Keflavik, Iceland

We fly into the night, but darkness never comes. The north sky goes from a deep blue to crimson through the hours, and back again toward violet. As we pass over the vast icefields along Greenland’s coast, the sun unexpectedly crests the horizon. At three o’clock in the morning. I sleep not a wink.

Descending through a crystalline sky into Keflavik along Iceland’s west coast, the broken lava surface looks like nothing so much as an over-cooked brownie straight from the oven.

Two nights with precious little in the way of sleep and my head is spinning.

They say that Reykjavik’s storied nightlife doesn't get kicking until after midnight. I no longer posses that kind of devotion. As I wander vaguely through the downtown streets killing time until my hotel room opens up, all that remains of the previous night’s festivities are smashed beer bottles, pools of vomit coloring the sidewalks and little tornadoes of trash carried on the swirling wind. At 7 am the street crews are hard at it, tidying up the wreckage.