Letters Home - Iceland
by Leslie Shalduha
August 24, 2025 Iceland, oh Iceland
Well, well, well. Hello from Iceland. How I wish I could report that it has been a bowl of roses. Instead, we have found it frustrating. We are, or at least we are trying very hard, to maintain our optimism regarding our visa application. Iceland has a 40% increase in student applications this year but seemingly have not made any changes in their staffing nor opening hours to meet it. The Directorate of Immigration has not even begun processing our application yet. As the school deadline for getting official is September 1, we are feeling pretty nervous.
The University says "Sorry, we can do nothing to help you. You should apply pressure to the Immigration office." Like, are we the Mafia or something? Believe you me, Emma would love to apply pressure. In fact, it is a full time job for me to keep her from expressing the full extent of her rage. Yikers.
School! Yes, we have started school. We discovered that we can attend our classes without our visa approval. We just cannot do anything like homework, tests or access the online portal where all things happen except for the lectures. We figured it would help us when it comes time to catch up by at least going to class. Interestingly, I find myself enjoying it way more than I thought I might! And I am not the only middle-age human in these classes so that is nice, too. We go to class four days a week with classes starting at 10 am and done by 130 pm. Pretty sweet schedule!
We arrived here a week ago and the travel was fairly smooth. We took a bus from the Iceland airport to the city center then a taxi from there to our first apartment. The owner met us here to show us a few things about the place, then we were on our own. We have spent this first week learning the bus system, the layout of the areas we frequent (waterfront access, university and city center), whether we can walk or only take the bus, investigating grocery stores, restaurants and cafes.
Let me say this. We understood Iceland was going to be expensive. However, it is quite shocking. Luckily we are happy to eat at home most of the time, and pack lunch as needed. We have not found that one cafe that speaks to our souls as yet. Emma has been on a coffee strike due to the cost, on principle, and I am not far behind on a tea strike. Which sucks cause we love to go out to cafes and do office hours! Some of the cafes offer tea in a pot, which sort of justifies the cost. I did invest in a pot to make tea at home so I can start my day properly.
The bus system is not as nice as Norway, not close. The busses themselves are fine—comfortable enough and clean. An unlimited bus ticket for a month is $91 which is not so bad. But they do not run reliably, are almost always late and sometimes do not show at all. We have spent lots of time walking unexpectedly; usually when we have heavy groceries to carry.
The good news is that most of the places we like to go are walkable, usually no more than twenty minutes. And I love this walking business. Most days we get at least four miles in, often more. I think ahead, though, to when the weather changes. These walks may not be so pleasant then......though most people say it is not really snow that we will deal with here, but wind. That is does not get much colder than New York. So, after living in NE Oregon (and Norway for Emma) I am not worried so much! It sounds like the sidewalks are heated by hot water which sounds very nice!
One night last week we went to a bookstore and bar that Emma discovered has live music every night that apparently dissolves into quite the party regularly......we did not stay for that this time but attended an Open Mic Comedy Show a bit earlier in the eve. It was in English, super fun and of course they picked on us as tourists a bit. I laughed so much and that was very much needed!!
This past Friday we had our first day off from classes. Emma researched where we could get to by bus to escape the city and find some nature. From the city, we had been eyeing up a beautiful property out to sea, sitting on the horizon and dotted with red-roofed white buildings. Emma discovered it is the President's Residence, called Bessastaðir, and the grounds are open to the public. Off we went to enjoy this rainy, gray day—our favorite! It was quite a long bus ride, but we took our books and were prepared. We decided to treat ourselves to breakfast on the way and hightailed it to the first bus stop.....where no bus showed up. We hoofed it twenty minutes to a restaurant, arriving pretty wet. The tea was good and that is about all I can say about that $60 breakfast. We will not talk about Emma's coffee experience.
Then we were off to a different bus stop to head out of town......yet again, no bus showed up, apparently due to the city preparing for a big festival to be held this weekend. We walked to another bus stop that might be helpful.....where a man pointed out a sign that said "Bus Stop Inactive." Confusing since people were there waiting for......a bus? Just as we were preparing to move along to a different bus stop, the one we wanted arrived. We hopped on, riding to the transfer spot where after fifteen minutes the original bus we wanted back in the beginning of this tale unexpectedly showed up. We boarded but had no idea if it was going in the right direction. Emma was so flustered getting on that she ended up buying another ticket instead of scanning her pass. We decided we would just go wherever this bus went. Luckily, it went where we hoped to go. After a 45 minute ride, we got off the bus and walked a few minutes to the next stop, in a nice, quiet neighborhood. So quiet, in fact, that only two busses an hour come and we had too much time to wait. There was another stop a minute or so away so walked to it to kill some time. The schedule there said the bus would come in ten minutes. We took it and, finally, finally ended up where we intended to be.
The bus dropped us off on the side of a country road. We looked at the bus sign to check timing to go back and it said we just departed from the last bus of the day. After a moment's panic, we thought to look at the other side of the road and found that later busses would still be leaving the area. We set off on our walk to the President's place......no one else was there and I wondered if we were going to get arrested. Emma assured me it was fine, safe and legal. There was a lovely walking path around the property and after translating signs that looked terrifyingly serious we decided to go for it. And were we glad we did!! We skirted the edge of the President's Place (originally settled around 1000), following a path across beautiful green fields dotted with gorgeous yarrow flowers and along the coast. We ended up on a two hour walk— just what our souls needed! Eventually we came out near a bus stop, waited 25 minutes and boarded a bus back to the city.
We planned to check out the annual Culture Fest, Menningarnótt over the weekend. The island has a population of about 400,000 and it is said that 200,000 attend the festival! After sleeping in a bit, we walked into town instead of fooling with the busses. It was another drizzly, gray day......as we approached the city we came across a huge marathon. I found myself getting all teary about it—what a softie. Emma says it was because of the sheer amount of joy surrounding us. She was probably right. We soon figured out we were not going to be able to cross the road against the tide of thousands of marathoners (so many folks, mothers with strollers and young children, whole families, really, including the dog) and backtracked up a street where we found Hólavallagarður Cemetery, one that we had been thinking of visiting. It is really old, of course, and so lovely. So many trees, many growing out of the actual graves, which are surrounded by concrete boxes. The grass was lush and green, the stones very well cared for.
After spending a good bit of time there, we made our way into town, the marathon just a trickle now but it carried on most of the day! We walked all over, looking for the festival highlights, which seemed to be the marathon and live music stages everywhere. Later that night, as we watched a show in our apartment, loud booms had us jumping out of our skin. We realized the fireworks for the festival were happening and we were able to see them, clearly, from our front stoop! Fun!
Here you have it….our first week in good ole’ Iceland. Not an auspicious start, true. We are figuring it out, though, as we do. We are safe and healthy! We have Plans B & C in mind for if this one does not work out…...in the meantime, stay tuned for an update in about a week.