1. There isn’t nearly as much wool as was implied.

Before coming to Iceland I read quite a few articles about the country.  What there is to do, what the place is like, how to get where you’re going.  One thing kept cropping up in all of these articles: people love the Icelandic wool sweater.  I was often made out to be iconic, and implied that it was well worn by locals.  Well, I have been walking around downtown now for 7 hours and I have to say it’s just not as prominent as I expected.  Yes it’s in shop windows and yes, I have seen 3 people wearing them, but that’s just three!  I felt there would be more.

 

2. People just walk out into traffic.

More then once I, and sometimes another tourist or two, have been standing waiting at a walk light only to have a local breeze by us and just walk out on a red walk light.  Not sure why the place has walk lights at all since walking into the street seems to be commonplace.  Now they don’t walk right in front of moving cars like I saw people in Italy do, but they do indeed just walk out into traffic.  Sometimes they do it without so much as a glance to see if anything’s coming.  Getting run over isn’t the way I want to start my trip, so I’m going to stick to the walk lights… where they are available.

 

3. The hot dogs aren’t what they were made out to be.

It was implied to me through more then one source that the hot dogs here are excellent.  I tried one, I even let them put all the toppings on it, but it wasn’t for me.  Not something I really enjoyed at all.  I may give them a second change, go to a different vendor.  We’ll see.

 

4. The City is fine, but it’s the countryside that’s where it’s at!

I’ve been exploring the city, I went to a museum, checked out some landmarks, window shopped, everything you’re supposed to do in a city.  But one look across the harbor at the mountains I can just barely make out in the fog and I know that my explorations need to go beyond the city limits.  I need to see the wilderness!

 

5. People here use their bicycles to get around.

Rain or shine (though I have yet to experience the latter) it seems that for the people of Reykjavik, biking is the way to get around.  Sure some walk, and some have cars, but it seems like a lot more then I’m used to bike.  I know in weather like this back home in Canada I’d be hard pressed to find very many people out on bikes!