The Cheap Bastard Does Iceland

"There's no way around it," reads Let's Go about a visit to Iceland, "costs are high."

I took that as a challenge.

When I arrived to find that $1 is equal to ISK70 and my bus trip to Reykjavik (the capital and largest city in Iceland) cost ISK1100, my heart sank. My hostel bed already put me nearly over my daily budget max of €50 a day, so I decided to play hardball. No more Mr. Nice Bastard. And here's what I have found:

- All bowls of soup in Iceland come with free refills and nobody cares how much free bread and humus you take along with it.
- Beer is cheaper than Coke, with is cheaper than water. Drink accordingly.
- The water coming out of the cold tap is pure, fresh mountain spring water.
- Icelandic art is amazing, and there is a different museum offering free admission each day.
- The Botanic Garden in Reykjavik are world-class and absorbing.
- The Reykhavik Library has cheap internet access and a fantastic selection of English media.
- There is no charge to go hiking.
- The thermal pools are less than $4 a pop and they don't kick you out.
- The pylsur (hot dog) is more or less the national food. They're relatively cheap (about $3 each which, by Icelandic standards, isn't bad) and come with fresh and fried onions and three types of sauce.
- Coke comes in half-litre cans, which are cheaper than the half-litre bottles.
- You can make yourself a breakfast of Sykr (drinkable cheese), a multigrain bar and a local pastery for less than $5.

However, while Reykjavik is very nice, exceptionally clean and viciously expensive, the real treasures of Iceland are to be found out in the wilderness. Here's where the Cheap Bastard splurges. I took a delightful 10-hour bus trip around the vacinity of Reykjavik (costing upwards of $80, so I think it averages out OK) with a truly multinational crowd: an American working for the BBC, a young British professional couple, a Cambridge professor, a couple from Luxemborg, a Dutch woman (from Rotterdam!) who works for the European Space Agency and her daughters, two Swedes, a Dane and a woman from Japan. With our zany guide Roger, we checked out the geysir, the incredible waterfall at Gullfoss, þingvellir National Park, a lava mine, a volcanic crater, a Viking grass house and a bunch of smaller sights that Roger promised us were "places only I know of." I took over 100 photos, which will be available for display (abridged, of course) whenever.

The moral of this story: soak in the thermal baths, eat lots of Ramen noodles, sleep simply, but DO NOT miss the scenery.

[Side note: this is, I am afraid, the final post from Europe. Unless something astounding happens on the plane tomorrow, I probably will not post again with stories from the road. I'm hoping for a restrospective or a "best of" list when I get back, but I don´t know when that will come. Thank you for reading along with me on this trip! Keeping this blog has been a great joy for me as I've been traipsing along and there have been many nights spent dreaming up ways to put in entries. I hope it has been as much fun for you as it has been for me.]