8 - Sophie's Visit ~ Reykjavík

Dear readers,

On Friday, my sweet friend Sophie came to visit me in Iceland. I have known her since my first year of studying at Wageningen University, and we have been great friends ever since. We had a lovely weekend together and in this blogpost I'll write what we got up to.

The first evening, we went out for dinner at a cute veggie place called Gló. As mentioned in one of my previous blogposts, I really like this place as it isn't too expensive and the food is tasty. We had a nice meal and after we were done we went to a pub quiz at one of the hostels named 'Loft'. At this place I introduced Sophie to my new friends from the University of Iceland. We had a great time together.

The next day we went out into town to explore Reykjavík. It was a snowy morning, which gave the city a beautiful touch. We decided to

visit the big church in the city centre first, named 'Hallgrímskirkja'. The church doesn't have many decorations on the inside but the architecture is stunning and it also has a huge organ inside, consisting of 5275 pipes, which is a pretty impressive sight. We decided to take the lift to go up to the church later, as it was still snowing quite a lot which wouldn't give us a good view. As expected, it did clear up later in the day, which wasn't surprising as the weather in Iceland changes very rapidly.

After lunch we joined a 'free'-city tour. 'Free' as in: you give the amount you thought it was worth. I really enjoyed the tour. It was nice to know more about the buildings and statues are around the city I now live in and the tour guide was very funny and informative. Their website is: https://www.freewalkingtour.is and in the winter they meet at 1 pm and in the summer at 12 and 2 pm.

After the tour we still had some time to spare and we decided to visit the flee market in the downtown area. This fleemarket takes place every weekend and they have all kinds of stuff (clothes, foods, jewerly etc.). The good thing: it is inside a building so this is a nice place to go when it is too cold outside or when it's raining. We were hoping to score a cheap Icelandic sweater but sadly they were still quite expensive (around €100 in stead of €180), so we decided not to buy one.

We wanted a snack and coincidentally we were near by a street food stand called 'the best hotdogs in town'. I had read a lot about this place so we decided to check it out and try one. The hotdog was really good and not too pricy! The toppings were: onions, fried onions, musterd and a kethup-type of sauce. I am definitely going to come back to this place. The stunning thing: every time I walk by this hotdogstand there is a queue! That's how popular it is. The line goes pretty fast though so you never have to wait that long. I heard that a lot of people come here after clubbing or as a break between going to the next club.

I had been ranting to Sophie all day about a certain café near my house: The Cat Café called 'Kattakaffihúsið'. We decided to take a visit and we were not disappointed! The cats were very cute and playful. Some of them were just chilling on some planks which where fixed to the wall. There was also a cute little ladder they could go on and one of the cats just sat on its 'throne' the whole time (it was just a fancy chair). Also, the drinks were fabulous. I had a Chai Latté (paid about €5), which was delicious.

For dinner we cooked at home and after that we decided to go oto one of the public pools. The one we went to is called 'Sundhöll'. I love it here. This pool is only a 5 minutes walk from my home and I go there almost every week. It's so nice because the main part is outside which gives it a special feeling. While it's -3 degrees outside, you can take some laps in the warm pool or relax in the hot tubs/ bubble baths, which are between 39 and 40 degrees. This is so relaxing. You can't stay in for too long, because after a while you'll get so hot that it's hardly bearable.

We decided to go and visit my new friends from uni, who are all international exchange students, at a local hostel at which we attend events together quite often. This night was 'Gogo Star' night which meant that a dragqueen named 'Gogo Star' came to the hostel to entertain us. She did some lip syncing to a song and we watched an episode of a series about dragqueens together with all the people at the hostel on a big beamer, with live commentary from Gogo Star. It was absolutely hilarious and I will probably be going more often as this event takes place every saturday night. I would recommend to check out the events at this hostel (the Loft Hostel) during your visit in Reykjavík, as they are all very entertaining and free of charge.

After this relaxing evening in the pool and meeting my uni friends, we

went back home and hung out there together. The next day we were going on a road trip so we wanted to be fresh in the morning for that, the alarm clock was set at 7 am! I will tell you more about the road trip in my next blog :).

Love,

Camille