I have spent the last few days holed up in my room, writing and doing research. It was a new experience for me, as it was not only one essay that I had to finish but 4. That’s right, somehow all of my midterm essays due dates fell on the same week. I just sat down with my planner and figured out that the third week of December will be a repeat of this one. Four assignments due consecutive days. I suspect I have learned my lesson this week, and will have better planned for finals. I guess I will let you know how that goes in a month. Anyway, sorry for the delay. I have just been too busy with schoolwork to write this post.
I promised last week to tell you all about Iceland. I failed to account for the fact that so much happened in those five days that I could not possibly fit it all into this one post. For a fuller picture, please check out my personal photo blog. The last three posts are all about Iceland, and there is another one coming soon! If you are thinking of studying abroad in Europe (UK in particular), then I really recommend you go to Iceland. Flights are pretty cheap from here, and if you take WOWAIR, they even let you stop in Iceland when flying to and from the States completely free of charge! So do it. Do keep in mind that you have never been to a place where the cost of daily necessities is as expensive as they are in Iceland.
Even travelling ‘on the cheap’ in Iceland can be fairly expensive, but there are a few things you can do to cut down the charges. First of all: stay at a hostel. This was my first experience at a hostel, and it was great! I could not recommend it more. I stayed at Hlemmur Square, which consists of a restaurant and lobby, a floor of hotel rooms, two floors of hostel rooms, and one floor of flats. Given that this was my first time staying at a hostel, the fact that the floor below me was an actual hotel helped me feel safe. Then again, there was nothing to worry about.
The location was great, only a few minutes walk to three different supermarkets, and only a few minutes more to the city centre. If you were thinking about staying at an AirBNB, think twice. I won’t tell you not to do so, especially if it is cheaper than a hostel, but you do run into one problem: most tours pick you up from your hotel/hostel, and not all of them allow pickups at random addresses. If the weather is bad, you won’t want to walk to the closest hotel to wait outside until you get picked up.
Now, I mentioned tours. Travelling to Iceland is interesting in the sense that you will likely stay at Reykjavik, but nobody travels there just to see that one city. You will want to take tours up and down the west coast, and those tours are worth it. If you want to save some money, you could rent a car and find the places on your own. This is a lot cheaper, but you miss out on meeting new people and meeting locals. Depending on when you go, the weather can also get pretty bad so you might not want to be driving long distances when it is rainy and windy and hailing and snowing. Just do your research! (If you are looking for tour companies, I really recommend Extreme Iceland. I used a couple different companies, and that was by far my favourite.)
Those are just a few of the things you should know about Iceland if you are planning on going. Reach out if you want more info! And check out the picture blog if you want to see why you should go. I already want to go back.