6.19.10 and Beyond

The consistent view in Iceland.

We arrived at our hostel in Reykjavik at around 6p.m. on Monday. Our hostel (B47 Hostel) was bearable. I knew beforehand that the building was once used as a hospital, so Cody and I were both sort of holding our breath until we actually saw the place. The only other hostel in which we have stayed was in Barcelona a few summers ago. We had some questionable experiences in Spain with poison ivy and orange puke that had me scared.

Cody in our hostel with my tshirt acting as a rug. Again, bearable. 

After we settled in to our room, we decided to explore the city by walking to the busiest stree in town, Lagauvegur (good luck pronouncing that mess). We saw lots of cute stores and interesting places to eat. We ended up eating at The Lebowski Bar, which was an entire restaurant based off the famous movie. It was interesting.

My first impression of Reykjavik reminded me a lot of ski towns that I have visited. It was a lot like a more liberal, edgier Breckenridge. Lots of speciality stores. Unique people. Christmas lights all around. Quaint streets that allow for walking from place to place. There were a lot of young people and a lot of people that were obviously tourists. It was cold outside but comparable to a winter night in Arkansas. Nothing like I imagined an Icelandic night in January would be.

This is the Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran Church that we used as a landmark for finding most everything in Reykjavik.

After dinner and a little window shopping, Cody and I happened upon a line of people outside of what appeared to be a tourist office. We (I) was feeling a little panicky at this point because a few people had mentioned that Northern Lights Tours would not be running New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. That left us with only Wednesday night to have a shot at seeing the lights. Naturally, the line outside of the tourist building was for a Northern Lights tour that was scheduled to leave at 8p.m in approximately 15 minutes. We hopped in line and found ourselves on an enormous bus full of people on our way to find the Aurora Borealis. Looking back on it, I suppose it was fate that we randomly found a tour to go on. I had spent hours researching the various options and highest rated tours. It had killed me not to book one in advance. Yet, we still ended up hunting for the Northern Lights just as we hoped we would. Our Northern Lights experience up next!

Reykjavik from atop the Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran Church.

The view from the airport in Iceland as we waited nearly an hour for our punk rental car employee to come get us. Icelanders are all about being laid back, which is a synonym for irresponsible. 

This is our Toyota Corolla that we rented from SADcars. Yes, the name of the business was SADcars. Cody high-centered this bad boy before we even got out of the parking lot of the rental car place. Awesome. 

A sign in the window of The Lebowski Bar. Sort of the mentality we sensed throughout all of Iceland.