Unexpected Iceland: Reykjavík and Selfoss

I was supposed to update my blog again yesterday, but apart from being lazy I was also quite busy with all kinds of paperwork, so I'm writing today. :) Yes, the fight between me and my laziness continues, but I still think that would be a pity to give up on blogging now. I still believe that sharing my travel experiences here is a wonderful way to avoiding writing boring travel reports in my letters! Isn't that a serious reason to keep on writing?! ;)

During my stay in Iceland I lived in Reykjavík at Søren's place, so obviously I've seen something in the capital city. As I've mentioned in the previous entry, Reykjavík is actually quite big, even if it has relatively small population. If you can spend almost an hour traveling by bus within the city, it can't be small. It consists of many neighbourhoods, which have some long Icelandic names, but other than that they're known by their postal codes (which are only 3 digits long in Iceland). So, for instance, the central part of the city is 101 and I stayed in 109.

Sometimes you can see the sea and mountains in Reykjavík

This is one of the nicest things you can see in Reykjavík, at least from my point of view, because the city itself isn't really exciting. Well, maybe I'm just too picky, because in reality there are a lot of tourists from all around the world and they seem to be enjoying it. But it's also not that you can always see this beautiul view - for most of the time there was fog or it was snowing, so I couldn't see anything. :) Sometimes there would be really nice and sunny weather in Reykjavík 109, but terrible in the centre! Fortunately, I managed to take these photos the day before leaving Iceland, so I actually have a proof that you can see some of amazing Icelandic capital without leaving the capital city. :)

Locals on one of the main streets

After my short visit to Sweden I've developed my communication with geese skills and I had more chances to practise in Reykjavík. ;) Yes, you can often see them walking slowly around the city centre. But I'm even more lazy than they are, so I've spent most of my time either at Søren's work or at the post office instead of discovering all that Reykjavík has to offer. :) But at least I've managed to write and send two letters from Iceland (both have already arrived, because the Icelandic postal service is surprisingly fast):

For Olga in Belarus

For Sandra in Germany

What I enjoyed much more than trying to force myself to walk around the capital, were our afternoon trips. One of them was to Selfoss, which is a nice town some 50 km away from Reykjavík by the famous Ring Road. Once again, I was surprised to see that a town with population of slightly above 6000 can have so may different kinds of businesses. In Ukraine such a town would have had a few grocery shops and some poor café :D But I guess that as for Icelandic standards Selfoss isn't a small town at all and can even be considered some kind of regional centre of Southern Iceland.

Selfie with the bridge over Ölfusá river :D

We arrived to Selfoss about 17:30, so it was already getting dark. For this reason the photos from there look a bit gloomy (again according to my mum) ;), but I liked this place nevertheless. Actually, it wa funny how we started looking for a big mountain, which was supposed to be visible from Selfoss. We even started doubting, whether it wa the same Selfoss - who knows, maybe there are two towns with the same name? :D But it was the same town. Once again, it was just the fog, snow and rain to blame. Yet if you look very carefully at the next photo, you might see the mountain in the background.

There is a mountain. Really.

Still can't see it? So you'll just have to believe me that it really is there. ;) A couple of days later we drove through the same area while the weather was much better and could see it clearly - but I'm not going to tell you about it today. ;) While walking along the river and through the fields, I was trying to imagine, whether I could actually live in this country. I think I would find it hard, because although there is something charming about the darkness and the warm lights of houses in the middle of cold, white space, I'm afraid it could have a negative impact on my mental well-being in the longer run. I've talked to some foreigners, who have been living in Iceland for many years and they mostly complained about the lack of sunlight, not even about the temperatures, which really rarely get extreme. And of course, lack of trains would also be a huge problem for me! ;) But still, Iceland is a wonderful country, which I'd like to come back to at some point.

Houses in Selfoss

We ended up getting totally wet because of the rain again and went for a pizza while waiting for a bus back to Reykjavík. It was a really lovely evening despite the weather :) But the greatest adventures were only yet to come... ;) I'll tell you about them soon!