Arriving in Iceland

IcelandAir flies from Edmonton so after dropping Paisley off at her sitters' house we drove there. The flight left around 6:30pm, and arrived in Iceland around 6:30am. Needless to say we were pretty tired. We picked up our first car, a Kia Soul, and drove into Reykjavik. (We rented two different cars. The Soul we had for the first 2/3 of the trip as we were driving mostly on main roads. When we moved to Selfoss we exchanged it for a Kia Sportage. In order to get to the Highlands you must have a 4 wheel drive vehicle. You can't drive on the highland roads without 4 wheel drive, especially if you are renting a car). The airport is in Keflavik, about 40mins away. We couldn't check into our guesthouse until 2pm, so we went downtown, looked around a bit, and had some lunch.

There is a restaurant called Glo that we frequented each time we were in Reykjavik. It serves raw, vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free options. And you get a ton of food which was always delicious. I had the best soup ever on our first stop there. I also fell asleep at the table I was so tired.

Driving from Keflavik to Reykjavik

I took pictures of our licence plate in case we had trouble finding our car.

After wandering around long enough to be able to check into the Guesthouse (Arcturus), we had a little rest then went out for dinner. We chose Kopar in the harbour. It was a great choice. The food was delicious and the view was nice too. Eating in Iceland usually involves lamb or fish. You can't go wrong with either.

There is a lot of colour in Reykjavik. There are many murals, painted buildings, and tons of graffiti. I've never seen so much tagging & graffiti. You will see lots of pictures of it as I found it interesting.

This building is near Glo. This mural is part of the Wall Poetry series. 

 An award-winning queer bar across the street from the restaurant. 

Our first meal at Glo. You choose a main (in this case soup), then you choose 3 salads from about 12 choices. Then you choose real bread or raw bread. You don't go hungry!

If you looked closely you would find odd things like this soldier tucked away in small spaces. There was always something interesting to see in Reykjavik. 

 We stopped by Hallgrimskirkja briefly to see when we could come back to go up to the tower. Many more pictures of the church to come in later posts. 

The artwork featured in the entry is fascinating. The artist's name is Hulda Hakon. 

 We stopped at Fish, Inc. a couple of times for John to get a coffee. They have bags filled with water hanging from the ceiling. 

Back at Arcturus we found these waiting for us. I hated to disturb them. 

A popular item for sale in Reykjavik is ceramics that incorporate lava. 

After all that it was straight to bed as were getting up early to drive to Sudereyri the next morning.