When I stayed on New Year’s Eve with my family at the cottage, I knew it will be our last time together for a long time. Immediately after, I had my flight to Iceland, where I spent five months on Erasmus. "I will fly alone by plane, I will be alone in a foreign city … what if I won’t understand, what if my phone or card won’t work, what if I will forget to pack something important?" A lot of questions were going through my mind. But the worries were switching with the enthusiasm of the new adventure.
Of course, the flight was fine, but watching the Everest movie on the transfer wasn’t good idea … 😀 The first great experience was a domestic flight from Reykjavik to Akureyri. We boarded in a small plane and took off to the dark, only a spinning propeller was shining on the wing. After a while, the turbulences came and I had never experienced the same strong ones. It started with the classic shaking of the plane, but then the plane seemed to jump two meters lower. My personality was split at that moment into two – one that immediately thought: “I don’t want to die here,” and the other, which was excited about the adrenaline and drew a smile on my face. The calm behaviour of the stewardess sitting on the seat against us convinced me that it was nothing unusual. And in 45 minutes we landed in Akureyri. My Landlord, who accommodates students from foreign countries in his guest house, picked me up. We got into his big jeep and he was cheerfully talking about Akureyri the whole ride. The house was divided into two floors, five inhabitants were living on the first floor and seven on the second floor. My room was great – plenty of storage space, enough light thanks to three windows, table with chair, armchair and bed. The only disadvantage of the house was only two bathrooms for so many people (and one was more improvised bathroom than a normal one) and also the kitchen could be a bit bigger for that many people.
The next day, I woke up in the morning around nine and wondered how everything looked like during the day. Well, at nine it was still dark and you could hear a falling nail in the house. Two hours later came the first meets, roaming the city and getting to know my new university – The University of Akureyri. I have to say that besides the fact that these first days were only four hours of daylight, getting up at 10 and still having a perfect conditions for a sunrise shooting, was really fantastic 😀
Erasmus people were a great group with which we had a lot of events from parties, meetings in a pub, sports, swimming in a pool to dumpster diving behind local supermarkets. When the polar night gave us more light, we prepared our first road trip together. For the first one, we went in seven people by van to Myvatn for a day. Coincidentally, it was the day with the lowest temperature in recent years. The temperature around -24°C caused self-deactivating phones, prolonged heating up of the car engine and our escape to the Mývatn spa to warm up 🙂 After return to Akureyri, we wanted to see the aurora on the meadow outside the city. At first, the northern lights were really weak that we weren’t sure if it was a cloud or not. Fortunately, the camera sensor is more sensitive, so we made first pictures with the northern lights and we had enthusiasm like small children because we finally saw them 🙂 For checking the northern lights conditions we used this website – https://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/
When I left for Iceland, I calculated that prices will be higher than at home. However, after the first purchase of food, I was pretty surprised. Much more expensive dairy products, meat, eggs, etc. But for example, Pringles were cheaper than at home 😀 So we started our evening dumpster divings, which weren't only a useful thing but also a great adventure 😀 two cheaper supermarkets are Bonus and Nettó. you can buy Alcohol only at Vinbúdin, which is a specialized store. Icelanders are very strict in selling alcohol to juveniles (they can drink from 20 years), so they always wanted to see also my ID card.
We almost didn’t go to restaurants, only to Akureyri Backpackers, which is a popular student's pub that has a special Tuesday menu for students – burger+beer for a great price 🙂 We also visited twice the local cinema because we didn’t want to miss the last Avengers movie. The cinema had two halls and after buying the tickets no one checked whether you really have a ticket. There was a pause in the middle of the movie and I recommend going at some time when the children are at school or at home because they are quite rude during the movie.
At school, I had various subjects, some similar to my normal school subjects, some quite far away. Teaching in English was a great benefit for me and the whole education is based on different principles than at home. The main difference from our university system is that if you work and complete tasks throughout the semester, the exam is just a formality. For the lessons, you often have to read academical or some kind of popular texts, which are discussed in the lessons. Working on group projects, writing essays and short tests are common tasks. But the purpose of them is just right understanding the topics, not catching a student on things they don’t know and also humiliating them. The teachers are friendly and available to help at any time. Even more important thing for me is that you know your professors and they know you. Therefore, it never happens that you have an exam and have no idea who is sitting in the cabinet behind the door. Every lesson is recorded and it is possible to play it again at home, which I find as a fine benefit. The education system is modern and practical, which I like very much and I would like to see these improvements in the Czech education system. You can also participate in student club events at the school, train in the free gym (including yoga classes) and study in the library with computers and the study room.
Icelanders are generally very friendly and helpful people. Necessary to say – if they have no reason, they don’t want to talk to you and they look very closed. But if they have an reason or opportunity, they like to share their lives with you, they are hospitable and nice. I find also fantastic their set up, which I would simply describe as “help because you never know when you will need help.” I have a story connected to this fact from a wild road trip in the snow storm when we stucked in a snowdrift, unable to push the car out of it. A mum in the car was passing by and she had a child on the passenger's seat. We didn’t even think about hitchhiking and begging for help. She stopped by herself, asked if she could help us, borrowed a shovel, systematically dig the snow out of the car and after asking if she can drive, she drove easily from the drift. When she got off the car, she slapped a high-five with us and disappeared as quickly as she appeared. Amazing experience … 🙂
I like very much the Icelandic approach to nature environment. On each corner you will find sorted containers, they use a lot of thermal energy and they have the plan to completely change the gasoline cars to an alternative ones in the near future. You can spot electric vehicle charging stations almost on every parking place. From my experience, Icelanders also believe in the good of people and in many shops, you won’t see the gates at the exits that check if you are stealing. But I am afraid that with the increasing number of tourists this fact will soon change.
My big dream was to see orcas in Iceland and when my stay was coming to an end, I thought I wouldn’t see them. It happened by chance and I went on a whale-watching trip with my mom and grandmother. To be precise, this road trip was fantastic. Fantastic because my grandmother came. My grandmother who got this trip to her 80th birthday and she was walking really freshly around Iceland for that age 🙂 When we were visiting Húsavík, we went to the whale museum and then it was time to decide whether we go to the spa in Mývatn or for a whale-watching trip and my grandmum said: “of course, for the whale-watching.” When our boat approached the first whale and the guide declared that it is orca, I had an eclipse for a moment. But then I almost started to jump and enjoyed my fulfilled wish 🙂
I brought many experiences from Iceland. I think the most beautiful part are Westfjords and I definitely recommend visiting Iceland outside the main season, when the campsites and places at Ring Road do not crack at the seams. in my opinion, The best way to travel there is to rent a car from the rental office and fill the capacity of a car. I would definitely borrow a 4×4 car because of difficult conditions on roads, but also the changing weather. If you want to go more inland, you need a car that can pass through fords. I haven’t tried hitchhiking personally, but I heard from my friends that it’s not as easy to travel that way as it is said. And for example, if you want to go from Akureyri to Reykjavik, there is a Facebook group of carpooling that cost significantly better money than a bus or plane in the same way.
I wasn’t looking for a job in Iceland because I was traveling a lot and it would seem stupid to be at work just for a second. However, from the experience of my friends, I found that finding a job without recommendation is almost impossible in the off-season. But when you get it, you have a very nice income together with a scholarship 🙂 But for the season, the situation changes and there are a lot of new positions.
If you want my map with interesting places in Iceland or you have any questions about Iceland, don’t hesitate to ask 🙂