Keflaví International Airport is not where it is because anyone thought carefully about urban planning. It is where it is because the Americans needed a runway during the Cold War. The NATO forces left, mostly. The terminal stayed. Getting there from Reykjaví was left as an exercise for the traveller.

The answer is the Flybus. It departs from BSÍ once an hour. A 6:00am flight means the 3:30am bus (or, more daringly, the 4:30am), which means a 3:00am alarm, which means standing in your kitchen wondering if this is night or morning. It is neither. Miss the 4:30am bus, and you are not waiting ten minutes. You are waiting 60 minutes you do not have.

The taxi is 20.000 ISK. Alone this is indefensible. You could drive. Then the car sits in airport parking for a week while your family is at home without one. Everything costs money. The Flybus is 3.999 ISK.

I have a system. I travel light. Hopp scooter from the apartment to BSÍ bag on my back, hands free. The suitcase rides on the footboard balanced against my knee. I have perfected this. It is not graceful. Thankfully most of the city is asleep and not in a position to judge.

The scooter buys at least 15 minutes of sleep over walking. At this hour, this is not nothing.

Through the winding streets of Þingholt, or down the bike lane on Hringbraut, depending on the wind. Sometimes dark. Sometimes, depending on the season, broad daylight, which feels like a personal affront. The family is asleep. I have not woken them. This is the correct decision and also the lonely one.

I once arrived at BSÍ and realised I had forgotten my passport. My brain doesn’ work well at that hour. Nobody’ does. I raced back to the apartment, passport retrieved, back out into whatever the sky was doing, and then the Hopp died. Just stopped. I love Hopp. At 4:whatever on a dead scooter, with the Flybus waiting for no one, much less so. Full-on panic. I found another. I made the bus, just barely. No clue how.

I always make the bus.

BSÍ The Flybus. Forty-five minutes through the lava fields. It’ beautiful. I’ too tired to notice. Keflaví. Security. The gate.

Then the bar. One drink before the flight, always. The scooter recedes. The passport recedes. The alarm recedes. The math on the taxi recedes. The trip begins.

There is always time for the drink. Even when there really isn’.