I started my day at 8 AM when a taxi took me from my house to Oulu's airport. It took around an hour to get to Helsinki where I had my second flight to Keflavik.

The flight to Iceland was a long one – around 4 hours. When we started landing and I could finally see the land, it took my breath away. We were flying into a storm at sunset and just seeing that view and the icy surface of Iceland was so atmospheric. 

As I mentioned, we flew into a snowstorm so when I took a bus to the center of Reykjavik, it was impossible to see anything. My accommodation was about 10 minutes from the bus station but it took me around 30 minutes because of the weather conditions. But thankfully a French tourist was kind enough to help me carry it for the first half of the way.

I got the keys for the house and my own personal room and unpacked my bags. The apartment is really old and creaky, but I like it that way. I live with 4 other people with whom I share a kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. Today I only met one of my roommates: she is a middle-aged woman from Poland. She was really friendly and nice, and introduced me to the rules of the household since we have our responsibilities and shifts to take care of the house.

After I got familiar with the rules and chatted with my new roommate for a bit, I decided to go to eat. I went to a small local restaurant that was only 2 minutes away from my place. I now live almost in the center of the city so everything is located very conveniently! While I was walking to the restaurant I saw Hallgrímskirkja – the famous Icelandic church. I decided to go check it out after the food.

The restaurant's prices were not bad: for the whole meal I paid around 2000 Icelandic krona, which is around 14€. The atmosphere of the place was incredible: there was Icelandic alternative rock playing with slow snowflakes falling outside the window. The restaurant is decorated very nicely too: there are paintings on the walls, crystals and Icelandic items on the shelfs. I can definitely recommend this place, the name is Salka Valka eldhús/kitchen.

After I was done, I finally went to see the church and I was deeply impressed. Not only is the building incredibly massive and even colossal, there was also a light-show projected to the wall of it! Apparently I got to see the Winter Lights Festival that was taking place on 1.2.24 - 3.2.24, so I was lucky enough to witness the last day of it. “The Ice is Melting at the Pøules” by Martin Ersted / Båll & Brand (DK) was the one and only show I saw. The main theme was global warming. Looking at it while the snow was falling was just incredible.

After that I took a short walk around the center of the city before heading to bed.