Brendan Doms

I finally got some much needed sleep - well, at least as much as one can get in a country that never gets dark. With the sun setting regularly around midnight and rising around 3 AM, there were three hours of twilight, but calling it that is an insult to twilights everywhere, as the light level was still at about 80% of daytime values during the supposed night. It was more akin to a thick cloud passing overhead. I was thankful for the exhaustion that drove me to sleep.

When I did finally get out of bed the city of Reykjavik was finally mine to explore. Despite the fact that my vacation was half-over already I had spent very little time in the metropolis.

The back of Reykjavik's city hall.

It's city center is quite small and walkable, which is probably to be expected for a city of 120,000. The greater metro area is about 200,000, meaning that 2/3 of the entire country lives either in Reykjavik or in close proximity to it.

There are some slight hills that San Franciscans would scoff at, and a big lake that sits in the middle of it all, loosely separating the downtown area from the university.

An idyllic cityscape of Reykjavik across the lake in its center.

There is a set of Y-shaped streets that cater to tourists in the extreme: offering authentic wares like wool sweaters and selling jewelry covered in Icelandic runes, along with the expected overpriced food and drink. Even with all the tourists the streets are so sparse as to border on silent, though in a peaceful rather than eerie way.

The Iceland Parliament building.

The Parliament building from which the country is run is a much smaller, less-imposing building than the City Hall. It's accessibly located across a small square from a row of bars with outdoor seating. Imagine having a beer outside on the White House lawn with no fence between you and the building, and you'll have an idea of the intimacy this setting engenders.

The sun sets behind apartment buildings in Reykjavik, some of it the same student housing where I'm staying.

By the end of the day I felt like I was finally used to the exchange rate - about $0.88 to 100 Kroner while I was there. The food and drink were still grossly overpriced compared to the Midwest, but I reminded myself that I was on vacation, and that makes those costs seem much more bearable.

We rounded out the night at a bar downtown to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. Even though bars stay open in Reykjavik all night over the weekend, they are obliged to close at 1 AM local time during the week. The bar we were in did so, which happened at the end of the first period. Our server pointed us through a door in the back to an adjacent establishment, where the staff had set up some thick curtains to block prying eyes from seeing that they were still selling drinks to cheering patrons.

When we abandoned the throng of disappointed Canadians at the bar to head home later, we were sent through a back courtyard to avoid some suspicions out front, which forced us to unlock and navigate a minor maze of gates and alleys. The heavy curtains in the back of the bar had convinced me it was actually dark out, but of course, the sun was already rising on the walk home.