Arrival. The flight from Newark arrived on time. It was the same actual plane as on the previous flight (San Francisco - Newark) - we did not change the gate in Newark. The difference was - SFO - Newark, we all sat in the middle seats at the back of the plane; Newark - Reykjavik: we all had Economy Plus seats, and Olga and the younger kid had three seats all to themselves.
We were second in line for passport control, and it took us about 5 minutes to wait for our luggage to show up, but we missed the once-per-hour shuttle to the car rental place, and wound up sitting in the hotel lobby for about 40 minutes. Eventually, the shuttle came, we boarded and went off airport to pick up the car.
Weather. The weather all day wound up being cloudy, with occasional rain. About 13-15 degrees Celcius (55-60 Fahrenheit) pretty much all day. Somewhat of an annoyance, but not too bad.
The car. Probably the biggest disappointment of the day, and the reason our plans went through a big alteration, was the car. We rented a Toyota Auris hatchback, a hybrid, from MyCar, a local rental agency that had very high customer service scores. I can attest the high customer service score myself - a very fast no-nonsense service, and no attempt to upsell things we do not need. The car, though, turned out to be much smaller than I expected. It occupies the narrow space between a Yaris and a Corolla, and makes Corolla look ginormous by comparison. We have two large suitcases and a duffel bag with us, plus a bunch of backpacks. It took us five minutes of rotations of suitcases to get both in the trunk so that it could close. As a result, four backpacks and Olga's handbag were inside the small salon during our ride, and there was no space left in the trunk.
The original plan called for either immediate check-in, or a trip to Costco, which is essentially on the way from the airport to Reykjavik. The landlady texted us to come 1pm, and the full car meant no Costco trip until we check in.
Reykjavik. ...So we played it by ear and drove to central Reykjavik. Took about 40 minutes. I was driving slowly, trying to not exceed local speed limits (90 km/h on the main part of the highway). We parked at a garage right next to Laugavergur: Reykjavik's main tourist drag.
We walked along Laugvergur and Skolavorthustigur to reach our first sightseeing destination, Hallgrimskirkja - the massive cathedral that dominates the central part of town (see picture at the top). We arrived to the Hallgrimskirkja square and the statue of Leif Erikson right before noon. The leaden skies and the position of the sun behind the cathedral made taking pictures difficult - we will have to revisit the place in the afternoon, when the sun is behind us to take better pictures. Below is the best picture of Leif Erikson monument that I was able to take, and it is pretty bad.
After that, we walked all the way to the sea side, by pure chance crossing Saerbraut just in front of the Sun Voyager monument on the embankment.
The view of the sea facing north, with Videy and Engey islands was a beautiful one even in the somewhat inclement weather.
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From there we walked back to Laugvergur, scoped a few souvenir shops, and found our car. We decided to seek lunch closer to where our Airbnb is, which lead us to Tommy's Burger Joint, which I discussed in the previous post.
Our place. We hung out at Tommy's until about 1:30pm at which point we drove to the apartment. As we were parking there, I got a note from the landlady that she returned from her church and was ready to check us in.
The place is a two-level, three-bedroom apartment situated on the top two floors for an 8-unit condo building, which itself is a part of a small complex, easily accessible from rout 49. Kids got a bedroom each, played with two dark red cats (who were carried away by the landlady, but not before the older kid petted them to death), and, as soon as the landlady left, crashed. Upon realizing that the kids are immovable, we crashed ourselves, although, fortunately, only for an hour and a half.
Evening. Around 4:30pm we regained consciousness, realized that kids are not going to wake, and went grocery shopping. We visited Bonus, where we got the lion's share of our supplies, and then, did a quick stop - largely to educate ourselves - at Kronan which was situated nearby. Came home. I crashed again while Olga cooked some pasta and sausage. Had food, made plans for the next day... Around 8pm decided that we needed to take advantage of long evenings, and Olga and I drove back to central Reykjavik.
Old Harbor. I wanted a walk around the seaside. We drove to old town, parked on Nylendugata, and took a quick stroll around the Old Harbor, up to the concert hall, before returning back through Ingolfur square. Overall, we walked for about one hour. It was raining a bit more persistently than in the morning, but not enough to either get us truly wet (although I had to hide the camera), or scare us.
Made a few pictures along the way.
View from the Old Haven pier. Olga and I are planning to start a series of "Iceland of California" photo challenges - show our students a picture of the day and ask them to guess if it was taken in Iceland or in California. The picture above could've easily been taken in Monterey Bay.
A curious ship in the haven.
Who wants to play some chess?
Looks like some time ago Iceland had trains. Or, at least a train.
These are either fishermen, or Icelanders emigrating to Canada. Not certain. The information displays around the statue were all about either foreigners visiting Iceland, or Icelanders emigrating to the New World in later 19th - early 20th century.
Ingolfur square in old town: a place where - if not all the bars are concentrated, then certainly, a lot of the bars are.
Steps. I did not take my Motorola watch with me (it tends to die really quickly), so all steps are going to be via Google Fit on the phone. For day 1, Google Fit found 10,459 steps, although I am not certain what time it started counting - seeing as we crossed some time zones. It does get confirmed by Olga's step counter which gave her a similar number.
Day 2 plan. Assuming no major weather conundrums, tomorrow is our Golden Circle day. We plan to visit
- Thingvellir park
- Kerid crater
- Skalholt
- Geysir and Strokkur
- Gullfoss falls
- Hunalaug hot springs
- Hveragerthi
- The Lava Tunnel
I am pretty sure this plan is not realistic, but we will start, and see how many places we will visit.
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