Day 0: Thursday - I flew out of Heathrow into Kevlavik, and then took a bus the 45 minutes into Reykjavik. I had a Couchsurfer lined up for this night, but I was going to be getting in so late that I told him I'd just stay at a hostel that night. The bus got into Reykjavik at about 1 am. I was excited for the bus ride, my first Iceland experience, but I was not impressed. Granted, it was dark out, but the landscape between Kevlavik and Reykjavik is a lot of lava flow grounds, just rocks and not much else. But I got to the hostel, paid for it and got to sleep right away.
Day 1: Friday. Got up around 8, went and had breakfast in the hostel. Then I left, found an ATM (withdrew 3000 kr? I think...that's about 40 bucks or so). Then I had to get the bus into the city centre, which I realized later I could have just walked, but it was easier at the time to get the bus. I planned on walking around the city until midday when I'd go over to my Couchsurfer's place. So I got into the city and walked through the streets. It's a relatively small capitol city, about 200,000 or so I think. And it's very compact so you can walk through the whole city in a matter of a few hours. The main landmark is the church Hallgrimskirkja:
I went in there, and you can take an elevator to the top, so I did that, and got great views of the city:
Then I came down, and headed for the mountains. You can see the mountains outside of the city on one side, across the bay, so I headed for the water. Got down there and sat on the rocks by the water, just stared at the mountains for a while. Mountains are amazing. I don't know that I've ever really seen mountains before then, so that was pretty sweet. My journal just says "Oh God mountains" for that experience.
After that I walked to the bus terminal to get a ticket for the Golden Circle bus tour the following day. Got some food at the cafe there. At noon I headed to my Couchsurfer's house. He had given me directions, to get off the bus here and look for the yellow building with "Grandi" on the front of it. So...I found that building...but it was this big warehouse in the middle of an industrial park. Very, very confused. But I asked someone outside if they knew Snorri, my host, and he said "oh yeah, just come on in."
So it was the "house." Inside was just two big rooms, one with lots and lots of beds, just with handmade lofts and sheets drawn to indicate a "bedroom." About 6-7 people live there, and they were hosting 6 other Couchsurfers while I was there. Basically, it was crazy. And really cool. They were what you could call hippies, but just in the environmental sense - Snorri and a couple others came back one night with loads of fruits and vegetables. Which they got from "dumpster diving." I thought it was just a way of saving money, but actually they get food from the supermarket's dumpster, that is deemed "bad" but in actuality isn't that bad, and they give the food away to poor people/charities. So they were pretty cool.
This is where I slept. Under the white sheet.
After that, I went to the harbor to check out whale-watching, but it was a little expensive, so I just looked for them from where I was. No such luck. But then I went to 12 Tonar, this really sweet music shop downtown. Apparently it's a favorite of Sigur Ros, but they weren't there because they were IN LONDON RECORDING THEIR NEXT ALBUM. Perfect timing, Sigur Ros, perfect timing. I got a lot of good Icelandic bands that I need to check out.
I hit up a couple souvenir places after that, went to the National Museum which was really cool, told the history of Iceland from its beginning (700 AD or so) to the present. At night I went to this Volcano Show, which is a guy that made a semi-famous documentary about volcanoes, who then built his own mini-theater to show his movie in over and over. There were 6-7 other people that I got to talk to there, so that was good. The weird part about that night, was that I came back outside at 10:30 p.m., and it was still light out. Iceland was getting about 16 hours of sunlight, it didn't get dark until after midnight, and got light really early. It was crazy.
Then I went back to the house. At first, the house was pretty awkward, because every time I came in, the people that I had met the last time were no longer there, and the new people looked like they had no idea who I was. But then I met everyone, so it was all good. Snorri is from Iceland, Jason lived there who was originally from the States, then there was a Czech girl, three Lithuanian couchsurfers who were really cool, a girl from Sweden and a few others. I played cards with the Lithuanians, and then we just sat around the table, talking about politics, Couchsurfing, etc. Really fun night, got to bed around 2:30.
Day 2 in a little bit, I have to go shower.
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