Although it is roughly 40 degrees in Iceland, not many people seem to notice the cold at all. At first, I thought to myself why on earth would I skip the New York winter by traveling to Hawaii, only to travel to Iceland in the New York spring? But as adjustment set in, I soon came to hardly take notice of the cold weather at all. The locals seem to thoroughly enjoy it, helping the body cool down while out jogging or playing some local sport. It seems you won’t find very many people bundled up at all and not many just sitting around being inactive (besides the geothermal pools of course). In fact, most have on less than I do (and of course I did not bring very warm clothes with me).
What throws me into fits of giggles while out and about are the translations of the street names – the commonly used Icelandic words. Some apparently important words in Icelandic are “laugar” meaning “pools” or “lauga” meaning “wash.” “Sund” meaning “swimming” and “sun” meaning… well, “sun.” Just an FYI, Google translations are not always the best. I have been told that they are a little silly when it comes to the exact translations. Your best bet is to ask a local, they all speak English here and enjoy translating all their words for you!
A fun fact to know is that when you use an ATM in Iceland and it reads “Unknown Error” it doesn’t exactly mean there is a problem with your card. What it does mean for you is that you will then have to walk about 2 miles to the next nearest ATM and try your luck – it’s pretty much like playing the slots around here. Since the only real reason to get cash is for the bus fare, this isn’t too big of an issue. But in the case you decide to actually visit more than the surrounding blocks, or are tired from walking miles to Reykjavik’s city center, it would be wise to find an ATM and grab at least 15,000 Iceland kronur which is roughly 80 USD, depending on the fluctuation of value of course.
Below are some pictures from my nearby wanderings. I happened upon a sculpture garden, as I often do, and snapped a few interesting photos of this brilliant art.
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