Day #158 - Reykjavik, Iceland

Awesome lake just outside the town

A look out over the ocean with mountains in the background

Polar bears - are they here?

Interesting language

Hallgrims Kirkja - church

Thursday, August 19th

I'm coming to you live from the third floor of Hotel Loftleidir, just outside downtown Reykjavik, Iceland. I can't believe I'm in Iceland! Iceland - really? I remember when I was little, I thought Iceland was just a big island of snow - with few (if any) inhabitants. Well - it's alot different than that.

I had an early afternoon flight out of Oslo to Reykjavik. I didn't do much this morning, just preparing for my departure. The flight went smoothly. No issues, no delays - very nice. It was a 2-1/2 hour flight (no stops). The time here is 2 hours earlier than in Oslo. This is the closest to the US I've been to date. I'm just 5 hours from the US Central Time Zone. Reykjavik is located on the southwestern tip of the country. I read on the plane that Iceland is the size of Kentucky. It seems bigger - but we'll go with it.

First thing I noticed when I landed was that many of the letters in Iceland are not standard. In other countries, such as Sweden for instance, you may see some dots above letters. But in Iceland - they use symbols for certain letters. I was told by the family in Sweden that Iceland is very proud of their language. They develop new words for almost everything. Next, I noticed the money conversion is the highest I've seen. 1 US dollar = 120 Iceland Krone. I paid 2,500 for my bus into Reykjavik. I thought this was crazy high, but then the busride took over 30 minutes into town. There was no traffic. The international airport is in the middle of nowhere. I can't believe it's that far outside of the city.

It was after 5pm before I got checked into my room. I wasn't going to be here that many days, so I decided to walk into town. The entire population of Iceland is 300,000 people. 60% of these live in Reykjavik. Still, the city is tiny in comparison to any of the other bigger cities in Europe. I'll just call it a town.

It was perfect, blue skies today. No clouds to mention. There was an impressive lake as I made my way to the town center. I walked to the ocean dock. They had many booths set up for whale watching. I talked with one of the guys. He said they have a 96% success rate for visualizing a whale on their tours. Yesterday, they saw an Orca whale (the black and white killer whale you see at SeaWorld). He said that this is very unusual in Reykjavik because the waters are too shallow here. He said the Orcas like to attack their prey from deep in the ocean.

I walked around the streets and throughout town. Very quiet - not many people out. I saw what I thought were a few runners - but I'd imagine most will come in tomorrow. There is only 3,000 in the race - so it's not that big of an event.

I talked with the tour center about the volcano in April. They said it occurred at a location about 2 hours by car from Reykjavik (southeast of the city). I thought somebody told me this was on the other side of the country. It's really not that far away.

The country of Iceland is inhabitated primarily along the coastline. In the middle, you'll find mountains and glaciers. Really interesting just looking at the map. There is 1 main road that circles the perimeter - called the Ring Road - or Route 1. The country also has alot of geothermal acitivity. The word 'geyser' was coined here, named after Geysir, the largest of the island's many spouting hot springs. It's like a combination of Yellowstone National Park and Hawaii.

So far on my journey, I've been lucky enough to see some really interesting places. Iceland may be the most unique of them all.