#aurora2017

the quaint city of Reyjkavik..

- along Bankaestraeti, Reyjkavik, 21122017

spotted in the second picture is Grýla,  the ogress living in the Icelandic mountains. She is a dreadful character, described as part troll and part animal and the mother of 13 precocious boys (the Yule Lads).  The Icelandic Christmas period is an intriguing mixture of religious practice and traditional folklore, beginning on 23 December and ending on Epiphany, 6 January. Unlike most countries that have a single Father Christmas / Santa Claus character, Icelandic children are expected to be visited by 13 Yule Lads. I spotted a few others but was kinda too lazy taking their picture. Laziness and also a mix of if-I-could-not-find-all-13-of-them-why-should-I-even-bother-taking-pictures feeling…(yeah…you should know by now that I am an either, or kind of girl nothing in between)

the city is just what you would expect a capital city of a sparsely populated country would be…

there was nothing much going on in the city and you can barely see any signs of vibrant nightlife…

maybe it was the cold, crisp air that was deterring people from being out and about…

maybe it was the fact its in the middle of the week…

or maybe, its the limited amount of daylight…

mind you, I was in Iceland on their shortest day of the year with 4 hours or so daylight…

to be honest, first day in, I can somehow felt regret creeping in..especially after receiving the email from superjeep.is cancelling the Aurora Hunting Trip for the night due to bad weather…

just why on earth did I decide to come to Iceland in December???

the above is the reason I packed the following for this trip

- cheap supermarket in Iceland named Bónus on Hallveigarstigur, Reykjavík, 21122017

so here is the thing...

while I have accepted things would be expensive in Iceland, it does not give me the room to just throw away my money needlessly. after all, I am a budget traveler at heart.

since I know it will be expensive to eat out in Iceland and my trip would only be for three nights, I have prepared my meal in advance. I even brought Ayamas sausages from Malaysia. (if you are an avid reader of this tumblr, you would have known from my past post the reason behind my obsession with packing foods for my holiday)

I am not sure about Iceland restriction on carrying carrots, garlic, cili padi and pre-cooked animal products but, as far as I am concerned, I managed to walk pass immigration and custom without any item being confiscated. The trick was, I just put on my coolest I-have-nothing-to-hide face and walked through the Nothing to Declare lane.

If you wonder why did I go through all the trouble to bring carrots, garlics and precooked meat, as you can see, the price of those things are not cheap in foreign land. Moreover, you might need to buy a lot of them as per picture number 4, which would be too much garlic to be bought for a 3-night stay. It was not easy to secure Halal meat too.

As a matter of fact, if its not for the liquid restriction for carry-on, I would even bring the bottled water. I am truly fine with drinking pre-boiled tap water but the thing about Iceland is, the water smell like rotten eggs due to high sulphur content. The bottled water, however, seemed free of such smell. (maybe my minds playing trick but the water really seems different).

the most expensive airport bus transfer ever.

- Keflavik International Airport, 21122017

the service was provided by flybus and the bus is available at 20-30 minutes interval. It took 45 minutes to get to the BSI terminal.

From BSI terminal, it was another 15 minutes of trudging through slushies-filled road to the guesthouse booked via airbnb (seriously airbnb, its about time I got some sponsorship deal from you guys)

yup, at ISK 2450 one way (~ RM 95), this gotta be the most expensive of least expensive way to get to the main city from the nearest airport.

but that is the thing about Iceland.

EVERYTHING HERE IS EXPENSIVE.

the sooner we accept that, the better. 

its not like anyone put a gun to my head asking me to go to Iceland. I wanted to come here.

I found that, the moment I let it go, the easier my planning for this trip get.