Arriving in Iceland

The fellow at customs gave me a stern look when I told him I would be here for four months and all I had was a passport and my acceptance letter. His grumbling about needing to get a visa was quite disconcerting, considering all the nonsense I’d already been through regarding the necessity vs. irrelevance of a visa. Once I arrived on campus, however, I quickly learned that NOBODY has a visa here, and at least one kid doesn’t even have a residence permit. Clearly, the Icelandic Directorate of Immigration is really pretty lax.

The first thing I did after arriving in Keflavík was head for the ATM (which turned out to be unnecessary—everything takes debit cards, even the vending machines!), where I had a mild panic attack after withdrawing 10,000 krónur. Briefly, my basic math skills left me and I had the sinking suspicion that I had just emptied my bank account at one go. I eventually recovered and realized that 10,000 krónur is only a bit over $100. I really need to practice dividing by 70. Speaking of cash, here is what Icelandic money looks like!


The paper money is very pretty; it mostly features severe-looking Icelandic national figures. The coins all have fish on them (way to be stereotypical, Iceland!), but the other side has the four national guardian land spirits (the story behind them is a fine example of Iceland's crazy/wonderful folklore--more on that later!).


I took the bus to Reykjavík; it made a stop at Blue Lagoon, so I got to see that from a little distance. The landscape out here is gloriously desolate, incredibly rocky, and the dominant life form appears to be lichen.


Unfortunately, the only pictures I was able to take were through the bus window, so they’re not exactly top quality. I’m sure later I will get a chance to explore properly, and then there will be proper pictures!

Once the bus got to Reykjavík, I shunned spending money on a connecting bus, since I could see my dorm from the main terminal, and hauled my suitcases over to Gamli Garður.

Here it is!


And here's my room! It’s a hotel during the summer; hence, the giant sign on top—luckily this makes it easy to spot from far away. The building is in a great location—we are right on campus, and both the Hallgrímskirkja and the Sagamuseum are visible from my window. A very nice park with the city pond, walk/bike paths, and an abundance of waterfowl lies just across the road.


There’s goose crap pretty much everywhere around the pond, but the geese are rather cute and make entertaining noises, so that’s okay.


Once I got there, I met up with a few other American students, and a group of girls from China. We all went to the student housing office to pick up our keys, and after moving in, a small group of us walked downtown to grab lunch at a deli. This was my first properly Icelandic meal, not counting the coffee and bagel I had for breakfast at Keflavík that morning. I’m still working on learning food words, so I’m not actually sure what the meat was on my sandwich (probably ham? It was kind of hard to tell.), but it definitely also had tomato, lettuce, and BRIE (?!), and it was quite delicious!

I don’t want to infodump my whole past week in one post, so I’ll follow up shortly with one about orientation and all that business. Bless! (What a lovely way to say goodbye!)