Akureyri.

After two weeks I am coming back to continue my trip around Iceland. Last two weeks were quite hectic - my good friend from Poland visited me for a couple of days, I left a lot of CV in the town looking for any job and finally, last Wednesday I got an email telling me that I won two tickets for DOWNLOAD festival!! :D Unbelievable!! I assume that so many people took part in the Live Nation competition, because I only had to give my email and answer who is a headliner of Saturday's concerts. So easy and they chose me, wow :) But now it looks like Royal Mail has lost my tickets or someone has stolen them, because I should have got them last Saturday. I wrote to Live Nation and they have re-sent them today, so hopefully I will get them tomorrow. Friday will be so busy for me - a job interview at 9 o'clock and then quick change to catch train to Nottingham at 12 pm. Fingers crossed for me!

On our second day in Iceland we drove from Reykjavik to Akureyri. We used 'Carpooling in Iceland' website to find a guy who was going there from Reykjavik and had four spare seats in his car. So we shared a car with Ásgeir - the driver and a nice couple of Phd students from Scotland. Ásgeir was a pure Icelander who teaches Physics at school. I was so impressed by a way he spoke about Iceland. He was so proud of being Icelander, of living there and he was totally sure that he couldn't live in any other part of world. He knew so much about his country, Icelandic history, culture and simply things you don't realize that can be different than in rest of Europe. His wisdom was striking for me and I sadly need to admit that I don't know as much about Poland as he about Iceland. We also talked about problem of immigration in Europe, politics and economy nowadays. I think it's been truly one of the best conversation I've ever had with people from other countries. Our Scottish companions were also great, so our 4-hour ride to Akureyri went by in the blink of an eye.

This city is known as a 'The Capital of north Iceland' and the second largest urban area in country, with population of over 17 500 people. It is located on the west side of the inland end of the fjord Eyjafjörður. It's a really small city and honestly a bit boring for me. We couldn't find anything special there, I felt more like in a village or in my Polish hometown. Actually some streets looked exactly the same. 

A typical shop-window in Iceland: horribly expensive sweaters (90 pounds!!), goat's skull, hats, wood and stones ;)

An old chemist's from 1859 - probably the most photographed building in Akureyri.

I really like that Icelanders paint their houses colourfully - each one is different from the rest and together they create a brightful mosaic which definitely cheers living in the grey city.

In the evening we went to see a shore of the fjord. The weather was dreary, it started raining soon, but Eyjafjörður is really beautiful. It is the longest fjord in Iceland, with length of 60 km from mouth to bottom. I wish I could see it without snow with nice sunset behind. Maybe one day.

We stayed in Akureyri Backpackers hostel. A great place with good Tuborg beer as a welcome drink! We met there with our travel companions Ralph and Pieter from Holland, who arrived to the island three days before us. Next day we started our proper roadtrip around Iceland.