Goodbye Iceland

So I'm sitting in Keflavik airport, waiting for my crappy EasyJet flight to Bristol, and my time in Iceland has come to an end. I thought I should write one final blog post; I will try not to make it too disgustingly soppy and cheesy but I think I will fail pretty quickly.

Quite simply, it's been the best ten months of my life. Iceland has been a beautiful country to explore and Reykjavik an amazing place to live in. Of course, the thing I will miss most is the people. I've made some amazing friends from all over the world and had some of the best housemates. I know it will be easy to lose contact with many people I've met but I hope to stay in touch with as many people as possible. After all, it's a great reason to travel the world and my friends know they'd be welcome in Leeds any time.

Leaving my flat on Snorrabraut and saying my final goodbye this morning was hard, not just because I had the biggest student room I've ever seen, but because I have such fantastic memories of the place. Reykjavik as a whole has been so great to live in as well. I've never been somewhere that has so much going on, yet has such a strong community feel. I will miss feeling so safe and relaxed wherever I go.

Talking about a 'personal journey' or 'finding myself' is just too vomit-inducing. However, of course a year living alone abroad makes you learn things about yourself. A few years ago I would have been too painfully shy to even consider doing something like this, so it has been a huge personal achievement. I've certainly gained a lot of confidence and, although my lifestyle here is really not one I could maintain any longer, I've learnt to let my hair down a bit. Last year at university, I spend so much time worrying about my grades, I didn't really let myself have time to enjoy everything. I think it's fair to say I've had the polar opposite problem here.

I always include a picture in my blog posts and wanted to choose one to sum up the year. Of course there are literally thousands to choose from but I was drawn to this one.

I took this on my first morning in Reykjavik at the top of the Hallgrimskirkja. I didn't know anyone yet and I took my chance to explore. I remember looking out over this strange beautiful city, so excited that I was going to live here and wondering what the next ten months would be like. Well, now that strange, beautiful city is home and I can honestly say the last ten months have been better than I ever could have expected that day.

And finally, thank you so much for anyone who has bothered to read this. I've been amazed to see how many people click through to my blog. I've been recommended on other blogs, had the link repeatedly retweeted by Icelandic travel companies and my 'Statistics' page shows that one post in particular has really put my blog on the map (I'm embarrassed to admit it was the one about the penis museum...).

So that's that. Iceland, it's been incredible and I can't wait to return some day.

Takk fyrir, Sjáumst. 

Back to the Westfjords

Today is my last day in Reykjavik (I could write a lot about how sad and weird it feels but I will save the soppy stuff for when I'm an emotional wreck tomorrow morning). My parents arrived six days ago for one last visit to Iceland, and also to help me take my vast amount of luggage home. If I'm honest, it feels very strange having my parents here, almost like I'm a child being collected at the end of a school trip, but it's nice to show them Iceland and extremely useful for getting my stuff home!

For my last trip in Iceland, we travelled to the Westfjords, the place where this whole adventure began for me. It was great to go back, even if the weather was awful for almost the entire time we were there!

It was lovely returning to Núpur, where I spent my first three weeks on a language course, and showing my parents that I really was living in the middle of nowhere. We also returned to many places I'd been before including Ísafjörður and Dynjandi waterfall.

However, it was great to go to the most Southerly parts of the Westfjords as I had not been here before. Here, there are huge sandy beaches and it barely looks like Iceland anymore.

We stayed in a tiny hut next to a remote beach which had amazing views. We also had sheep from the local farm knocking on our door in the middle of the night.

We visited Látrabjarg cliffs to watch the birds. It's known for having loads of puffins but after several hours of walking there, we only managed to see one.

We did, however, witness the local farmers taking the wild birds' eggs by using a pulley system to lower each other down the cliffs. My immediate reaction was that it was a horrible thing to do; it's illegal to take wild bird's eggs in Britain. However, I don't actually know how much worse it is than taking chicken eggs. It's a very old tradition so it was interesting to see anyway.

Rather him than me.

One of the most challenging parts of the Westfjords is the road conditions. The roads are long and winding anyway but right now they are in awful condition after the winter. Walls of snow line many of the roads and they are largely covered in potholes.

So now I'm back in Reykjavik, packing up my life here and getting ready to leave. I'm glad I could have one last trip to the Westfjords. I had the most amazing first three weeks there and it seemed like a suitable way to finish my whole experience.

Driving the Ring Road: Part 2

Húsavik was a lovely town. However, it is well known for both whale watching and having a large number of pregnant teenagers: we didn't see either. We did see yet another nice church though!

Next, we went to two of the most powerful waterfalls in Iceland: Selfoss and Dettifoss. Getting there involved a walk through thick snow, a firm reminder that summer hadn't really hit the north of Iceland yet.

Spot the rainbow.

After this, it was a long drive to the Eastfjords. That night we stayed in the town of Bakkagerði and made a quick stop to see the first puffins I've seen in Iceland.

We camped another night, but this time I did almost freeze. There are three main problems with camping in Iceland: 1. It's cold. 2. In summer, it doesn't get dark at all. 3. The birds are bloody noisy. But I did have fun, I promise! The next morning, the boys woke up at 6am to hike a nearby mountain whilst Enya and I slept in until a normal time. They arrived back just as we were getting breakfast ready. They had a good time but it sounded like some kind of torture exercise to me.

We drove back to the larger town of Egilsstaðir, ready to go off and explore the rest of the Eastfjords. But, it was at this point that we had our only minor disaster of the holiday: two of the tyres had burst driving on the gravel roads. To cut a long story short, the boys went to a local garage to get it fixed whilst Enya and I sat in the N1 petrol station for three hours drinking coffee (I'm embarrassed about the gender divisions here). Egilsstaðir is a particularly boring town and it turns out the N1 is the place to be. At around midday all the local working men came in to buy lunch, shortly followed by the women and children (more gender divisions). Luckily, the car's tyres had been in such bad condition before bursting that the car hire company paid for four brand new tyres so it could have all been a lot worse.

We had a little time to explore the Eastfjords and went to the town of Fáskrúðsfjörður which used to be a base for French fishermen and still has many French influences.

After the Eastfjords, we travelled through the South. We didn't have to make too many stops as we've all been so many times before, but we went for a hike in Skaftafell National Park and stopped at the beautiful cliffs at Dyrhólaey.

Then it was time for our final stop and one of the places I was most excited about: The Westman Islands. I'd tried to go way back in November but the ferry hadn't been running due to bad weather so I was very happy to finally go on one of the sunniest days of the year.

The highlight of the Westman islands is climbing the small volcano which erupted around 40 years ago. It's still hot enough that you can barbecue food in the ground!

The next day, it was time to drive back to Reykjavik. I had the most fantastic nine days with lovely people and I'm so glad I got to finally do the ultimate Icelandic road trip!

Driving the Ring Road: Part 1

A few days after exams ended, it was time to start a big trip round the whole of Iceland with my friends Enya, Quinten and Thomas. We planned to spend nine days travelling round the country's main road, Route 1.

We started early on Sunday morning (no hangover: we'd stayed in the night before and I made Enya watch the full BBC broadcast of Eurovision. She's a very good friend.) and made our way to Snaefellsness Peninsula. We've all been before but Quinten knew a Belgian girl who was living on a farm near Grundarfjörður where we could stay the night so it seemed like a good place to start.

We were also celebrating Thomas's birthday!

It was mostly a day of revisiting our favourite places on the peninsula but we also stopped at this natural hot pot just hidden from the main road.

We arrived at the farm in the evening and were immediately shown the lambing shed by an 11 year old girl, Tindra, who proudly told me she'd helped to deliver lambs that morning. It was interesting to see a real, working Icelandic farm but they also didn't mind us being tourists, taking photos and stroking the newborn lambs.

The family were incredibly generous to us, providing us with lots of food and letting us make ourselves at home. However, the night was slightly bizarre as they had several pet cats who liked to stare at us whilst we slept, and even a rabbit who was allowed to wander around freely. Being woken up repeatedly and finding a rabbit either staring me in the eye or making a home between my feet was an odd experience but certainly one I won't forget.

The next morning we hiked a mountain near Bjarnarhöfn. Again, it made me realise how unfit I was but also how inexperienced I am at hiking mountains compared to my outdoorsy friends. However, I made it to the top!

Still snowing in Iceland, of course.

Beautiful views from about half way up.

We travelled to the North West of Iceland and camped that night in a very remote campsite. Yes, I actually camped in Iceland. I am not used to this stuff, unlike my Scouting friends, but I managed to help Enya put up the tent and, after she showed me how to properly do-up my sleeping bag, managed not to freeze to death.

The next day, we visited the town of Hólar. It is very small with a population of around 100 people but still manages to have a cathedral and a university. We also saw some traditional Icelandic turf houses.

The cathedral.

We went for another hike which was nice, apart from the fact we had to walk an hour each way along a pebbled causeway to reach the hill. I also learnt that I can easily get sun burnt in Iceland, even after using factor 50 sun screen. We had a good view though!

That night, we stayed in the most amazing accommodation I've had in Iceland. Whilst at the farmhouse, the family had told us that we should stay with their mother/grandmother who lives in Ólafsfjörður. It was pretty scary ringing up a stranger to ask if we could stay with them but I did it in the end (after Enya dialled the number, pressed ring then just handed me her phone and said 'it's ringing, you have to talk to her'). Guðrún and her husband were amazingly welcoming and she was delighted to have us stay. She spoiled us rotten with food, including many things she'd hand baked. She offered to do our laundry, tried to make us stay for lunch, and seemed disappointed that we would travel round the island the other way and couldn't visit her again.  The next day she refused to let us leave without taking two huge bags of food. It was lovely to experience such amazing hospitality and kindness.

The next day I finally got to visit Akureyri, Iceland's second city, home to around 17,000 people. It was as small and friendly as I expected and had some lovely old buildings.

We stopped at Goðafoss waterfall before heading to Myvatn.

Godafoss.

Myvatn is a beautiful area and we visited the nature baths (similar to the small lagoon), a volcano crater, Dimmuborgir lava fields and, my favourite part, the bubbling, steaming mud at Hverir.

Then we made our way to the small town of Húsavík in the North...

Life in Reykjavik: Semester 2

It's been a long time since I wrote about how life has been in Reykjavik the last few months so I will try and sum it up very quickly.

A couple of months ago, my housemates and I went to the Icelandic Music Awards at Harpa. I try not to compare things to how they are in the UK too much but sometimes it can't be helped. It was funny to think I was at the Icelandic version of the Brit Awards but with none of the glitz and glamour; no champagne, no red carpet, the seats were half full and a lot of the winners didn't even bother to give full speeches. It was fun though and typically relaxed.

Yes, the woman in the middle has brought her baby on stage.

Icelanders don't celebrate Pancake Day like us Brits but instead have Bun Day at the beginning of Lent: a day in which Icelandic children hit their parents with paddles and win a bun every time.

Easter was celebrated with huge eggs filled with more sweets and chocolate.

I did of course miss British chocolate, especially Creme Eggs, but Helly saved me with this amazing package!

And with all this talk of chocolate, it no surprise that I've already planned which gym I will be joining the moment I get home...

Speaking of unhealthy lifestyles, there have been a lot of public holidays in the past couple of months which has meant more days the bars are open late and an excessive amount of nights out. I think it's good for my health, especially my liver, that the partying has come to a stop now, but the nights out got more and more crazy and I think it's some of the most fun I've had in my life.

However, I have managed to do some more productive things recently. Enya and I finally got round to climbing Mount Esja, which overlooks Reykjavik. It was a lovely walk but made me realise how horribly, horribly unfit I am (yep, luckily the gym is waiting for me).

And finally, I knitted a lopapeysa!

Easter in the East

Over the Easter weekend, a group of us had planned to go to the 'I Never Went South' music festival in the Westfjords. We were going to stay at Hotel Núpur, where my whole Icelandic adventure began. However, snowstorms hit on the day we were going to drive up and road closures meant it wasn't possible to get there. I was upset not to return to Núpur, although relieved as I had agreed to be driver and I'm not quite sure I could handle experiencing a 'white-out' high up on a mountain pass. The car had already been paid for so we needed to find another way to spend three days and eventually decided to head off to the Eastfjords.

Something we hadn't really thought about during our quick decision process was the 600km we would have to drive in one day. I've found that my sense of perspective related to distance has changed somewhat during my time here. 600km certainly seemed extreme, but manageable. However, it's the same as me deciding to drive from my village in the South of England to Edinburgh, staying one day, then driving back: something I would never even consider doing.

We stopped at a few places on the way including the fishing village of Höfn, which had a lovely harbour.

Along the way, we also saw dozens of reindeer. Unfortunately we never got close enough to take a good picture and embarrassingly, this is the best I got.

Our hostel. Berúnes, was lovely and the owner told us that his family had lived in the tiny hamlet for around 400 years.

The next day, we had the opportunity to explore the Eastfjords. Two members of our group were geologists so this meant we started the day with a (rather long) visit to a local rock museum, and a hunt for some kind of rock along the shore.

I was more interested in the local children's playground.

We had a long drive round the windy fjords and ended up in Seyðisfjörður, probably my favourite town in Iceland.

Later, we drove around Lagarfljót lake. The area holds both the largest forest in Iceland and a Loch Ness-type monster. We only saw one of these things.

We hiked to two waterfalls: Litlanesfoss and Hengifoss.

The drive home the next day was very, very long but we made a few stops on the way. My favourite was Svartifoss, yet another waterfall: beautiful but very touristy.

Despite being sad to not make it to the Westfjords, it was great to finally see the Eastfjords, and a very different way to spend the Easter weekend.