Friday, July 12th
After a night void of a dark sky, I itching to get out and see the countryside. Before we left our hotel, I took a shower in the special overhead ceiling shower setup and repacked my bag. Bryan was as excited as I was, and I was thrilled that he was up for taking spontaneous road stops here and there for photos or just to marvel at the foreign landscape. Only three minutes into our drive, we got out of our car and took pictures with these statues.
It was a quick 45 minute drive to Reykjavik, and the countryside was breathtaking. For about half the drive, we were by the sea on our left, with small colorful houses every few miles decorating the shore, and green mossy rock to the right for dozens of miles. Then we transitioned into more city landscape, full of roundabouts and unpronounceable Icelandic words. Once we arrived in the city, we chose a side street to park and searched for food. Reykjavik is populated mostly by 2-5 story buildings; always modern, often colorful. Small gardens and several statues line the streets, and the local Icelandic people were incredibly good looking – men, women, old and young.
We stopped in the first diner we saw for breakfast, followed by a touristy pit stop for postcards and CD’s. The unfortunate consequence of booking the cheapest car was that it lacked, among other features, an AUX jack; Instead, I settled for two Sigur Rós CDs (one being Takk, one of my favorite albums of all time) as well as a heavily publicized Icelandic Indie Music CD for the car.
The next several hours were spent roaming the beautiful streets of Reykjavik. It’s impossible to capture the atmosphere in words. One street would be populated by small coffee shops, boutiques, music stores, and endless clothing shops full of warm sweaters; the next could be filled with colorful, artistic graffiti; around another corner, an iconic church or a nameless bronze statue. At the top of the small hill in the center of town, we stopped to explore the Hallgrímskirkja Church, an unforgettable modern structure which featured an open visiting area and talented organist. It was hard to get me to leave the city, but we needed to explore all of Iceland in the 3ish days we were here.
We decided to drive to the Blue Lagoon, a mysterious geothermal spa about 30 minutes outside of town. The drive was beautiful as usual, and along the way I decided to pull over at a small turnout. Upon exiting the car, I noticed a small wooden staircase town to the left situated among the volcanic rocks. It was unlabeled, and I descended into a small cave. Casual.
The lagoon was only a few minutes drive away from the cave – at first, Bryan and I suspected we were approaching an energy plant of sorts due to all the steam, only to yell “WOAH” simultaneously upon seeing the milky blue river to our right, with white banks against black volcanic rock…and it was steaming. And that was only the beginning of the Lagoon. We parked, paid, changed, and walked out into a foggy shore overshadowing a sea of blue water. The temperature was a perfect 98-103º anywhere in the lagoon, and a free beer was included. We spent hours exploring, enjoying the exfoliating volcanic paste that we could grab from the nearby dispensaries, and relaxing in the steamy blue water. It was an incredible experience.
The white clock in the distance was the only force that prompted us to leave. With no sunset, it’s incredibly difficult to gauge what time of day it is, or even when it’s appropriate to eat. We drove back to downtown Reykjavik and sat outside where we could pick up free Wifi to book our next hotel. Call after call, every hotel was booked, from cheap hostels to expensive hotels. We nearly had given up hope on staying in Reykjavik for the night when I found a place, a bit expensive at about $100 each, called Ocean Comfort Apartments. I called up the manager, and he said if we could be there in a few minutes he’d hold the place for us. We made it in time, and the rush was well worth it. A friendly man named Ilhelm invited us upstairs to our apartment, and indeed it was an apartment. With touch key-card access we were let into our double room apartment, complete with automated touch dimmer switches centrally located at the door, cameras to the outside, another ceiling mounted shower, two balconies, kitchen, living room, and bedroom. And it was Nice. We thanked the manager, and enjoyed the rest of the night talking waiting for a sunset that would never come. An incredible first day in Iceland.
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