Today I woke up at 4 am to fly to Norway

Today I woke up at the crack of dawn to fly to Norway. Currently I'm sitting at the airport in Iceland awaiting my flight. I leave for Bergen in about an hour. Quick recap on what has happened so far. My first night I went out drinking with people I met. That was great! I learned all about the city, places to get cheap food, and how to find all the happy hours. Yesterday I walked about 40 minutes to my next hostel. It was pretty nice, I walked along the coast on this road/trail.

This is from the day before. It was cloudy and windy yesterday.

Once I got to my new hostel, I took a bus back into downtown to visit Cafe Loki for lunch. My coworker Michael told me to try to eat local food from a cafe near Hallgrimskirkja, and someone I met my first night confirmed it and told me to eat at Cafe Loki. So I had a nice lunch at a table overlooking the church courtyard.

My meal consisted Icelandic classics: Rye bread slices with plucking fish and trout, flat cake with smoked lamb, dried fish with butter, and fermented shark. Everything was really good! I mean, the shark smelled like death, but I enjoyed the taste. The people at the table next to me talked about how inedible they thought it was. 


After that I continued to walk around downtown. I visited a large recreation area near the water and spent an hour just sitting and looking out into the distance.

I booked the a trip to the Blue Lagoon at the end of the day. (They only time they had was 8pm or 9pm. So book early if you want to go!)

It was super relaxing to just sit there in the water. I just got the basic package because I am poor, but this included a silica mud mask!

If you are ever thinking about traveling to Iceland know that everything is expensive. I get that it is an island nation and you need to import everything, but 12 bucks for a beer is a little steep. And a gas station sandwich is like 8 bucks....despite being expensive I want to come back. The only thing I did not get to do was leave the city and go out to parks and see waterfalls. It was too expensive for me to rent a car on my own. Next time I want to get a couple of people together, rent a car, and drive the Ring Road which circles the island. So if anyone wants to join let me know! I just saw cheap tickets from Seattle to Iceland on Secret Flying last night! Go buy them!

Today I landed in Iceland!

Today I made it to Iceland! After a long plane ride, I landed in Reykjavik.  The airport is a ways outside of the city so I had to take a bus into town. Once I arrived I dropped my bag off at the hostel and walked around the city center. The weather is prefect! Sunny skies and 55ish degrees. So far it’s been a pretty relaxing day. I visited the Hallgrimskirkja church, walked down the main areas of town, stopped by a few stores, and grabbed a bite to eat. 

 

I spent the early afternoon sitting on the rooftop lounge area of my hostel, drinking beer and reading the newest Harry Potter book.

 

This > work

 
So far this is a pretty good vacation and this is only day 1. Now it's happy hour at my hostel so I'm going to grab a beer and attempt to awkwardly talk to strangers.

 

Today I made a travel blog!

Today I made a travel blog to document my upcoming trip to Europe. Over the next 3 weeks I'll be traveling around Europe on my own exploring. So far I've planned to go to Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and Germany. Though I'm sure most people are probably wondering why I just randomly decided to backpack in Europe.

I decided a few months ago that I would travel Europe alone. I did invite a few close friends to travel with me, but I ultimately decided it would be best for me to go it alone. While I won't be alone for my whole trip, I still wanted the majority of my trip to be traveling solo. I've heard so many positive things about traveling solo that I wanted to try it myself. While I'm excited to travel I'm also a little scared to be on my own.  However I know this experience will help me grow as a person.

Recently I've been looking at my life and I realized that I don't really take risks. Whenever I'm faced with an issue, I gather all the information and then logically make a decision. I never go with a gut instinct. My friend Jordan always tells me that what people regret the most when they grow old, is not taking enough risks when they were younger. I then looked at my closest friends who have gone to Cuba, hiked in the Himalayas, biked the west coast, and traveled around the world. I decided it was my turn. So having recently turned 25, I'm calling this my "quarter life crisis trip." While some of my friends bought a car/motorcycle or boat (or both), I bought a one-way ticket to Iceland.

Overall from this trip I hope to: make new friends, take more risks, take a step back from my everyday life, and try something new everyday. So I will try to update this blog whenever I can and keep everyone updated on where I am, and what I am doing.