Reykjavik: Day 1

We took the shuttle bus (where this driver could speak English really well) to our hotel – the Hotel Odinsve. The Odinsve is a 4 star hotel in downtown Reykjavik. The staff were very helpful (sometimes above and beyond), the continental breakfast buffet was large by European standards. Even though it was before the regular check-in time (it was around 8-9 am) we got our rooms right away. The rooms were a little small (especially the bathroom where you had to hold your breath to fit into the enclosed shower) and looked straight out of an Ikea catalog. My parents’ room was nicely heated while my sister’s and mine was constantly cold. Also Icelandic water smells and tastes like sulphur which does not make it fun to brush your tooth or shower.

The first day we were very tired with jet-lag (Iceland is 5 hours ahead of NH and is in the same time zone as the UK.) The rain had stopped and my mom, sister and I walked around the capital. There was no snow anywhere, but the city is very hilly so I had to be careful with the chair. We couldn’t really find any place to eat and so we had lunch at a bakery. Throughout our stay in Iceland it was weird to hear the totals for everything since the numbers where in the thousands. $1 US Dollar is 115 Icelandic Kroner. While everyplace we went to (restaurants, taxis, stores, etc) took credit cards even for small purchases it made me do a double-take when the cashier said the total was 320 (meaning Kroner), etc.

That night we had a prepaid voucher to go to the Restaurant Reykjavik (which apparently the Icelanders call the Café Reykjavik – even though the sign outside says Restaurant – once we got that straightened out with the taxi guy with the help of the hotel’s front desk we were finally on our way.) The Restaurant was in the center of the city. It turns out that we were just a block or two from where we “couldn’t find any place to eat lunch.” Had we only gone a block or two we would have found a bunch of cafes and restaurants. Oh well. We were early for our dinner and show and so waited inside on some couches. It turns out that our prepaid voucher entitled us to either the large fish buffet or lamb – and I don’t eat either. I got the fish buffet just so I could have the non-seafood items (hot asparagus soup, cold rice, cold potatoes and cold red cabbage – luckily I like cold red cabbage.) I stocked up on those for my meal and had some dessert. Then we went downstairs for an hour-long comedy show about Iceland’s history. As it turned out we were the only people in the audience. The guy performing was pretty good and funny. He even had my sister play a slave who killed him (as king.)

After the show we took a taxi back to the hotel and had a small snack at the hotel’s bar before going to bed.