Arriving in Iceland

In the short 4 1/2 hour plane ride from Boston to Iceland, I arrived in a completely different world. When the pilot announced we were getting ready for landing, I looked out the window so see the first land since leaving Boston, but instead of a city full of tall shiny buildings and a happening harbor filled with ships I saw a barren wasteland. Miles and miles of moon-like brown bumpy ground, with a dirt road here or there. After flying over the land for a bit we came into the airport Keflavik which wasn’t much of anything other than a small airport. We got off the plane and went through customs (which was a hallway and didn’t even involve custom forms) and Kristjan, one of our professors met us. After seeing that it was snowing outside, the three of us bundled up in our winter jackets while Kristjan had nothing on but a sweater and hat. Those sweater my mom raved about before the trip must really be warm! So we had quite a scenic drive into Reykjavik, the country capital which holds over 1/3 of the population of Iceland. The land is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, endless lava fields. Kristjan gave us a short driving tour of the city and sent us to our inn, the Capital Inn. The four of us are staying in a tiny hostel room of two bunk beds. It’s quite cozy. He let us settle in and that afternoon met us and took us to Reykjavik University to meet our other professor, August. It’s one brand knew building and has about 4,000 students however we seem to be the only ones taking class in the summer. It’s about a 15 minute walk on a scenic biking path along the sea to get to the university from our hostel. The university is super nice and has a beach next to it. (it’s Icelandic tradition to swim even though its freezing) The beach also has a natural hot spring built into a hot tub!

 We plan to test that out once it gets a bit warmer.

Tuesday morning was our first day of class with August. He gave us an intro to Iceland and taught us all about how Iceland is divided along two tectonic plates which is the result of so many earthquakes and volcanoes. 

After lunch we went on a walking tour of Reykjavik with a very strange woman named Birna, who gave us a tour through 'the cats eyes'. Apparently she is famous in the city for holding demonstrations and protests against the US army being in Iceland and joining NATO. She gave a very interesting and different tour of the city taking us to the original and authentic part rather than showing us all the typical tourist stops. My favorite part was a section where all the streets are named after the old gods, like the god of love and the devil, Loki. Reykjavik is a very cute city, there are no big buildings and all the houses are brightly colored and all shaped differently. downtown there's a big clash between the new, modern buildings (like the opera house) and the old traditional houses.

The oldest tree in Reykjavik.