I checked into the hostel, but I couldn't get into the room till 4pm
because of cleaning (note: at this point it was about 9am), so I wandered
around the city incoherently for 7 hours, since I hadn't gotten any sleep.
Despite being sprawling, Reykjavík is pretty walkable. Downtown
Reykjavík is about 1/2 hour from the hostel, so I walked down there.
Now Reykjavík can't make a claim to be Europe's most beautiful city,
but it is probably one of its most stylish, and it has a very impressive
landscape. Across the fjord from the harbor there are steep walled mountains
topped with snow, and more often, clouds. I stopped in a coffee shop, Mokka
Kaffi, and got a cup. I attempted to order in Icelandic, the waitress answered
back in English. This established a pattern for the rest of the trip. It
was Isk 220, but it wasn't a bad cup of coffee, and the atmosphere was
pretty pleasant.
|
| Viking longship in the Reykjavik harbor |
I continued walking around, and found the bus terminal, which I sat at catatonically for a while while I figured out the bus schedule. I walked up to the shopping mall (I should note that by this time, although Reykjavík is a fairly walkable city, my walking was getting ridiculous, and my legs were beginning to hurt). I found a food court, where I had my first meal in Iceland--falafel. Icelandic falafel, if you ever go there, is something you can take a pass on. It's pretty miserable, bland to begin with, and unpleasantly mushy after a trip to the microwave. I went to Nykaup, a supermarket located in the mall, and investigated the produce (if you're willing to pay, you can get fresh artichokes in Iceland), and bought some chocolate (chocolate is quite reasonably priced, and it's very good quality, too). I walked back to the hostel. It was almost 4, so I sat and read in my travel guide for a while, then got into my room. I though about going to bed right then, but decided instead to visit the swimming pool.
Swimming pools appear to be one of Iceland's great civic institutions. Cities like Reykjavík and Akureyri have outdoor swimming pools that are open year round due to the geothermally heated water available to them. So I went to the pool, and hung out in one of the hot tubs for a while, then went back to the hostel. There was a British guy there whose name I've forgotten who was, like me, spending 10 days in Iceland. Unlike me, he seemed not to have any intention of leaving Reykjavík, which, incidentally, he described as hell. I ceased paying attention to him when he started complaining about the cost of the cab ride from the airport (Isk 7000), deciding he was clearly unprepared for his trip. I wondered how he was going to like Greenland, which was the next stop on his trip, since he complained that Reykjavík was inadequate compared to London. I went to sleep. It was 7pm.