I had nothing planned for the first day by design, to give us a chance to recover from the travel.
After sleeping in till almost noon, we pulled ourselves together and went out into the city to find some exploration and do some light tourism.
Being Sunday, most of the restaurants were closed. One that was still open was the Cafe Loki, where we went for breakfast. One of the foods Iceland is famous for is their rye bread, and Cafe Loki in particular has a rye bread ice cream, which I heard from a video was surprisingly tasty.
Mashed fish, fish and eggs, and rye bread ice cream, and a yogurt filled pancake.
The rye bread ice cream was indeed tasty, and not like rye or bread at all. The rest of the food was also very good.
We also tried a pancake, which had an almost savory yogurt filling, as pancakes often do.
At the table next to us was a somewhat elderly couple who turned out to also be from Ohio, which was a wild coincidence.
After eating, we continued on towards the coast. I wanted to go to a computer store to get a laptop carry bag, and Wally wanted to take some pictures of the ocean.
We all got a kick out of the The Phallilogical museum, though we didn't go in.
We stopped at a large flea market, just to look around. Jackson ended up buying a hat, since at this point his head was getting quite cold. We had all somewhat underdressed, thinking it seemed nice out.
We also stopped at a viking museum, to learn some of the history of Iceland, but mostly to play with the viking cosplay.
Iceland definitely doesn't shy away from the dark aspects of their history.
After the tour, we spent some time at the cosplay area, taking pictures.
TODO: add more pictures of Wally
We made our way to the computer store, and I was able to uy a bag, but not before having a gamer chat in our gamer chairs
At last, we reached the breakwater to take some pictures of the ocean.
We stayed as long as we could stand the cold wind, but had to retreat before long.
On the way back, we took a small detour to take some pier pictures of the bay.
We also tried to go the art museum, but it was closing in soon, so we just sat outside and discussed politics.
It was approaching dinnertime, so we stopped at a fish restaurant, which turned out to be a bit fancier than I was expecting. It seems you would normally need to have a reservation, but they just so happened to have a table free so we got to eat there anyway.
We ordered seafood pasta, and they brought it out in one big dish, for us to divvy out ourselves.
Practical and delicious.
There was a bus station right outside the restaurant, so we decided to try taking the bus back to the hotel. It turned out that you needed some kind of pre-paid bus card to pay the fare, but the driver let us ride for free, probably because he didn't feel like dealing with it.
After resting a bit at home, we decided to go out for an evening bar adventure. We also met the owner of the apartment and one of the guests, who said the northern lights were visible, albeit faintly.
As we entered the darker park, the northern lights turned out to be way more than just visible, they were quite vivid. It wasn't quite the level of the pictures you usually see, but it was still quite spectacular.
We went to a bar, to chat and take in the local atmosphere. I got a fruity non alcoholic raspberry beer, which was pretty tasty.
I tried to take a selfie, but screwed up and accidentally took a video instead
...multiple times.
I will leave you with this mural we see on the way there and back. He just wants to show you his horse. Why are you running?
