Day 1 - Arriving in Iceland

Got to the airport unnecessarily early (about 5 hours before my flight) as was very excited. I couldn't wait to finally meet all the guys for the triathlon - I had been chatting to them on Facebook but not met any of them in person yet. Peter (a Danish man who organised the triathlon), Melkorka (Peter's Icelandic wife and one woman support crew), and Mauro, Marco and Luisa (three Italians who were taking part). There were no issues with the bike or anything at the airport and the flight went as planned. I was in Iceland sometime between 2 and 3pm. I didn't have anywhere booked to stay for the night, but had an idea of a hostel which looked good that I had googled the night before. So I got the bus from the airport to this hostel in the city centre. I went into the hostel and enquired about the price. 13,000 isk (Icelandic Krona). My daily budget was 10,000 isk so this was out of the question. The girl at reception was very helpful and gave me a free map/told me how to get to this other hostel that was cheaper but outside of the centre. This involved having to lug the bike box along with all my stuff for nearly 1 kilometer to the end of the road in order to get the relevant bus - I had to stop for a break several times. I eventually came to the end of the road and went over to the bus station. A local man told me which bus I needed and I got on board. The driver was great and dropped me directly outside the hostel despite there not being a bus stop there. I saw that there was a campsite around the back - as it was a nice day I thought I may as well save some of the budget and camp rather than hostel. I paid for my pitch (only 1530 isk!!!) and was able to put the bike box into a storage room until I would return in 8 days. After claiming a nice spot of grass the re-assembling the bike got underway. This went relatively smoothly, and after 90 minutes the bike was ready, tent was up and everything that had been squeezed around the bike in the bike box was now in some kind of order. I quickly wrote a postcard and posted this to my parents before heading off on the bike back towards the city centre. It was a beautiful evening and the supermarket was put on hold as I was getting carried away with the stunning waterside views, cool architecture/statues and relaxed vibe of the place. Eventually I did a minimal supermarket shop and headed back to the campsite to fix myself some dinner. I had noticed earlier that there was a 'free food' section at the campsite and someone had left pasta and rice there. This meant that I only had to buy pasta sauce and a loaf of bread and that was dinner taken care of for tonight and tomorrow. The cooking facilities at the campsite were great - there were several hobs and plenty of utensils/pots and pans to use. Shortly after consuming a generous portion of pasta and considerable amount of bread I went to bed at about 11pm, with the alarm set for 5am for the morning bus to Arnarstapi.