Reykjavík, Iceland - Day 1 - 28th March 2024

Early morning flight

The previous day I arrived at Stanislav's place but didnt sleep at all with the sound of all the clocks. We got up at a mind boggling 01:30 and made our way downstairs to catch the taxi. When we arrived in Rotterdam CS it was earily quiet. Our train left at 02:30, with a few weary travellers with suitcases and some very loud drunk students too. We arrived in Schiphol at 04:00, which was still very early, so we grabbed a coffee before goimg through security.Once inside the we just hung around waiting for our flight, we also bumped into Miloš from the TU-Delft.

The flight

The flight took 3 hours and we arrived into a bright and sunny, but freezing Reykjavík. On landing, I had a view of the sea, but the oetehr side had a clear view of white snowy mountains and some pointy volcanoes straight out of a textbook, with smoke at all. We had more waiting time for the bus, so we had some coffee. The bus journey was quite spectacular with views of a brown/black alsmot burnt landscape with a snowy backdrop.

Hallgrimskirkja

The bus dropped us at some fairly random spot, my phone was on its last few % as I tried to navigate our way to our accomodation. We walked past the Hallgrimskirkja and lost of lovely little tourist shops. The place was full of Americans.

Icelandic Cheese

We arrived at the accomodation with two Austrian ladies. There was nobody to meet us, and no key or instructions ready. We started sending messages, after which as small Vietnamese lady arrived and started shouting phrases into Google translate and showing us the answer. This was our way of communicating. We eventually got a key to room 5, after which an Icelandic man barged in and wanted to know what my name was, then said "that was okay".

Beer in the bookshop

Having slept for a bit, we went to the supermarket called Krónan and bought some supplies. It was already rather underwhelming. After a quick meal at our place, we wandered a bit and took pictures down by the bay then went to the bookshop/pub called Hús máls og menningar. It was comedy night, but it was pretty bad. Stanislav left. They asked where everyone was from in the room, and I answered in Icelandic, and told them I had been learning 3 months, that seemed to get a positive reaction. During the show I befriended an Irish lady and her gay son.

New friends

After I went to gay bar, which started out empty, but filled up gradually. I befriended a few Americans until Stanislav arrived. It got very noisy, with , so I went to an Irish bar for one beer then then back home, no sign of the aurora!

#Ísland #Iceland #Transavia #Reykjavík #Kiki

In a word #friendly