Day Twenty: Monday 26th August
Journey: Borgarnes to Reykjavik, Iceland
At last, one final mini-bus carried us on the last leg of our long journey!
We left Borgarnes on Monday morning, took our backpacks (which were, I don’t know if you guessed, rather heavy) and took the bus. This bus was, surprise surprise, once again a mini-bus. The driver couldn’t string two English words together but this didn’t stop him from robbing us of a huge amount of money before allowing us into his vehicle.
There isn’t much to say about the mini-bus itself. It was made of metal and plastic for the most part and the luggage was stored in a trailer because of the lack of available space. Two annoying French girls were riding with us as well. I say annoying because they spent all their time to laughing hysterically (“pouffer” is how we call it in French) and because they were French too.
After less than an hour, we caught sight of Reykjavik. From afar, it looks like a decently sized city, mainly made up of buildings with a couple of trees scattered around, most likely to act as some kind of aesthetic relief for the blasé urbanites.
A bit of bad news we learned inside the bus was that we would be dropped off much farther away from our destination than initially planned. Indeed, two companies share the duty of connecting Borgarnes and Reykjavik and both have different bus stops. Lucky as we were, we had chosen the wrong one (even though, for the sake of intellectual truth, we have to admit that we could have gone with the other company, but neither of us was willing to wake up before twelve o’clock).
134 Laugavegur, the bright yellow house where our journey came to an end.
We were therefore dropped off at Harpan, the famous Reykjavik concert hall which lies right downtown by the harbor. We took our stuff once again, and walked towards our new flat on Laugavegur 134.
In case you know nothing about Reykjavik, Laugavegur, where our flat graciously lies, incidentally happens to be the city’s main artery (kinda like the Icelandic Champs Élysées if you want). We probably looked both strange, and like tourists when we walked up this street, fending off Gore-Tex-clad Americans and local hipsters alike.
After half an hour which felt like thirty-five minutes, and after having passed all four of Reykjavik’s record stores, twelve-hundred cafés, sixty-five thrift shops and the world’s northernmost Penis Museum, we arrived at our flat; and this is how twenty days of travel around Scandinavia came to an end.
Fin.
