IcelandAir good, Iceland not so much

On my way back from London I once again flew IcelandAir, to keep costs low. The airline is fantastic, providing great entertainment options and plenty of legroom. The in-flight entertainment system features about 10 movies which you can select to start at your own convenience, as well as several TV shows. I like this a lot better than the DirectTV option in terms of convenience, although, of course it does mean less variety. Fortunately for me both times I've flown on IcelandAir the selection has been great. On my flight from Heathrow to Keflavik International, I watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel (I'm not proud of it, but I was curious to see what songs they would use/the treatment of the Chipettes, etc. since I was a fan of the cartoon back in the day) and the pilot episode of Glee (because I wanted to see what all the hype was about). That basically kept me occupied during the 3 hour flight.

Then I landed in Iceland, at Keflavik International airport, which, the in-flight entertainment system informed me won best airport in Europe in 2008. Just like the claim that Portland's airport made about winning such an award, I had to wonder, what jackass is voting in this competition? The airport absolutely sucks.
You exit the gate and immediately are forced onto line for passport inspection. Yeah that's normal, except you'd expect a little bit more room to maneuver. You litterally exit the gate and are on the line. There are 4 or 5 other gates with passengers trying to board a plane and it gets crammed and crowded pretty quickly. Once you make it through that checkpoint you have about zero options other than to proceed through another passport checkpoint in order to get your connecting flight gate. Great. Through that and there was a pair of non-police or customs officials with a little table forcing us to show our passports for inspection again - 10 seconds after the Icelandic border patrol just checked it! Okay that was annoying, but I powered on... to the 1 eatery I had access to in the entire airport. It's not a restaurant, it's not a fast food counter, it's 2 commercial refigerators with drinks, a case with a couple of shrink wrapped pre-made sandwiches and a small rotating warming tray with some horrible looking dish that was claimed to be pizza. After a fairly expensive and mostly inedible meal I lined up at the gate where my passport and boarding pass were checked again. However this time we couldn't get to the gate, it was up an escalator that was blocked off. So, the entire flight was then cramped into a small room next to an escalator that was roped off. Once it was opened it was a free-for-all to get on the plane. No organization or anything.

Back on the plane and I tuned in to watch 'Date Night' the Tina Fey and Steve Carrell movie. It was alright. I planned on watching 'Little Miss Sunshine', and then wrapping up with 'Die Hard' (great movie for a plane ride. Die Hard 2 of course, is a horrible choice) but exhaustion caught up so I took a nap. I woke up and programmed a 40 song playlist featuring the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Queen and Eric Clapton which, with a few sporadic naps, got me safely to JFK. Flashed my passport a few times, explained I was studying abroad and I was back in the US of A, and it was good to be home.

The hour and a half of traffic to get over the Whitestone Bridge however, was not.