I was waiting to see the church in the evening all lit up but surprisingly Iceland gets darker much later than Toronto, past 8pm so I had lots of time to kill.

I tried to call TD Visa from the hotel after they had blocked my card trying to buy a bus ticket from the airport, even though I gave my travel dates and itinerary. After 20 mins on hold they told me I must go into a TD branch to get my card unlocked. I pointed out the blatantly obvious that I WAS IN ICELAND!!

The other solution was to mail a new card and pin number separately. This was even more ridiculous as I was travelling daily, where would the two mailouts arrive, and on what day, to co-ordinate with my travels. Surely I'm not the first person to have their card locked when travelling and TD can offer no solution over the phone to unlock it.

Who is going to steal my card, goto Iceland, and buy a bus ticket at the airport on the exact same travel dates. They have automated everything, overdoing security, taken away all decision making, and nobody is allowed to use common sense anymore.

Fed up I went out for a walk and started taking some more pics. There was a very oddly dressed older Irish guy with maybe his wife and friend taking pics. Somebody called over they recognized him and he went into a store to chat. Then I realized this was three time Eurovision winner Johnny Logan and when I checked recent pics of him on google yes this was him!

Aside from lots of tourist shops I was now in the retail downtown. Some of the restaurants had formal dress code. I got chatting with a local called Thor.

He complained there are too many tourists now taking pics of statues and before downtown belonged to the locals and nobody was here. I guess with the financial collapse and bringing in bus loads of tourists have not all had positive effects for the locals, despite the tourism boom.

In terms of size and character downtown Reykjavik would be like the old walled city in Quebec City. The weather was also calm and crisp with very little wind. Most of the local guys, aside from having Nordic beards, also had woollen fishermans caps which seemed to be the local custom.

Eventually it did get dark and I took pics of the Cathedral before heading back to the hotel for my first full nights sleep.