The rain has finally stopped, but the streets still carry that fresh-washed smell of wet stone and salt air. It is my last full day in Reykjavík, and the city feels different today — not just because the clouds are breaking into gray-blue patches, but because the Pride flags are everywhere now, draped over balconies, tucked into shop windows, even tied around the lamp posts on Laugavegur. Tomorrow the parade will fill Skólavörðustígur, but today there is still a quiet anticipation, the kind you feel before a big storm that hasn't quite arrived.
I spent the morning at the car, checking the Dacia one more time. The paperwork is done, the insurance is in the glovebox, and the tank is full. I keep running my hand over the roof like I'm reassuring a horse before a long ride. It is not a beautiful vehicle — it is gray, practical, with a slight squeak in the windshield wipers — but it is mine now, and it will carry me around the whole island. I paid about 1.8 million kronur for it, which felt enormous until I started thinking about what a rental would cost over three months. This way, the road belongs to me.
I had planned to leave this afternoon, but somehow I kept finding reasons to stay. First it was a coffee at Reykjavik Roasters on Kárastígur — a flat white for about 700 kronur, which is roughly five dollars. Then I sat there for an hour, watching the city wake up. The barista, a young woman with a lopapeysa draped over her shoulders, told me about the jazz festival coming at the end of August. She said the venues are small and intimate, and that you can wander from one to another all evening. I made a note in my phone to check it out, even though I know I will be somewhere on the east coast by then.
After the coffee, I walked up toward Hallgrímskirkja. The church is always there, of course, like a mountain you forget is a mountain until you stand at its base. The organ concert series is still running on Saturdays, and I thought about going — but the queue was already long, and I decided to save it for another time. Instead, I rode the elevator up the tower one last time. From up there, Reykjavík spreads out like a gray-and-green blanket, the red roofs of the old houses dotting the streets like berries. I could see the harbour, the Sun Voyager glinting by the water, and beyond it, the mountains of Esja still holding a few patches of snow. The whole city felt small enough to hold in my hands.
I came down and found myself at the Settlement Exhibition again. I had visited on my first day, but there is something about that buried longhouse that draws me back. I walked through the dark rooms, listening to the wind and the sea in the audio guide, and I thought about Ingólfur Arnarson, the first settler, pulling his high-seat pillars ashore and deciding this was where he would stay. There is a quiet courage in that choice — to arrive somewhere new and say, here, this is enough. I felt a pang of envy, standing there, because I still have not found that certainty. But I am looking for it, and maybe that counts for something.
Lunch was at Íslenski Barinn on Austurstræti, a small place I had passed a dozen times. I ordered the lamb soup — about 2,800 kronur for a bowl big enough to feed a family, if I am honest, and worth every drop. The room was packed with people in bright jackets, most of them with camera straps around their necks, and I realized I had become one of those people without noticing. I used to travel like a visitor, ticking off sights. Now I was drinking the soup slowly, watching the rain streaks on the window, feeling the heat spread through my hands. I think that is what Iceland does to you, if you let it. It slows you down until you start to see the everyday things.
After lunch, I walked down to the old harbour. The rain had started again, a soft drizzle that seems to hang in the air rather than fall. I passed the Grandi Mathöll food hall, where I had eaten my first meal here, and the smell of fish and chips reminded me of that first evening. I stood by the water for a long time, watching a fishing boat come in, its hull rusted and streaked with salt. A group of tourists were boarding a whale-watching boat, laughing and clutching their raincoats. I thought about how I used to be one of them, too, wanting to see everything at once. Now I am just here, watching the gulls argue over a scrap of bread.
I did buy a few things for the road. A thermal blanket from a shop on Laugavegur — about 4,500 kronur, which felt steep, but the woman assured me I would thank her when the wind hits. A box of Omnom chocolate from the old harbour, because I have heard it is good, and because a car journey needs treats. And a new notebook with a map of Iceland on the cover, because I keep losing my notes in the chaos of my phone. These small purchases felt like planting seeds. They are not necessities, but they are promises to myself about the weeks ahead.
In the late afternoon, I went to Café Babalú on Skólavörðustígur. It is the kind of place that feels almost homemade — mismatched chairs, shelves of old books, a cat asleep on the windowsill. I ordered a coffee and a slice of cake, about 1,900 kronur in total, and sat by the window. The street outside was filling with people in bright colors, some already in costume for the Pride-run events that would start tomorrow. A group of children with painted faces ran past, laughing, and I watched them until they disappeared around the corner. Reykjavík is a city that hums with life, but it is a gentle hum, not a roar.
I thought about the road ahead. Tomorrow, I will drive south, past the green hills and the waterfalls, toward the glacier country. I will see jökull — the great ice — for the first time on this trip, and I will wonder at it in a way I cannot quite explain yet. I have been telling myself that the journey is the point, not the destination, but now that I am actually leaving, I wonder if I have been fooling myself. Maybe I am the kind of person who keeps moving because stopping feels too heavy. Maybe I am afraid to fall in love with a place because leaving it would hurt. Reykjavík has already made that fear sharper than I expected.
As evening came, the rain stopped again, and the sky turned a soft pink along the horizon. I walked back to my flat in the Vesturbær district, past the National Museum, past the old wooden houses with their corrugated iron roofs, past a group of teenagers practicing dance moves outside a gym. The light stretched on and on, as it always does in August, and I knew I would not be able to sleep for hours. The sun does not so much set as decline, and then wait, hovering near the horizon until it rises again. There is a word for that in Icelandic — rökkur — the twilight that never quite becomes dark.
I sat on the steps outside my building for a long time, watching the streetlights come on one by one. A few doors down, a woman was setting out a tray of candles for the Pride party she was hosting. She waved at me, and I waved back. In that moment, I understood something I had not been able to put into words before. This place is not just a tourist stop for me anymore. It is a home I am still building, a house I have not moved into yet but have already decorated in my mind. The kennitala is in my wallet, the bank account is open, the car is ready. All that is left is the leaving, and the coming back.
The buses will be running tomorrow morning, but I will be on the road before the Pride parade begins. I have my 30-day Strætó pass tucked away in my bag, my return ticket to this city. I have a list of places I still need to see here — the National Museum, the Perlan, the geothermal pools I have not yet tried, the jazz clubs that will open in September. I have a number of a real estate agent who will call me when a one-bedroom flat opens up in Miðborg, around 230,000 kronur a month if I am lucky. All of this is waiting for me. But so is the road, and the road is calling.
Tomorrow, I will wake early, load the Dacia, and drive south. The waterfalls will be loud in the morning air, and the mountains will be green and wet from all the rain. I will stop in Hveragerði to see the hverir — the bubbling hot springs that steam across the ground like the earth's own breath. I will think about Reykjavík behind me, and I will know that I will be back. Not as a traveler, not as a visitor, but as someone who is slowly learning to call this island home.
So this is not goodbye to the city. This is just the first turn in a long road, and the road is glowing in the evening light, and I am ready.