Why the heck did I go to Iceland?

By Lotte van Dijck - 5 June 2023


That is a question I have asked myself over the past couple of months as well. Especially because there were a lot more warmer places which I could choose to go to, such as Spain or Italy. But I choose to go to Iceland, in the winter nonetheless, which turned out to be one of the coldest winters in a few decades. Even the swimming pools closed for a week, which occurs only very rarely according to my 65-ish-year-old professor. Okay, I am digressing a bit, however, it shows how fucking cold it was. Normally it is around -5*C to 0*C, which is fine I think, but I had mostly -10*C to -5*C which was less nice. However, like the saying says, there is no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing. Luckily I had reasonably good clothing and a bus stop at 5 min walking distance to my house, which had a direct connection to the University. This made the commute to university pretty doable even in these cold conditions. The one time I really cursed the weather was when I needed to walk from one side of campus to the other in a hail/snow/rain storm and I entered the classroom and the lecturer said “And how do you like the Icelandic weather?” me and my friend could not really laugh at that time but afterward it was really funny.