Reykjavik Iceland
Anyone ever been?
My crazy traveling non-triathlete friends and I are talking about Reykjavik for New Years. I've heard it's crazy fun!
We're looking at combination hotel/NYE party packages at a few places, but also looking at booking our own hotel/apartment and finding our own fun.
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I want to do New Year in Edinburgh Scotland sometime. Hogmanay.
I've done that already! It was awesome! Scotland is my favorite country and Edinburgh is my favorite city.
Reykjavik was a blast, but it is a really small town..... In the middle of nowhere. The whole country only has 300,000 citizens. Their #1 export is cod..... Of the 300,000 on the island, just over half are in Reykjavik. The party zone is downtown and is about 20-30 cool bars and a hand full of "discos". Icelanders are friendly, outgoing, huge drinkers, speak good English and being Ameican will help with the ladies. The men are hard chargers. They descend from Vikings after all.
It is good one from the life list, but like I said, it is a small town in the middle of nowhere North Atlantic. I think that's why they drink so much.... If you go, go in the summer where their is 23 hours of sun light. Nothing like last call at 3:00 AM wearing sun glasses...
Well, I pulled the trigger today and booked my flight! NYE in Reykjavik Iceland!
This is the package we're doing:
www.icelandguest.com/vacation-packa...ravaganza/
Have a blast.
Cool
Hope everyone had a great holiday and an even better New Years Eve! Better yet, hope your 2013 is great!
doing the round the island bike in the dark right?
At that time, at least, it was CRAZY expensive for people denominated in dollars. If that's still the case, just suck it up, cuz there's nothing you can do. OTOH, they had that currency crisis, so I don't know what the current situation is.
A 10 mi run that turned into 18+ because I didn't read the signs properly was the reason I finally broke down and bought a Garmin as soon as I could get one affordably. :-)
Alright everyone...I made it! What an amazing place, very stark in its geography. Very friendly English-speaking people. Icelandic is very similar to Swedish I'm told. Didn't get to see a lot of beautiful locals, as they all seem to stay away around New years to let the tourists take over. Most of the tourists are American and Brits, as you'd imagine.
I'd say cost is about average for almost everything, including tours, travel, lodging and food. Booze is EXPENSIVE, something like a 40% tax rate on it (they use it to fund their social programs for alcohol abuse, which is supposedly a big issue for the island nation that has only 3 hours of 'dusk' during the winter months and 24/7 sunlight during the summer). Ex, it was 1700 Icelandic kronor (ISK) for a meal that fed six people for dinner and the following breakfast, but the same 1700 ISK for two beers at the pub.
Speaking of which, they have good local beers including lots of lagers (taste a lot like Heineken), still had a lot of winter/christmas brews and some good dark beers too. I only saw a few imports (ex american beers, even some mexican beers), but never saw anyone drinking them. Guinness was popular, as it is everywhere, I imagine. Managed to get my hands on two pint glasses, a Viking and a Gull.
If you're used to an "American" new years, you're in for a change. In America, I've found, all the partiers build up to midnight - having that as the big event of the night. In Iceland, just about every native is in the streets lighting off fireworks, up until midnight, with all the tourists watching and sometimes participating. Afterwards, everyone floods the bars/pubs, and then drinks until about 6am. For me, who lives in the central time zone, that's midnight (which works out well for no jet lag).
I heard of a cool program (after we returned) from IcelandAir (pretty much the only airline that flies in/out) that allows a 'free' layover (up to 3 days) in Iceland, if you plan on hitting another European destination after. Ex, fly from Denver to Iceland, stay three days, then go to Germany. I haven't validated that, but I heard it several times.
Overall, not that cold if you're prepared. I wore good boots with good traction, blue jeans, long sleeve t-shirts, my ski jacket (fleece liner with water/windproof outer) and a big fuzzy hat I bought there (you can see if in the pictures). The first full day we were there, it snowed, but mostly melted within a few days. The wind was hard and COLD the first few days, after that it died down. It was actually colder in Boston on the way back thru to home.
In short, got to see Reykjavik, the Golden Circle and the Blue Lagoon. The only thing we didn't get to see, tourist-wise, was Aurora Borealis. They cancel the tour if the forecast is for clouds. You know what that means...I'll go back! Hopefully during the summer, when you can do lots of hiking.
Of course, as soon as I get back, I hear of two different news stories that concern Iceland:
1) www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/0...government
2) www.cnn.com/2013/01/04/travel/icela...index.html
You can see my pics here if you want: www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnai...=snapfish/
(I don't know if snapfish will require you to set up a free account to view or not)
Skol! (pronounced like scowl)
I'm socialist inclined but the name restriction thing is too much.
alcoholic ginger beer sounds good.