Day 41: Second day in Reykjavik

Today we slept in and had a late breakfast at Tiu Dropur (ten drops) across the street. It’s a quaint little basement café with great waffles and hot chocolate. We had a lecture planned at 3 pm, so we had a little over an hour of free time after breakfast. I just walked in a few stores and did some window shopping before we met up at a hotel where our speaker was meeting us. She was an old professor of Caitlin’s and spoke to us about geothermal power in Iceland and the government’s master plan for future production and regulation. Another group of American students came too, ten kids from UNC Chapel Hill. They were our age and had studied in Alaska for three weeks before coming to Iceland. They had already been in Reykjavik for a week and are going to Akureyri with Caitlin after we leave.

After resting at the hostel for a while we all met up again at 7 pm for dinner at the Grill House, an American style restaurant downtown. Since I’m in Iceland, I decided to eat something that was at least somewhat local, so I got seafood quesadillas with haddock and shrimp. When we finished dinner we spent some more time browsing the stores along the main street and later in that evening we all met up with Thordur in the park area in the center of town. Tonight was his last night in Reykjavik with us and he was leaving the SIT group to play a gig with his band in Eastern Iceland. Even though he mainly just drove the bus driver, he helped out with a lot of other stuff and hung out the group throughout a large part of the trip. He’s only a few years older than us and Caitlin knew him from the university, so he felt like another student on the trip. When we said goodbye to him at the end of the night it was rather sad, and it really hit home that we’ll all be flying home soon and probably won’t see each other again since most of us live in different states.


Hanging out in the park with Thordur


Tomorrow we have some site visits planned and a short class on ethics that will continue on until Wednesday. Goda Nott!