Day 14 - Horseback-riding and hotdogs and soup...

This morning I went for a nice trip with the horses. Along mountains, snowy meadows, very nice ! My horse was called Sóki and it was lovely.

Back in the city, I went for some more shopping, a girl can never shop enough ! Unfortunately it was raining, the only day it rained in these entire 2 weeks.

I stopped at THE BEST PLACE for hotdogs, : Bæjarins Beztu. Bill Clinton and Metallica will agree with me and stop at this little place whenever they`re in town.

After that I walked past this little bistro that had "soup in bread". Curious as I was, I wanted to try this and it turned out to be very nice ! Almost a full meal, I felt really stuffed with the soup on top of previous mentioned hot dog...

So that was my trip to Iceland. It was nice, cold, a bit scary at times, but worth doing. I can`t wait till next time ! During summer, doing the westfjords and such.

Day 13 - Back in Reykjavik

Flew back at 11u40. Was a nice, relaxed 45 minutes ! I still need to inform the rentalcompany that I left their car up north. Ah well...

The afternoon was spent in the shopping mall.

The Reykjavik City Hostel is filled with noisey kids and the likes ! A full room too, nothing like what I`m used to :(

Day 12 - I crossed the Arctic Circle !

I went on a ferry to the little island of Grímsey. It has 85 people living on it and is a sanctuary to many, many birds. The Arctic Circle passes throught there. So I crossed over it and now I have officialy been to the north pole hehe ! My certificate will be mailed to me, let`s hope so !

The rest of the day was spent in the shopping mall, tomorrow I leave for Reykjavik by aeroplane.

Day 11 - Resting and shopping

Day 10 - I made it !

I was finally able to drive to Akureyri today. It was only 60 km but it was horrible ! So much snow and ice on the roads, incredible. Still, am happy I made it in one piece.

Checked into the hostel, I have the entire first floor to myself. Sweet ! Am off in a minute to go see what there is to do/see here. Unimaginable, but there is even more snow in the streets here than in the mountains. Piles of snow along the roads, almost knee-high. I am not driving any gurther, I have booked myself a flight from Akureyri straight to Reykjavik this coming thursday. It will take 45 mins and it will cost 37 euro`s. Now, how much it`s gonna cost me to leave the car here instead of Reykjavik, that`s another matter entirely. It will be a lot but better safe than sorry right ?

Day 9 - Still stuck...

...in winter wonderland. About half a metre of snow fell, the road wasn`t cleared until about 16 o`clock. By that time it is too late to start moving because it would be dark before I got to my destination. And there are no lights along the road. I have been given dvd`s to keep me occupied. So far I have watched "The Davinci Code", "The Zookeeper" and "The Queen". By the way, "DVD" stands for Digital Versatile Disc. Did you know that ? I didn`t !

I have decided , once I get to Akureyri, to inquire about getting a plane back to Reykjavik. This means I will miss out on a part of west-iceland but there is always next time. In the summer. When it isn`t snowing !!!

Update : I just got a call from Alex Agnew, my favourite stand-up comedian ! Hehe, that was funny ! It didn`t change the situation but it sure cheered me up ! Thanks go to my lovely b/f for making this happen !

Day 8 - Stranded at Laugar

When you think things can`t get any worse, they usually do !

Last night was really bad weather. There was a low pressure area going over Iceland or something which caused massive winds. Airplanes could not land in Keflavík that`s how bad it was. I had chosen a room on the first floor of the hostel and in all honesty, I could feel the house move during the storm ! There was no rain just strong winds.

In the morning, things had settled down a bit so I went on my way to Akureyri, 262 km further north. What a drive that was ! Over mountains, most of the road snowed under and/or icey, snow blizzards, the lot ! It was quite an ordeal ! I passed three sights I wanted to see (Dettifoss, Krafla and Dimmuborgir) but it was just impossible to get there. Lake Myvatn was also very nice although I did not see that much of it because of the snow. I passed only one car in 200 km !

Then I got to Godafoss. Great, only 50 km or so to go. A snow blizzard started happening and I could not see the road anymore. I called up the hostel in Akureyri, to hear if they knew anything about the road/weather conditions. Apparently, that last stretch of road I needed to do was closed off because of the bad weather ! It might be back open later in the day, it might not. Great ! Just before Godafoss was a souvenir shop so I went back there, to wait out the snow blizzard. I decided to see if I could stay there somewhere for the night. I had enough of driving through such bad weather conditions,

About 15 km back was a little place called Laugar where I could stay at the Störu-Laugar. The lady there was really friendly and tried to reassure me that I would be able to get to Akureyri the next day. Fingers crossed she is right ! Another day in the middle of nowhere, been there, done that, I am ready to go back to civilisation now ! I have a really nice and spacious room though with a private badroom. After a hot shower I felt a little bit better. I just discovered they have a playstation 2 in one of the rooms, that will keep me occupied for the evening ! Silver linings hey ?