told.

Patrick, Rob and I found a lovely terrace, temperature outside was pleasant, not too hot and not cold. We ordered something nice from the menu and Rob was desperate to have a cocktail. He saw mango shots on the cocktail list and he ordered this. The waiter then asked if he wanted 6?! After a bit of speechlessness, he said, “yes, why not”. And here we were having, after a night on a plane, hungry and bit tired, 6 shots of mango cocktails. They were delicious and so Rob ordered another round but now red fruit shots, also good. Dennis, Mathilde and Nastiya joined us and we decided to celebrate it with more Mango shots and then to balance it off one more set of Raspberry shots. This clearly set the scene for the whole weekend. After this food break, we took a stroll through the old town, a small area that was really old. Some researchers claim that construction dates go as far back as the 7th century.

We passed some narrow streets and Patrick told us that last weekend of April Formula 1 circus came down to Baku and drove through these tiny streets. Pat and Nastiya were there to watch it of course. We had another drink at a courtyard of another restaurant near the old town. Afterwards we'd slowly walked back to the center, and went for typical local food. Luckily they love meat, we had no vegetarians among us. It was fun and delicious but also a lot!! The city center is really charming. It has a feel of France and very nice terrasses and restaurants. It was already 11pm and everything was still opened, so Rob decided to go for a haircut. Dennis and Patrick stayed with him. Normally Rob’s haircuts are very fast. I will not dwell on why they are fast, you can figure this out yourself. But this one took almost 45 minutes including waxing ears and nose!

Back at the hotel we welcomed Dana and Sil, who had just arrived. They were the last to come, but they stayed most of the week.

Next morning, we went for a stroll through the center again. Dennis and Patrick sat down and had a nice beer and waited for the others. In the afternoon we had a wine tasting event organized by Nastiya. It was fabulous. It was local wine, Azerbaijani wines and they were really good, the more we got, the better it tasted. They were so good that we bought 6 bottles and put it in our suitcase. Bit scary to do this, but we didn’t bring a lot of clothes so it should fit. After the great wine tasting event we went to the hotel to get changed for the evening where we would see Nastiya’s mum and son Rustam. They rented a whole restaurant for 14 people. It was a Spanish restaurant and they had a duo singing and playing guitars. We had so much amazing food. Afterwards we went to a bar next door where two DJ’s were playing tech music. It was the first time in our life that the DJ's themselves had 2 bodyguards. Unfortunately we couldn’t talk to each other anymore, it was a bit too loud. But Nastiya had a beautiful birthday cake for Patrick and she asked if Rob and I could help her decorating it and carrying it. So we did. The two DJ’s were not willing to play a birthday song and I wonder Patrick could hear us singing. Well, it’s the gesture that counts.

We took a taxi back to the hotel and finished the evening in the bar of the hotel with a few last drinks. The next morning we planned to have breakfast/brunch at a certain place at the waterside but apparently Baku had a week after the F1 grand prix a marathon running through the city. We could not get close to the place, whatever the taxi driver tried, so we decided to get out at the old town and find a place down there. Sil and Dana had another taxi and he brought them to the other side of town. It took them almost an hour to reach us.

We had a Turkish brunch again, lots of small plates with delicious food.

We went back to the center and there we said good bye to everyone. Rob and I were the first to leave again. Off we went to the airport, it took a long time to get checked in, a longer time for security, where only one lane was open. We took the first leg of our journey to Istanbul where we had a short lay-over to London. We saw on our on board tv that we had to be at 3A for our next flight. The funny thing was when we landed a stopped at the gate I saw the next door gate with A2. We stopped at A3! But we had to go out, walk half an hour over the airport, let our passports being checked and at the gate every 5 meters were people who were checking everything over again and then we stepped into the same aircraft again, hilarious. At least we could stretch our legs and make more steps, good for the day average!

At the airport I had contact with Elvira, she would wait for a few more hours and then leave to her own flat. We were so grateful she and Callum could come to us to take care of Ayo. When we came home Ayo was happy to see us of course, but he went to their room when we went to bed. I suppose he was looking for them, very sweet. At Heathrow airport we learned that our suitcase didn't make it....luckily we travel with air tags in our suitcases. We saw that the suitcase was still standing in Baku, was it because of the bottles wine inside?

Tuesday afternoon I received the suitcase at home, fist thing I looked for if it was still fine with the wine bottle, and big relief it was.

By being in Baku on May 6th, I received a lot of messages, “hej Viv, are you watching the coronation?” When I then answered; “no, I’m not, I’m in Baku”, they thought I saw the Grand Prix, and no again, unfortunately that was the weekend before we came to Baku.

I’ve seen the hightlights of the Coronation on Monday when we were back from Azerbaijan. I think that was good enough, it gave me a good impression.

On Wednesday I took the train with Ayo to Edinburgh to see Kirsty Zuill. We saw each other at Waverly station and walked through the park next to Princess Road to the Double Tree hotel where Rob always stays. Unfortunately it was drizzling.

We decided to have lunch at Maison Bleu, a lovely tiny restaurant where Rob and I have been before. Kirsty chose, as a true Scot, haggis and I had salad and a soup.

Ayo was a trooper who slept the whole time in his tiny rugsack. He’s very often not allowed in a restaurant so I don’t even ask anymore, but put him straightaway in his little basket and smuggle him inside, where he quietly and patiently will wait till it’s time to leave. Kirsty was flabbergasted when she noticed he’s behaving so well. After lunch we walked to Jack and Hannah’s place, Kirsty and Morgan’s oldest son. On the way to their flat Kirsty told me the legend of Bobbie, a little Skye terrier who became known in the 19th century for spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner John Gray near the Greyfriars Kirkyard until his own death on 14 January 1872. Today the story of the beloved Greyfriars Bobby is part and parcel of Edinburgh history. A commemorative statue was erected in his honour. Ayo sat down in front of Bobby's grave.

Tourists believe it brings luck to rub Bobby's nose, however the Edinburgh Council discourages this as it causes damage to this A listed statue.

Kirsty dropped off her luggage, tried the wrong door on the wrong floor, but after looking at number three on the door, we were convinced we were at the right door, only the keys did not do what we wanted them to do, like opening the door. After trying a few minutes finally we were in! They have a lovely flat. After this short stop we walked to the Balmoral where Kirsty suggested to have a drink. Coming closer she decided to go to Café Royal, the place where Morgan took Kirsty on their first date 37 years ago! Jack joined us here, later we saw Hannah and walked to the restaurant, The Outsider. It was a nice restaurant. Rob had to fly in from London, he was a bit delayed due to the bad weather in London. We sent him the menu, so he could choose. When he was in the taxi he told us what his wishes were and therefore not too long after we had our dinner he could eat as well. It was a petty he couldn’t see Jack and Kirsty and Hannah of course too a bit longer, but it is what it is.

Now I’m back in our flat in London and enjoy the first beautiful sunny days in London. I added a few photos of King Charles lll and Queen Camilla. The city was colourful decorated, but as I said earlier, we were in Azerbaijan for the 50th birthday party of our dear friend Patrick.