Reykjavik

Ah, the beautiful, quaint city of Reykjavik! I wasn't really sure what to expect from this city, but let's just say it exceeded ALL of my expectations. This city was filled with contemporary architecture to old, historic houses and everything in between. My favorite place was this Lutheran church, Hallgrimskirkja. It is 243 feet tall and you can see it from anywhere in the city. Our Airbnb was just two blocks from this church, so whenever we were making our way home we just had to look for Hallgrimskirkja (which came in handy quite often for two women with a pretty pathetic sense of direction)! This church was designed in 1937 but construction wasn't finished until 1986 -- definitely worth the wait!

Contemporary architecture, I mentioned? I loved this building below, the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center. They started building it in 2007 but if you know anything about the economy at this time, you know that this was right before the huge, worldwide recession in 2008. When the recession hit, building the Harpa was put on hold and a large debate formed wondering if the Harpa should be finished or if Iceland should use these millions of dollars elsewhere. They decided to go through with it, and in 2011 it was finally finished! The fishing industry is SO important to Icelanders (in fact, that's the reason why they don't want to join the EU - they don't want to share their fishing land and resources), so this building is supposed to look like the scales on a fish. The colored "scales" resemble the Northern Lights; at night time they turn to alluring blue and green colors. Not to mention, the interior of this building is beautiful, too!

Everyone knows that these colorful houses are a common trademark all over Europe, but I was somewhat surprised to see them in Iceland, too!

A few more photos of Reykjavik: the first is a sculpture called Partnership, a gift to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between Iceland and the United States (1941-1991), the second is a photo of me downtown, the third is the Old Harbour, and the last photo is a popular shopping street!

Reykjavik and its surrounding cities make up for around two-thirds of Iceland's total population of ~320,000. This is barely larger than the city of Madison's population! Our first day, we took a walking tour of Reykjavik. Our tour guide told us that they actually have an app in Iceland that tells you if you are related to someone else. She said you type in your information and theirs, and out spurts your relationship to them! This app is used to make sure you don't end up dating your third or fourth cousin, but she said it's pretty common to find out you're seventh and eighth cousins with someone. And she did share that the app is most commonly used on Sunday mornings -- too funny!

All for now on Reykjavik ... Check out my other tabs on Iceland, the Golden Circle and the Icelandic FOOD!