Reykjavik, Day One

Alright, so yesterday afternoon I picked up my three bags (big traveling backpack, small duffel and french horn) and took on NYC rush hour subway traffic from the UES to JFK. I got kinda lucky with the route I took because it wasn't as crazy as it could have been were I leaving downtown. I even got a seat on the E train which I was super happy about because my legs were TIRED from treking up the hill from 1st to Lex to get on the first train, then all the stairs/escalators involved in transfers. I made it to JFK, met up with Jarrad and we grabbed our final American meal at the airport foodcourt (pesto chicken salad on cibatta, and iced tea).

Our flight was nice, Icelandair is sort of adorable in how hard they want you to learn Icelandic on their flight. Their headrests had cute sayings like "Good night in Icelandic is góða nótt, it sounds cozy" or "þakka þér means thank you in icelandic, "þakka þér" for flying with us". They also had a Berlitz course on their movie screens as an option so you could learn Icelandic numbers and phrases during your flight.

I tried, it's freaking hard, I got as far as "getur þú sýnt mér hvar klósettið er?" (can you show me where the bathroom is?) and gave up. I can say hello (halló), goodbye (bless), and thanks (takk). Good enough.

Here are some pictures from the flight:

Our plane


Jarrad getting "cozy" with our Australian row-mate

Most people here speak English though, which makes things easier. Shopping in a grocery store however - not so easy. Jarrad and I decided to go for a cheaper lunch by popping into a grocery store and getting some food from their hot deli. I ended up asking the lady behind the counter if she could tell me what stuff was - she couldn't really (Jarrad and I had intentionally wandered away from the touristy downtown), so I just pointed at stuff and ended up with 2 delicious pieces of roasted lamb, one not so delicious ball of mystery spam-like meat (both covered in brown gravy sauce), mashed root vegetables (mostly potatoes, but definitely some parsnip in there), and steamed frozen veggies. Jarrad got some salmon and rice with the same veggies.

I didn't get pictures of our lunch, but I did get a picture of the donut I had for breakfast:


Donut was full of nutella like substance....happy day.


Oh yeah, Jarrad and I also checked out the national museum and a lot of street art today. Here are some highlights (sorry this post is not at all coherent, I'm still pretty sleepy):

Cool graffiti in a downtown neighborhood


Painting in the Icelandic National Museum, this one titled "The Critique"


Another painting by same artist, this one titled "The Fjord"


I also just went to the grocery store to try to find something for breakfast in the morning (I have access to a small kitchen with a fridge at my hostel). I found a pint sized milk carton shaped thing, and spent a good 5 minutes comparing the list of ingredients to various other products that I could sort of identify (plain yogurt, milk, heavy cream?, soup?, and a box of vanilla flavored donuts) to determine that yes - in fact I was holding drinkable vanilla yogurt. It's sort of fun, but frustrating to be so lost with stuff like this.

On the plus side, I'm here in time to catch one day of the "Alþjóðleg kvikmyndahátíð í Reykjavík" (Reykjavik International Film festival, for those of you as lost in the Icelandic language as me). We'll see how that goes.

The finale to my night was sort of annoying - after Jarrad left I chatted with this guy who was making plans to visit a local outdoor swimming pool (geothermically heated to jacuzzi temperature), we made plans to meet in the hostel common space for dinner then he never showed. While waiting for him to show I made friends with a French girl from Lille and a guy from the US who will be doing the same program as me except he'll be outside of mainland France on Reunion island (in the Indian Ocean). We got to chatting, he recommended a sushi place and so the French girl and I went and got some sushi. They also discussed getting drinks later after dinner and I was planning on that until I got a weird vibe that they were "getting drinks" and I was being an awkward third wheel. They didn't lead me to believe otherwise so I decided to go off on my own and walk around Reykjavik after dark for a couple hours and play with my camera's nighttime settings (it's a very small city - the entire COUNTRY has a population of 300,000). I took some neat pictures, and messed with my camera's options. I ended up stopping by a bar for a drink (~$8 for a beer, jeez!), and after a failed attempt to join in with a group of Erasmus students (Europeans studying abroad - this group was a mix of German, Spanish, and Austrian) I decided to call it quits and come home.

So yeah, the finale of my day was the sudden realization that I'm alone in a foreign country and don't have enough time here to make any real friends. This sounds depressing, but it's really not so much - I'll make good friends in France, but for now I'm going to stop trying to join in on other people's activities and just plan on doing what I want to do.

Step one, booking my trip for tomorrow to go glacier hiking and ice wall climbing for 9 hours - my body will be sore afterwards, but maybe I'll just go to that local hot spring pool and soak it all away for a while.