Gamli Gardur - room 103
v/Hringbraut
101 Reykjavík
Iceland
The outside (it says HOTEL because they rent it out to tourists in the summer but it is owned by Student Housing)
The Inside
Turns out, there is no super hub of all the food, school supplies, cosmetics and electronics like Wal-mart in Iceland. I should have expected this, because it is a relatively small country with 60% of the whole population of Iceland based in Reykjavik. The cheapest place to buy groceries is called Bónus. That being said, most groceries are more expensive than in America for sure, especially cereal which runs about $7 for some reason. This is one of my receipts from my first trip there.
One of the things I like seeing is all the different types of food that have Icelandic or other languages written on the label. It's all new to me. Here is a cup of blueberry yogurt from Bónus.
It's about a 15-20 minute walk from my dorm to downtown where the Bónus is, but walking is really not that bad. It's a little cold but you get to see people, snow usually, and get familiar with the city of Reykjavik.
You also might be wondering how I can read this. Well, frankly I can't...yet. Hopefully I will be able to by the end of the semester, but most of the food products or signs have the Icelandic name followed by the English name. You can also pay with your credit or debit card like you are at a Wal-mart back home. The price is ISK will convert to USD and go straight to your bank account. The only difference here is there are foreigner taxes which can add up. I think they charge you an added 7% on food and they nail you with 25% on non-food items like detergent and cosmetics. It's really not too bad though.
Most places take credit cards, but cash is a very good thing to have just in case and you have to have exact fare for the buses if you want to ride one which is 350 ISK.
The USD is about 117 Islandic Kronur (ISK) so in order to convert from ISK to USD you would divide by 117, but I normally just divide by 100 to make it easier. So as you can tell $3 for a bus fare one-way is not cheap. Walking is the primary form of transportation for most people. Make sure you have a map if you want to walk around in a city you are not familiar with though. I got pretty lost the first time I tried to do that without a map and gave myself a good scare.
I'll end this with some pictures of the snowy landscape during midday in Reykjavik. It's a really beautiful place.
