a walk about Reykjavic

I met an Icelandic girl in the hostel café who taught me a few words; most are very similar to Norwegian words I have learned.  Regardless, I can’t understand a thing that I hear or read in regular Icelandic.  She also shared some dried codfish with me, which is a traditional Icelandic snack; it was surprisingly good…. like fishy chips and super healthy. In return I gave her a hard maple syrup candy. 

I then went for a walk around the downtown sector.  I had a basic map but there are few street signs and it never really knew where I was according to the map.  Everything is pretty close together though so it’s hard to get lost.  I went to a few gift shops, walked by the ocean and in some residential areas.  My walk would have been a lot better if it wasn’t SOOO windy!  The weather itself is only around -2C but the wind makes the temperature unbelievably cold!  The wind nearly pushed me over a few times and once it pushed me on a slab of ice so I was skating but couldn’t stop!  There was no one else walking and I only seldom saw cars, everyone must be hiding from the brutal wind.  I ended up in a café and got a coffee and a kleina.  Kleina is singular for a traditional Icelandic fried pastry… kind of like a twisted doughnut.  It was yummy!

Grocery stores are always so neat in foreign countries.  Some things are so similar to what I am familiar with while other things are completely different.  The prices are also something that will take a while to get used to.  I ended up whipping out my ipod to use as a calculator to convert all the prices into Canadian to make more sense.  On average, the prices aren’t to outrageous here (aside from a $26 block of cheese I found), it is just strange that everything costs hundreds or thousands of Krona as opposed to their North America equivalents which are 1 or 10 dollar items.  Basically, if I don’t mind looking silly with my calculator, I can divide the Krona by 122 which gives me the dollar amount.  I ended up with some yoghurt, crackers, cheese spread, dried fruit, juice boxes etc…  it should last me the 3 days.  I didn’t get the pickled fish or bacon wrapped dates that I saw :S.  I’m also hoping to go out for food at one point and try some putrefied shark (which is apparently very difficult to find) or some puffin.

Tomorrow I will try to go to the blue lagoon for the afternoon and the next day Ill book a full day Golden Circle tour, which is “the” thing to do here.  It’s a loop from Reykjavik to inner Iceland and back to see geysers, waterfalls, farms, geothermal activities etc…  I just hope I can get some good pictures and that it’s not to dark.  As for now, I have managed to stay up until 930pm so its time for bed!  I have to be up for 10am to check out of my private room and into my shared dorm.  I can still hear the wind outside, its brutal!