Day 4, more snow, a view to remember and a sudden realisation of how far you’d come for a weekend.

Day 4, more snow, a view to remember and a sudden realisation of how far you’d come for a weekend.

I showered hurriedly so that I could get one more bus ride and one more walk around town in before I had to face the inevitable and start the journey home. I looked out the window, it was snowing again/still and it was still dark. Even though I knew that there would be limited daylight at this time of year before I booked the trip it didn't really hit home until you actually experience having a coffee and croissant at midday only to look outside and see the street lights still on, novel but I think it’d take some getting used to !

 I walked back from town along the footpath by the bay that I had discovered the first night, the sun was now properly up and the snow had stopped, I was glad, it was now a clear day and the scarce daylight had lit up the mountains across the water, the view was nothing short of mesmerising, I was truly thankful to Reykjavik for this parting gift.

 It wasn't long before I was packed and on the bus back to Keflavik airport, the Gaslight Anthem played in my ears as I thought about how a weekend can seem to last so long but go so quickly at the same time, I didn't feel the burning of regret that you get when you leave a place you may never come back to and you’re worried you may have missed something you will only ever see there, quite the opposite, I felt I had fitted a lot of things in, I found Reykjavik to be both manageable and not in the slightest daunting, it is easy to navigate and everything I want to do or see was within easy reach and I genuinely felt I’d learned a lot about Iceland, it’s history and it’s culture.

 I found the people that I met to be exceptionally friendly, they all spoke better English than I do but I guess they’d have to, who the hell speaks Icelandic apart from the 300,000 people that live there ? I loved the balance of respect and recognition of the history and origins of the country and it’s traditions and the youth and eagerness of the city. It’s not fair to call Reykjavik a modern city, it’s up to date but it’s not modern, it isn't bristling with technology nor does it have some of the amenities of other capital cities but it has character in spades, I like that and when you remind yourself of the location of the place, it’s not doing badly !

So, I came to see the northern lights. Mission accomplished. What else did I find ? Well I've now visited the world’s northern most capital city for starters, I've been told stories of trolls by people who actually believe them, I've showered naked with some locals, I've been called a Viking, I've been to the “coolest bar in the world” and eaten “the best hotdog outside of New York”, I've taken in amazing views of mountains, I've seen more than my share of snow, I now regard the bus drivers of Reykjavik as absolute heroes as their driving skills easily match that of Juha Kankkunen or  Pentti Airikkala, I've learned that Reykjavik has no trains, nor a Starbucks which is good, nor a McDonalds which is even better and that Iceland itself doesn't have an army, it’s an intriguing and quirky place with an anecdote to every brick, window or door  but most of all I've learned that I like Reykjavik, I really like it.

 If I had to sum Reykjavik up I would say that it is in my opinion the coolest city I have been to with a healthy side order of “what the fuck ?”.

As I settled on the purple plane I chuckled to myself, a total of 2000 miles travelled for a weekend away on my own.