Overslept, overstayed

I overslept this morning, since the alarm in the phone did not happen. Apparently I am not used to how it functions as of late. More than a month of travelling will do that to you. I also stayed up late with my new French friend discussing film and other motion media. It has been a blast here and he was very correct when he summed it up: You did not see much of the outside of Akureyri, but you found friends here. It turned out to be hard to do much without a car so the fantastic nature that I came for will have to wait until my not to likely return. The welcoming friendliness that I felt the first day might have been a bit exaggerated and mostly confined to the international community that I stumbled upon. Still do not know any Icelanders. I hope to find more of it in Reykjavik...

Do not bragg about your damn stores if they never are open...

Ok, sorry for the topic it is a paraphrase on a Swedish song and it fits into this post with some imagination.
Today was something of a let down: I got up early to go with a bus service to Myvattne but that service did not exist. Then I walked around the town and did some of the recommended sites such as the botanical garden. Which this time of year should be closed but is open so that you might take in the fantastic vista of a hundred dead plants at the same time. Kind of depressing.
In Reykjavik a person in the tourist information actually recommended me to have an ice-cream at a place called Brynja. She even wrote down the name on one of the information brochures that she handed me. It was the only thing she cared enough about to write down for me as far as I can remember. Let us just stop here and put this into context:
This would be the same as you visiting Stockholm and someone there writes you a note saying: you should definitely go have a cocos-boll at Orvar's in Göteborg, or landing being on the east coast of the USofA getting a recommendation for a Taco wagon in LA.
It kind of ramps up the expectations, right?
Even more so since the idea of eating ice-cream when it is about 4 degrees Celsius outside seems about as smart as licking a light pole.
So I got myself over to Brynja and reluctantly ordered a ice-cream from a equally reluctant sales-representative. To save me I got hot caramel sauce on the ice-cream.
Now I rate it as a pretty standard ice-cream. But with this build up and in this weather this can not be read as anything else than a fail.
Not amused.

No Myvatn

My plan for the day was to take the bus tour to Myvatn, the moscito water which is said to be very nice despite the name. But there was no bus-tour so I am kind of stuck in Akureyri today. Remains to do 2 very important things: see the botanical garden and eat an ice-cream while the temperature is about 5 degrees Celsius. Sounds stupid but is recommended.
I have also found a very good site where you can find people to car-pool with. I hope that I can go to Reykjavik tomorrow this way instead of the bus-service.

Dive in Akureyri

I met some Swedes who invited me to go to an outdoor bath which I did. There I met several other people from Iceland, Spain, France and Sweden. They where all living in the same guesthouse. After bath, sauna and water-slide we went to the guesthouse and ate in their kitchen and just shot the crap for a while. Then there was a call for a dumpster diving session so that became our next goal. We found very good bananas and other produce. Strange that so much goes to waste. We went back to the guesthouse happy with the finds and decided to meet up tomorrow.

a barrage of burps

The sounds from the kitchen continues and it looks like the person is checking on me from time to time. A bit scary and weird. It is getting time to get out of here and meet some Swedes at the outdoor bath. Might as well since the person is skulking around acting strange. Loud sighs and other sounds.

Iceland, Reykjavik & Akureyri

Did not manage to sleep on the flight. Saw movies instead, Icelandic movies. There seems to be a bad mannered Swede in each and every one of them. The one I finished watching was called Parents and had Reine Brynolfsson in a disgusting and well played role. Quite interesting film.

After landing I got onto a bus for 4,5 hours to the north coast and the village of Akureyri where I am now. Will explore the surroundings for a bit before I go back to Reykjavik. Right now a bit tired, but I have found myself a room with a bed and have plans to go swimming with some Swedes later so there will not be any sleeping for awhile.

There is some kind of human staying in a room next to mine who uses way to much aftershave and looks a bit like a woman, the way Christopher Walken looks like a lesbian woman. Now the person with the aftershave just walked past me... sporting breasts. This is getting queerer by the minute.

As a final note: the human burped very loudly from the kitchen. Bad manners, anyone?