The two responses I get when I tell someone I visited Iceland are 'Ohh' followed by silence, or 'you mean the shop?' I also find it difficult to explain how great it was. Most of these images are taken on 35mm film with a trip 35 and xa2. Videos are from my phone.
For most of my visit I stayed in Akureyri, a little city with a population smaller than most towns. It has everything you would expect to find in a city, except busy crowds of people.
Akureyrarkirkja, the church, sits on a hill overlooking the city. The flim got a little exposed here somehow, I kinda like it.
The weirdest place my friend took me to is the Christmas house, a grotto open all year round. You can buy crafted Christmas ornaments whilst listening to festive music. I had to tell myself it's June.
Arna drove me to the Mývatn area which includes Goðafoss, a large waterfall. Waterfalls are all over the place in Iceland, the large ones attract a lot of tourists armed with cameras.
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Hvitserkur is the last remains of a central volcano (-is that really true?) From the main road, it's a half hour ride down a small road, which left Arna's poor car covered in dirt. To get to the beach we climbed down a cliff.
I found an awesome beer called viking stout at a local bowling ally on a drunk bowling bout. I don't remember if it was Arna who introduced me to it or-? I'm guessing, for a country where lager is commonplace, it's the only dark beer Viking Ölgerd brews. Other beers I tried were thule (okay), Egils Gull (better), and Víking Gylltur (best of the lot.)
What I leant in north Iceland; nobody walks, the distances are too big to bother and most of the year it's cold anyway. People do not sleep and it doesn't get dark in the summer so I didn't either. There are intermissions at the cinema, which give you enough time for a quick walk across the street to buy a beer. Everyone likes ice cream, everyone. The air is very dry, making hikes hard -I thought I was dying just walking up a hill. Rotten shark (Hákarl) is good with beer. You have to drive with your headlights on. There are no multi-lane roads in the north, which made Reykjavik difficult to adjust to.
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