One of the main reasons I ended up in Copenhagen was that I needed to get to Iceland and the flights from Berlin to Iceland were the same price as a stopover in Copenhagen, so I made that happen!  I had been asked a few months ago if I was interested in meeting up with some of my California running friends in Iceland for a long weekend and I obviously was going to try and make that happen.  I had heard that it was VERY expensive there, but I decided to stop tracking my budget while there and forget about the budget for that weekend only.

I arrived in the mid afternoon and headed to my hostel since I arrived a day or two before the rest of the group.  Sarah had arrived already so I met up with her for the first night on the town.  WE made some friends at a bar and ended up having a great time!

I got back decently late with a whole bunch of new friends!  The next morning I went for a run and then met up with Sarah again for a random walk around town.

After some random wanderings we ended up meeting with the rest of the group at the Airbnb but had issues getting in.  We stood around in the cold for a while before the neighbor finally helped us get in!  She was really nice and totally didn’t have to help us.  It was great!

We eventually got in and then went to the famous church across the street to check out the architecture.

After playing tourist we ended up at Mikeller Iceland and had a few very expensive pints while we tried to figure out where we wanted to eat dinner.

We also enjoyed some of the tourist stores on the way.

We basically just went to all of the craft beer bars in Reykjavik.  And who did we find??? Fermin happened to be in Iceland as well.

The next day we got in the giant van we had rented for the group of us and headed to the airport to pick up our final member.  However, when we showed up one of our other friends had spontaneously decided to join the group so we actually picked two people up and then headed to the countryside to see some nature!  But first, some pizza!

And beer, they also had beer!

On the way out into the country we knew that their was a place called Hella and knew that as a group from California, had to stop and took a picture.  My Oakland based running group is called the East Bay Beer Runners and so we all represented with our shirts and the flag in front of the sign!

We left out mark with a club sticker as well!

Onwards to the Waterfall!  Seljalandsfoss is the closest pretty waterfall to Rejkavik and so I see it a lot when people travel to Iceland.  Despite it being pretty popular, we still had to stop and check it out.

You could go in behind which was pretty cool!

We then headed to the the black sand beach at the East side of the island.  It was beautiful but incredibly windy.  There was a pier like outcropping into the water and the wind and waves were incredible.  We could jump in the air and be pushed several feet away by the wind.

The Icelandic countryside was very beautiful and the drive was very enjoyable.  The beach was a bit uncomfortable due to the wind and cold so we opted to head around the corner to the local brewery for a beer and dinner.

After a full day of nature, we headed back to Reykjavik and found a nice place near the AirBnB for dinner.  It was a bit on the fancier side, but everything was so expensive anyways that even the cheap places were pretty expensive and you weren’t saving that much by eating cheaper, so we decided just to go for it.

After dinner we decided to go back to the touristy bar area of town and check out AMERICAN BAR.  That is what it was called and they tried their best to emulate the college bar, except that the beers were $15 each.   They also had a spinny wheel that we could not help ourselves but to spin.  It ended up being a rip off but the entertainment value was there.

We ended up making the rounds, including a cool Karaoke place.

The next morning a few of us got up for a morning run and got caught in a short hail storm.  Which was fun for the California people who rarely have to deal with cold weather.

We went for an adventure run around the city and ended it with a Selfie in front of the church.

After we finished the run and met back up with the others, the group of us decided to check out the Icelandic Penis Museum, which we initially thought was a joke but turned out to be a serious museum about all things penis.

It was small and weird so we didn’t stick around that long.  We spent the rest of the day wandering around Reykjavik before getting some food.  We again opted for a highly rated, decent place for dinner and really enjoyed it.  The food we were eating was delicious although EVERYTHING was very expensive.

Of course, you have to make sure to take a picture of your food!

What a lovely dinner!

We headed to another craft bar and they had Westlevern 12 bottles available for pretty much the same price as the other beers there since everything was so expensive anyways.  We decided that it would be silly not to take advantage of this situation as some of the members of the group had not had it yet.

We split two bottles and they were delicious.

We then moved onto this bar lounge where we made some friends and enjoyed some live music.  It was a strnage upstairs bar with a decent view of the street!

I really liked the guys shirt!

We had some famous late night hot dogs and then headed to bed.  That pretty much wraps up the long weekend in iceland.  I for sure need to go back there and spend some more time enjoying the nature.  We only did one full day of nature and spent the rest of the time in Reykjavik which is really just a smaller city with a little bit of charm… but the real charm of Iceland is the nature and I will for sure need to get back there to experience it more.   The next morning I said goodbye to the group in the early morning and then walked to the public hot springs where I spent the reast of the day swimming laps and bathing in the naturally heated hot springs.  My flight wasn’t until the late evening so I had a lot of time to kill.  Relaxing and chilling was a great way to do it.

After chilling in the hot springs I grabbed lunch and then found the bus to the airport where my flight was the LAST flight out of there at 2am and everything in the airport was closed.  Luckily there was wifi in the terminal, so I passed the time on the internet.

Iceland was cool but expensive and it was super fun to get to hangout with friends for a few days before heading back on my own to my next destination.  Poland!!!! It was time to start heading down south to Greece since the Marathon was in only 20 days!