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This is going to be totally boring for most of you. If you're really interested, though, you can find out exactly how expensive my possible trip is going to be:
It seems to be cheaper, according to expedia.com, if I fly out for ten days, than to stay out for seven. Although food and the hostel have to be accounted in the "savings" of staying an extra weekend. Also, annoyingly, when I tried to get to just before the point where you've paid, suddenly the flight became almost a hundred bucks more expensive. *annoyed*
Oh, and the flight is going to be almost twenty hours long. Fuckin' A! That makes a ten-day trip more like two weeks.
Both of the hostels are about $30 a night, although getting a $28 membership to Hostelling International might save me enough money to be worth it--and the HI in Reykjavik has internet computers for free. They both have kitchens and places to store food. Speaking of which, there are three vegetarian restaurants, and lots of little cafes have food that might be vegan. I'm estimating, based on the prices listed in my Lonely Planet, that meals are going to average 1,000 Isk, almost $20. That might be on the high side, depending how much oatmeal or whatever, and soymilk, are at the grocery store (and yes, they do have soymilk in Iceland--one of the cafes even has it for coffee), or how often I can find something to eat for about half that at cafes during the day.
So sleeping and eating, together, will set me back, around, oh, $880. Which is about how much the plane tickets I saw were selling for.
Doing the pub crawl, which I didn't include in the above, could set me back between $50 and $100. *gulp* Depends on whether I stay in one place or move, because past midnight the busier/trendier places start to charge to get in. Beer averages $10 a pint...I know all the locals do what we'd call pre-funking at home with whatever they bought for much less at the government-owned liquor stores, but if I don't meet someone there that is up to it, I just do not feel like sitting in my hostel room and getting tipsy before leaving. *rolls eyes*
Museums (and shit, there are a lot of them) cost between free and $16. The big pool in Reykjavik with the water slide that I remember so well (because I think I went there half a dozen times or more) is only about $4. I can get into some of the museums and the pool for free, plus bus fare, with a tourist card, but that's $19 for one day and doesn't include the more expensive museums, so I'm not sure it's worth it.
Walking is free, and there's lots of it to do in Reykjavik alone.
The Golden Circle: Thingvellir National Park (both the site of the oldest Parliament on Earth, and the mid-Atlantic rift!), the park with Strokkur and Geysir and all those mud pots, Gullfoss, and one of the local towns--I remember going to a greenhouse called Eden on several trips around Iceland, but Lonely Planet points out that it's not that great, really (whee, bananas growing indoors) and mostly exists to funnel people into a giftshop and restaurant. I liked that restaurant as a kid, because they had these soft-serve vanilla ice cream cones that they'd dip in melted chocolate. The chocolate would get hard, and you'd bite the top off and then try to lick up the ice cream as it melted out of cracks, trying desperately to keep up so it didn't melt all over your hand make a huge mess. *LOL* Too bad they don't have a vegan version, I'd totally eat that, for nostalgia reasons alone.
My choices there are between taking a guided tour that picks me up from the hostel and everything, or buying bus tickets that allow me to go from place to place on mostly my own schedule. I'm pretty sure they cost about the same. Which, btw, is about $115. And they don't include food, which is fine, because I probably couldn't eat it anyway.
All the guided Golden Circle tours I'm seeing do it in one day. That seems awfully short, but if I think back to going as a kid, a day is probably plenty, unless you want to do lots of hiking around Thingvellir. I'd love to do some of that, but it's so expensive to take a guided hike (it would have to be a separate day trip), and I don't want to do it alone, just for safety reasons.
And let us not forget the Blue Lagoon--otherwise known as the waste water pond of a geothermal power plant. That sounds totally unattractive, and the smell would certainly put you off at first. *lol* But your nose gets numb to it fast, and it's actually quite pretty, and it's fantastically good for your skin: the water is full of blue-green algae, silica, and sulfur (hence the smell). You can grab handfuls of silica and algae and all that, from the bottom, to slap on your face or whatever.
When I was there, there was a little crappy cafe, and a couple of smallish changing rooms and some showers. Now there's a spa, and a convention center, and both a fancy restaurant and small cafe, and three huge locker/changing rooms and shower areas, for each gender. The fee to get in has also gone up, I remember it being like seven dollars and now it's twenty.
Several bus companies do trips from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik (or back) and stop over at the Blue Lagoon. You don't have to stay for a predetermined amount of time, you just catch whichever bus (of the same company, duh) you want that keeps going, and they stop by every couple of hours or so. The bus ride plus entrance to the Blue Lagoon ends up being $61. Just getting to the airport or back is around $40. Oh man, I might want to go both right after getting there, and just before leaving. ;^)
So, my total estimated cost for this trip? Just over $2000. Aaaaauugh!
What I think is kinda amusing is the place I want to go once I've been to Iceland, is Amsterdam. No, just because I can get legal weed in cafes, or ogle prostitutes. But because you can get everywhere in the city by bike!
On a completely unrelated note, American Apparel is having a sale, but only online. The top I bought yesterday is eight bucks cheaper online. *headslap* But, uh...I just bought a bikini. o_O I didn't know the zip code for my new place, so I told them to ship it here.
I meant to do more today. Grrr. I move in how many days? I need to go through my boxes again, and pack up the stuff in my bedroom. Ugh. I also need to wash a lot of stuff...my old dishes are still in boxes filled with chewed-up newspaper and mouse droppings, and I'm not storing them in that nice basement storage like that.
It seems to be cheaper, according to expedia.com, if I fly out for ten days, than to stay out for seven. Although food and the hostel have to be accounted in the "savings" of staying an extra weekend. Also, annoyingly, when I tried to get to just before the point where you've paid, suddenly the flight became almost a hundred bucks more expensive. *annoyed*
Oh, and the flight is going to be almost twenty hours long. Fuckin' A! That makes a ten-day trip more like two weeks.
Both of the hostels are about $30 a night, although getting a $28 membership to Hostelling International might save me enough money to be worth it--and the HI in Reykjavik has internet computers for free. They both have kitchens and places to store food. Speaking of which, there are three vegetarian restaurants, and lots of little cafes have food that might be vegan. I'm estimating, based on the prices listed in my Lonely Planet, that meals are going to average 1,000 Isk, almost $20. That might be on the high side, depending how much oatmeal or whatever, and soymilk, are at the grocery store (and yes, they do have soymilk in Iceland--one of the cafes even has it for coffee), or how often I can find something to eat for about half that at cafes during the day.
So sleeping and eating, together, will set me back, around, oh, $880. Which is about how much the plane tickets I saw were selling for.
Doing the pub crawl, which I didn't include in the above, could set me back between $50 and $100. *gulp* Depends on whether I stay in one place or move, because past midnight the busier/trendier places start to charge to get in. Beer averages $10 a pint...I know all the locals do what we'd call pre-funking at home with whatever they bought for much less at the government-owned liquor stores, but if I don't meet someone there that is up to it, I just do not feel like sitting in my hostel room and getting tipsy before leaving. *rolls eyes*
Museums (and shit, there are a lot of them) cost between free and $16. The big pool in Reykjavik with the water slide that I remember so well (because I think I went there half a dozen times or more) is only about $4. I can get into some of the museums and the pool for free, plus bus fare, with a tourist card, but that's $19 for one day and doesn't include the more expensive museums, so I'm not sure it's worth it.
Walking is free, and there's lots of it to do in Reykjavik alone.
The Golden Circle: Thingvellir National Park (both the site of the oldest Parliament on Earth, and the mid-Atlantic rift!), the park with Strokkur and Geysir and all those mud pots, Gullfoss, and one of the local towns--I remember going to a greenhouse called Eden on several trips around Iceland, but Lonely Planet points out that it's not that great, really (whee, bananas growing indoors) and mostly exists to funnel people into a giftshop and restaurant. I liked that restaurant as a kid, because they had these soft-serve vanilla ice cream cones that they'd dip in melted chocolate. The chocolate would get hard, and you'd bite the top off and then try to lick up the ice cream as it melted out of cracks, trying desperately to keep up so it didn't melt all over your hand make a huge mess. *LOL* Too bad they don't have a vegan version, I'd totally eat that, for nostalgia reasons alone.
My choices there are between taking a guided tour that picks me up from the hostel and everything, or buying bus tickets that allow me to go from place to place on mostly my own schedule. I'm pretty sure they cost about the same. Which, btw, is about $115. And they don't include food, which is fine, because I probably couldn't eat it anyway.
All the guided Golden Circle tours I'm seeing do it in one day. That seems awfully short, but if I think back to going as a kid, a day is probably plenty, unless you want to do lots of hiking around Thingvellir. I'd love to do some of that, but it's so expensive to take a guided hike (it would have to be a separate day trip), and I don't want to do it alone, just for safety reasons.
And let us not forget the Blue Lagoon--otherwise known as the waste water pond of a geothermal power plant. That sounds totally unattractive, and the smell would certainly put you off at first. *lol* But your nose gets numb to it fast, and it's actually quite pretty, and it's fantastically good for your skin: the water is full of blue-green algae, silica, and sulfur (hence the smell). You can grab handfuls of silica and algae and all that, from the bottom, to slap on your face or whatever.
When I was there, there was a little crappy cafe, and a couple of smallish changing rooms and some showers. Now there's a spa, and a convention center, and both a fancy restaurant and small cafe, and three huge locker/changing rooms and shower areas, for each gender. The fee to get in has also gone up, I remember it being like seven dollars and now it's twenty.
Several bus companies do trips from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik (or back) and stop over at the Blue Lagoon. You don't have to stay for a predetermined amount of time, you just catch whichever bus (of the same company, duh) you want that keeps going, and they stop by every couple of hours or so. The bus ride plus entrance to the Blue Lagoon ends up being $61. Just getting to the airport or back is around $40. Oh man, I might want to go both right after getting there, and just before leaving. ;^)
So, my total estimated cost for this trip? Just over $2000. Aaaaauugh!
What I think is kinda amusing is the place I want to go once I've been to Iceland, is Amsterdam. No, just because I can get legal weed in cafes, or ogle prostitutes. But because you can get everywhere in the city by bike!
On a completely unrelated note, American Apparel is having a sale, but only online. The top I bought yesterday is eight bucks cheaper online. *headslap* But, uh...I just bought a bikini. o_O I didn't know the zip code for my new place, so I told them to ship it here.
I meant to do more today. Grrr. I move in how many days? I need to go through my boxes again, and pack up the stuff in my bedroom. Ugh. I also need to wash a lot of stuff...my old dishes are still in boxes filled with chewed-up newspaper and mouse droppings, and I'm not storing them in that nice basement storage like that.