The rain has stopped, but the pavement still holds its dark shine, and the clouds hang low over the bay like they are deciding whether to commit. It is the fifth of August, a Wednesday, and Reykjavík is waking up to a week that will not be quiet again. Pride flags are everywhere—draped over balconies, tucked into shop windows, tied to lampposts along Laugavegur—and the air carries that particular hum of a city about to host something it has been planning for months. I am standing outside the Borgartún office of Registers Iceland, the morning light doing its slow, sideways thing, and I am holding my kennitala in my hand like it is something fragile.
It is a small piece of paper, the kennitala, ten digits that somehow unlock everything here. I got mine two days ago, but today I am back to sort out the housing registration, the thing that makes it official. The woman at the counter had kind eyes and a patient voice, and she walked me through the form step by step, even though her English was better than my Icelandic will ever be. I thanked her, and she smiled, and I stepped back out into the drizzle thinking about how strange it is that a number can make you feel less like a visitor. I paid for nothing today—the registration is free, which is a relief after the cost of the last few days—but I know that the flat I am about to sign for will ask for about two hundred and thirty thousand kronur a month, roughly sixteen hundred dollars, and that is considered reasonable here.
I walk down toward the harbour, past the silver dome of Harpa catching what little light there is, and I think about the word for all of this, the way Icelandic folds place into history. Þingvellir, the old parliament site, is only an hour away, and I have not been yet. I keep telling myself I will go when I have a car, when the road begins, but part of me wants to see it first in the quiet, before the summer crowds thin out. For now, I am here, in the city, learning the rhythm of its working days.
The Old Harbour is busier than it was on the weekend. Fishing boats are coming in with their catches, and the gulls are loud and argumentative over the scraps. I stop at Grandi Mathöll, the food hall in the old warehouse district, because I have been thinking about lamb soup all morning. It is a simple thing, lamb and root vegetables in a clear broth, but it warms you in a way that feels essential here. I pay about two thousand eight hundred kronur for a bowl, roughly twenty dollars, and I sit by the window watching the boats sway. The hall is filling up with people—some in rain jackets, some in Pride colours, a few with maps and that lost look of new arrivals. I recognise it because I had it four days ago.
After lunch, I take the long way back through Grandi, past the Omnom chocolate shop and the Bryggjan brewery. I have been weighing the decision about the car for days now, and I think I am finally close. A rental for three weeks would cost me maybe two hundred thousand kronur, about fifteen hundred dollars, and a purchase—an old Subaru or a Dacia Duster, something that can handle the ring road—would be more upfront but could be sold at the end. I have been reading the listings online, and there is a two-thousand-and-fifteen Suzuki Jimny that keeps catching my eye, small and sturdy, the kind of car that looks like it has stories. But I am not ready to commit yet. I want to see it in person first, kick the tyres, hear the engine turn over.
I walk back up toward the city centre, past the National Museum, and I duck into Reykjavik Roasters for a coffee. It is a small place, all wood and warm light, and the woman behind the counter remembers me from yesterday. I order a cappuccino, about seven hundred kronur, and I sit by the window watching the street. The rain has started again, soft and patient, and the pavement is slick with it. A group of teenagers walks by with a Pride flag draped over their shoulders like a cape, laughing at something I cannot hear. The buses are running on time, the Strætó number 3 pulling up to the stop across the street, and I think about how much easier everything is with the Klapp app.
In the afternoon, I have an appointment at the bank. I have been putting it off because the paperwork felt daunting, but the woman at Landsbankinn is efficient and kind. She checks my kennitala, asks for my passport, and ten minutes later I have a debit card in my hand, still warm from the printer. She tells me the account is free, no minimum, and that I can use the app for everything. I ask about the electronic ID, the rafræn skilríki, and she explains that I need to get it through my phone provider, that it is stored on the SIM card. It is one of those things that sounds complicated until you do it, and I make a note to stop by Síminn tomorrow.
The cost of living here is something I keep circling, the way you circle a thing you are not sure you can bear. A loaf of bread at the supermarket is about six hundred kronur. A litre of milk is about two hundred and eighty. A pint of local beer at a pub will set you back twelve hundred, and that is before the tip you do not have to leave because tipping is not a thing here. It is expensive, there is no way around it, but the wages match, and the services work, and the city feels safe in a way that makes the price easier to swallow.
By evening, the rain has stopped again, and the sky has cracked open in places, showing pale blue and the thin gold of a late sun. I walk up to Hallgrímskirkja, the concrete spire looming over the city like a basalt column grown out of the earth. The organ is playing—I can hear it through the heavy doors, a low, breathing sound, and I step inside for a moment. The light is dim and coloured, and the space is vast, and I sit in a back pew for a while, not praying, just being still. I am told the Organ Summer concerts run on Saturdays through August, and I think I might come back for one, though I am not sure I know enough about organs to appreciate it properly.
When I come out, the city is turning gold. The clouds have moved off to the north, leaving the sort of evening that feels like a gift, the sun low and warm over Faxaflói Bay. I walk down Skólavörðustígur, past the shops selling lopapeysa sweaters and troll figurines, and I stop at the top of the street to look down at the harbour. It is almost nine in the evening, and the light is still full, the streets still busy with people heading to dinner or drinks. The Pride festival is in full swing this week, and the city feels electric with it.
I have been thinking a lot about what it means to live here, versus just visit. I have the kennitala, the bank account, the bus pass. I have a list of flats to view tomorrow, and a potential car waiting in a lot on the edge of town. I have learned the rhythm of the buses and the taste of the water from the tap, which is geothermal and smells faintly of sulphur. I have started to say halló instead of hello, and I am beginning to understand that Iceland is not a place you conquer. It is a place you enter into a relationship with, one that asks for patience and humility and a willingness to be surprised.
The norðurljós are the thing I am waiting for, the northern lights. They are not visible now, not in August, with the sun barely setting and the sky refusing to go fully dark. But I know they are coming, in the winter, when the darkness returns and the sky becomes a canvas. I think about that a lot, the way this country gives you light in summer and takes it away in winter, and the way the people here have learned to live with both. I am not sure I could do it, live through those short, dark months, but I am starting to understand why the summers are so precious.
Tonight, I am staying in a guesthouse in Vesturbær, a quiet neighbourhood of wooden houses and gardens. The room costs about thirty-eight thousand kronur a night, roughly two hundred and eighty dollars, which is more than I want to spend, but it is clean and warm and the bed is good. I sit by the window watching the last of the light fade to a deep, glowing blue. The streets are quiet, the gulls have settled, and I can hear the distant hum of the city, a sound I am beginning to recognise as home. Tomorrow I will go to the car lot, and I will look at the Suzuki Jimny with its faded paint and its honest tyres. But tonight, I am just here, in the long, soft evening, learning to be still.
I close the window and lie down on the bed, the duvet light and white, the room smelling faintly of lavender. It is nearly midnight, and the sky outside is still not fully dark, a thin strip of grey-blue on the horizon. I think about the parade on Saturday, the crowds I will join, the streets I will walk. I think about the road ahead, the ring road waiting like a long, silver thread. And I think about how small I am in all of this, and how okay that is. Good night, Reykjavík. Halló, tomorrow.