Akureyri to Reykjavik: parking rules and other oddities

Today’s post is only from Mom and Dad’s perspective. Charlotte and Sam headed to bed after a long day in the car.

Somewhat rested after yesterday’s adventures, we packed up and left our Akureyri apartment. We wanted to explore the “city” (a bustling metropolis of about 17 000), so we began at the (free!) Botanical Gardens. We had fun wandering around the flowers – taking pictures, watching bumble bees hard at work, and hunting for fairies. We were lucky enough to find a beautiful pond with an obvious fairy pathway leading to it!

The poppies were bigger than my hand!

Apparently the Lorax lives in Iceland! Here are his Truffula trees!

This picture (above) shows the fairy pathway. You couldn’t see the sunbeam at all, except in the photo… Obviously, magic was afoot.

When we were sick of gazing upon the gorgeous flowers (is that a thing? can that even happen?), we went downtown to check out the shops and restaurants. We found parking right away in a terrific spot! It was perfect – and free! There was a two hour limit, but that wasn’t a problem as we knew we weren’t going to be there that long…

One hour and 40 minutes later, after perusing gift shops, making attractive new friends, and eating delicious sandwiches at a hostel’s cafe, we returned to our car to find a parking ticket! What?! Had we misunderstood the signage? Of course, nothing on the ticket was in English, so we had to consult with our wonderful home exchange partner, Guðjón. It turns out, in Akureyri, they have this super-strange parking system… You actually have to use a little clock to show what time you arrived at the parking spot. If you don’t have one of these, you’re supposed to write down the time on a piece of paper and put it in your front window. Seriously! There are no words for the weirdness of this rule! Also, there is no way for tourists or anyone who lives in other parts of Iceland to know about it. Needless to say, these rule-following tourists will pay into this ridiculous cash grab – bye, bye $37! (If you were hoping for a souvenir… Sorry! Blame Akureyri!)

And so, with a roll of our eyes and an empty feeling in our wallets, we said goodbye to the North and turned our car towards our temporary home. 

At one of our leg stretching stops, Sam and Charlotte ran around and discovered that the Icelandic moss that grows on old lava fields is extremely spongy. They were bouncing and sinking in all over the place. I can’t think of anything similar in texture at home. 

Now, back “at home” in Gardabaer, we’re enjoying a relaxing evening, sampling some delicious (and much needed) Icelandic beer. Thank you to our hosts for the selection they left for us!

Oh, and as promised, here’s the mega-creepy car Charlotte posted about a couple of days ago…