One way to meet other Icelanders

is to have them ram your car from behind. After leaving the base today, we decided to stop at Kaffitar, the coffee shop on the highway to Reykjavik. We were in the left lane when Pete started looking around like crazy, tried to swerve, possibly said some wordy-dirds and ultimately (through no fault of his own) could not avoid being rear-ended.

For whatever reason, a person two cars behind us did not realize we were in the left lane stopped with our turn signal on. The car in front of her went around us and I am guessing she wasn't quite paying enough attention and before she knew it, her car was enmeshed with our rear bumper, muffler, tire, you name it.

We are all okay, although Pete and I both now have sore backs. The girls, luckily, have always had super safety seats courtesy of www.britax.com. I will now officially never even look at another brand, as neither one of them had a bruise on them. The crying from the fright of the accident didn't cease for about 15-20 minutes though.

Peter called all the appropriate persons in the right order and his wonderful investigator, Mr. Bjorn, came to get us and took us (and our many groceries) home. We are 99% sure the Icelandic police understand that not only was the accident not our fault, but Pete did everything he could to avoid it. Luckily, it seemed the girl slowed down a little right before she hit us (she was doing about 70 KM/hour) and this prevented us from being shoved into the car coming from the opposite direction in the other lane.

So, we left the car on a side road although driving even 15 feet was extraordinarily painful to the ears. Especially since the right rear tire was essentially destroyed. The car will be towed by the insurance company to be reviewed for damage and then will be repaired. Supposedly, we will not be out of pocket by too much but we shall see.