Northern Europe Travel Diary Part Two

23.12. 17:27
I feel weird. This morning, I arrived in Iceland. The airport was very small, and if I thought Norway was expensive, I was wrong. There was a bus to the city centre (Flybus) for almost 30 Euros or public transport bus fo 15 Euros, but the latter only comes around every two hours on a Saturday. So I waited more than an hour to save 15 Euros, knowing it would cost me the same when I would leave Iceland. In the centre, I had to change busses, and the ticket purchase only works through an app. So far, in any other country, I had no trouble with that, but this one always showed an error code when I registered my credit card. But lucky for me, the bus driver said he saw that I had arrived from the airport, so I wouldn’t need to buy another ticket. When I finally arrived at my hostel, it was 2.30 p.m. and my flight arrived at 10.30 a.m.

On the bus ride, I met a very nice couple from Bulgaria, but they’ve lived in the UK for many years. When our ways parted, we hugged and they told me that if I come to the UK, I have friends to visit there. This is something that I really love about travelling. As expected, Iceland was really cold but still bearable. After checking in, I met a girl in my room. She’s from Vietnam, and we talked a bit about why we are here. She told me that she booked a tour to see the Northern Lights, but they weren’t very clear to see. She said that it looked better on the phone than with the eyes. That was exactly the reason why I booked a rental car for the next four days, to not depend on specific times of a tour and explore Iceland on my own. I did some research and found an Icelandic website that would show how likely it is to see the lights and where. But I’m pretty confident my plan to drive around the island is good, and whatever’s meant to be will happen. I’m actually very tired and feel a little down. I think it’s because my journey is starting to exhaust me. I really look forward to spending more than three nights in one place, to have a kitchen I can rely on, and to be able to buy groceries for more than a few days. I also look forward to warmer weather and to feel cosy again. A contributing factor is that I barely caught andy sleep last night and had to wake up at 3.30 a.m. to get to the airport on time. When I arrived today, I was really looking forward to settling into the accommodation and resting a bit, but instead, I had to wait and travel four more hours. At that moment, I was thinking of cancelling the rental car, all the accommodations I had booked, and just staying in Reykjavik and book tours like all the other tourists. Of course, if you know me, you know that I’d never do that, no matter how I feel. I still want to share that not everything is always perfect and travelling isn’t fun 24/7. I know, I’ll feel better tomorrow and that I’ll be in Spain in eight days. The end of this trip is drawing nearer and I want to enjoy the rest of my time. But I’m not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to being lazy for a few days.

25.12. 7:57
When I woke up yesterday, I barely had any sleep. I guess I’ve really outgrown hostels. I woke up almost every hour because someone entered or left the room, turned on their phone light, or simply because the person sleeping above me moved, which made the whole bunk bed move. I was a little worried how two bad nights in a row would affect my driving abilities. After having breakfast and organising a few things, I took the bus to the rental car station. The bus driver was super fun, he sang along to the radio. I was the only person on the bus. I arrived at the station and asked about driving on the Northeastern side. Last night, I met another girl in the hostel who had been here seven days already, rented a van, and had the same plan to drive around the island like I. But due to the weather and road conditions, she never made it to the first stop in Akureyi and turned back. The rental car recommended upgrading my car to a 4WD, which I did, because I’ve alao read online that it would be hard to get around with a 2WD. I also upgraded my insurance to include Roadside assistance because in these conditions I rather have it and don’t need it than the other way around.

Although the day before the drive to Akureyi was supposed to be five hours, a road had been closed, and now my estimated driving time would be six hours. I repeatedly checked a website that’s constantly updated about the road conditions. There was hardly a street on it that wasn’t marked slippery. I left Reykjavik around 11 a.m. and soon was amazed by the stunning Icelandic landscape. I made two stops along the way to take in the beautiful scenery. Just for that, renting a car was worth it.

Driving conditions were pretty good for the following two hours, then it started to become a bit trickier, but still not bad. There was a lot of traffic in the beginning, but the further I drove, the less traffic there was, and soon enough, I was the only car on the road. Only from time to time, cars passed. When someone was behind me, I always let them overtake because it stressed me out a bit, to be honest. At one point, a car deove behind me, but they didn’t overtake for a while. Then, there were two cars standing still on the other side of the road, and I wasn’t sure if they needed help. So i went very slow and drove a bit more right, to pass them and park my car ahead, so I can offer them help. But it wouldn’t come to that. There was a very slippery spot, and I slipped a little off the road and got stuck. As did the car behind me because they tried to do the same. The driver from the pickup next to us immediately got out of his car, and so did I. He was an older guy and didn’t speak English. We just looked at each other, didn’t really say a thing, but understood each other without any words. He took one look at me and just passed me to enter my car and try to get it out. Meanwhile, the people from the car behind me also exited their car and offered to push my car out. The pickup driver didn’t manage to get it out, but he had a rope with him and tied it to my car to pull me out. He tried to tell me to get in my car to help drive it out, but I didn’t understand. So he went to a car that came along behind him and waited for us to clear the street and asked the driver to do it instead of me. They did and managed to move the car, but it wasn’t enough to get it out. Meanwhile, an even bigger pickup came along, overtook the waiting cars, and first, I was confused and thought, where does he want to go? Obviously, the road is blocked with our cars. But he came to tell the other guy to tie the road to his car to pull my car out. They did, and his pickup was strong enough. Meanwhile, I talked with the people from the car behind me, and they told me that we wouldn’t be stuck if we hadn’t gone right to avoid the other cars. I mean, we weren’t going faster than 30 km/h when it happened. After they got me out, they pulled out the car behind me, and I offered them to overtake me. They did and told me I could follow them because apparently they were more familiar with the road. We thanked the guys for pulling us out and continued the drive. I’ve followed them for quite a while, as conditions worsened from one second to another. It was very foggy and became hard to see, but we managed to get through. I was grateful. They drove in front of me because it made it a lot easier for me. It was like they were my guiding car, and believe it or not, but when they were behind me and didn’t overtake, I was thinking, maybe they were sent here for a reason. The weather cleared again. I noticed that the weather changed a lot from one minute to another. There could be ten kilometres, where nothing’s going on, and then suddenly three with heavy fog and snow. I’ve already driven about four hours and haven’t passed a gas station for three, which made me a bit nervous. So, when I finally found one, I stopped and was all by myself again. It was very cold, windy, and snowy, and it took some time for me to figure out how to open the tank cap. In fact, I had to google it. Afterwards, I continued my drive through better and worse conditions. About 30 minutes to my destination it got really bad and I had to stop in the middle of the road because there was a lot of ice on my windshield wipers, so they didn’t clear the view anymore. I removed it and drove on, and finally, after eight hours of driving, I reached my accommodation. I was starving, so I ate some Instant noodles and was happy that I had a room to myself here. Today, while I drove, was the first time I thought to myself, ‘You’re on an adventure’. Merry Christmas!

17:46
I don’t know what’s going on lately, but only real life can make up good stories. After breakfast this morning, I took a walk to the ocean side of Akureyi and was stunned by what I saw. I can not put into words how beautiful Iceland is. It’s the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen in my life.

Then, I made my way to my next stop, Eglisstadir. It was supposed to be a good 3-hour drive, but I made a few stops along the way and again, at the end of the drive weather conditions worsened and it took me about four houra to get here. One of the stops was at Godafoss Waterfall and was truly beautiful.

This time, I had to drive on a road completely covered in snow for a few kilometres. It reminded me of driving up the mountain to go skiing in Austria. But I’m not gonna lie, I feel pretty lucky. Conditions could have been much worse. I settled in at my accommodation and gonna take a nap soon, because I want to chase the Northern Lights at night. I asked the receptionist about the place I wanted to go to to see them and she told me that in this town, they usually see them every day, unless it’s cloudy. I’m constantly checking several websites and apps that were recommended to me and hope to see them either tonight or tomorrow night.

When I was in the shared kitchen to wash my dishes, there was another guy there making food. A third guy came in and asked us where we bought food because nothing seemed to be open. I told him that I bought it two days ago, because I knew that stores would be closed during Christmas (in Austria it’s the same). What’s different here, though, is that even the gas stations are closed, so you really have absolutely no way of buying food. I asked if he talked to the receptionist, and he told me he did, but she also said that nothing would be open until tomorrow morning. So I went to my room and gave him one pack of my instant noodles and two tangerines. He wanted to give me money for it, but I declined. The funny part is that earlier, when I went through my groceries, I was concerned if I had bought too much. So, who wants to tell me that this is a coincidence?