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It's been a year now since I moved back to Reykjavik. I wasn't planning on moving back. After living in New York for four years going back to the small city I grew up in was too sad. I was just coming home for the summer like I had done previous summers. After all summer is the best time to spend in Iceland. One thing led to another, or one job led to another and I'm still here.

When my pre-planned three month stint in Iceland was up last fall I decided it was ok to hold on to these roots. It didn't mean I would be stuck here forever, just that I would always have a place to come back to in this nest we call Reykjavik. So I bought an apartment.

My apartment is in the building my great grandfather built for his family and where my mother grew up with all her uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. I've heard stories from this building since I was a little girl. When I told my grandmother I was moving in to the house she spent 26 years of her married life and where she raised her four children she was speechless. But this is the essence of Reykjavík. For us young Icelanders who go anywhere we want and do whatever we want and still come back to Reykjavík. This is the reason. The roots are so strong and there is some sort of magical pull that makes us come back.

I still sometimes wake up in the morning and miss New York terribly and my Brooklyn home. But then I look out my bathroom window as I brush my teeth and see mountain Esja and the ocean and realize just how lucky I am to have this view in the middle of the city. Sirkus is only a few steps away and I hear the bells from church Hallgrímskirkja on Sunday morning. Sometimes Reykjavík is just like a small fishing village where everybody knows everybody and the same things happen over and over but sometimes it's full of surprises.

It surprised me how easily I adjusted to living in this small city again. To be in a place where everything is so familiar and you don't have to sweat it, it can make you lazy but it also gives you the possibility to do so much more. It is this easiness that makes it full of opportunities. It is this easiness that creates the chilled out atmosphere in the city but at the same time the fierce competition and ambition in the air. The force of the nature is apparent in the people. It is the creative energy in abundance. Almost contagious.

I thought I knew this city inside out but was pleasantly surprised by how much it had changed in just five years. There is much greater variety in things to do. There is always something new and there is always something happening. I also realized that the people had changed and the way of thinking. Reykjavík is suddenly full of young people doing all kinds of interesting things. Before these youngsters were looking to get away, to go somewhere else in the world and make their dreams come true. Now they stay right here and do what they want and then take it wherever they want. I'm not the only one being pulled back to this city. A lot of Icelanders are coming back after living abroad and they bring back big city life and worldview to Reykjavík.

hannabjork@reykjavik.com