Iceland, Day 5: The South Shore

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We got up early so we could catch breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There were lots of rude people in the buffet line, and many of them were touching the bread with their bare hands as they cut slices for themselves. Ew.

As with the previous day, we hopped on a bus to BSÍ, where we transferred to a smaller bus. It was like an oven in there, and it stayed that way all day. If you're A, that's not much of a problem, but if you're the Human Furnace, it gets to be a problem pretty quickly.

We zipped out of Reykjavík fairly quickly, and soon found ourselves in the lovely village of Eyrarbakki. We saw exactly no people in the town, as they were all working, either in the frying-pan factory or the fish processing plants, but most of them were working in the nearby prison. Not exactly a garden spot. When the volcano erupted in the Westman Islands in 1973, lots of the people displaced by the lava moved to Eyrarbakki and never went back to the island. Not much of a trade-off as far as I could tell.

Skyr rocks. Note the convenient folding spoon.

We stopped for coffee and I picked up a blueberry skyr. I haven't mentioned much about the food, mainly because it's not all that good overall. The Indian restaurant was great, but for the most part the food was pretty lackluster. I must rave a little about the skyr, though. Skyr is an exclusively Icelandic dairy product, and is kind of like a really, really thick yogurt. But it's better than yogurt, and it's actually a type of fresh cheese. It's good and gloppy, and makes for an excellent breakfast addition, or a mid-morning snack. The packages also come with a convenient spoon attached to the lid. But I digress...

We then made our first real stop at Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall. If you look carefully in the photo below, you may be able to make out the pouring rain we were experiencing. It was like this for most of the day. I have a down coat, which is great for cold, but not so great for wet. I had intended to Scotchgard it before I left for Reykjavík, but I ended just paving the road to Hell. My coat took on water every time we left the bus, and never really dried out the entire day, which made for a fairly uncomfortable day. However, the bus wasn't full, so I was able to at the very least take it off and hang it on a seat whenever we were in between stops.

Seljalandsfoss. Can you see the raindrops?

We then made an attempt to get onto the Sólheimjökull glacier, which would have been extremely cool. However, the bus we were in was not designed for any off-roading, and as a result we were stymied by road conditions. We were able to get out and about for 10 minutes or so, but we were about an hour's hike away from the glacier and didn't have any sort of equipment to make the trek. It was a little disappointing.

My kingdom for four-wheel drive...

Getting wetter by the second

From the near-glacier experience, it was off to the black sand beach near Vik. This was the best part of the trip, I think, for both A and me. The beach was incredible. I say this despite being soaked to the bone. Out from the beach there were some basalt columns that have been worn away by the constant pounding of the ocean. They're really cool and kind of otherworldly as they jut out of the sea.

There's basalt on the moon, too...

When Clint Eastwood was filming his recent Iwo Jima-centered movies, he filmed a lot of the landing scenes in Iceland on the black sand beaches. I couldn't picture a more non-tropical setting, but it seems to have worked for him...

We had lunch in Vik with a New Zealander who has a thing for Arctic climes. Prior to coming to Iceland, he had been exploring Svalbard in Norway. He told us of seeing fresh polar bear kills, but no actual polar bears.

From Vik we headed to Skógar to the Skógar Folk Museum. It's more a collection of old stuff that the locals used to use. High points included a pump organ, a fishing boat, pillow covers, butter churns, spindles for preparing horsehair and wool, and an Icelandic dulcimer. There is also an old sod farm with original buildings surrounding it. An eccentric old local man gave us a tour of the museum and church, and had us sing along with him as we sat in the uncomforatable pews. He had us sing a couple of hymns from the hymnal, and then "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which I was able to sing along with (finally).

Sod house at Skógar

Once we left Skógar, we traveled along the coast, stopping at Skógafoss. We had the option to go behind the falls, but it was too misty and therefore too wet, and I had had enough wet for the day by that point. We could see the Westman Islands from the bus as we traveled, and A took a few photos.

The closest we got to the Westman Islands

Once we got back to the hotel and dried out completely, we had dinner in the hotel restaurant, the highly-touted Vox. Dinner was not bad, and the flounder course was fantastic.

We sat at the far end (circled, sort of...)

We were waited on by a "trainee" named Leifur. I asked him how long he had to be a trainee, and he answered "Three years." A and I were stunned. He was fun to watch, though, as he was very careful to hold himself correctly as he walked. I think he'll be quite good at whatever the restaurant has him do.

Iceland, Day 4: Le Cercle d'Or

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Thursday was "Golden Circle Day." Every tourist to Iceland worth his or her salt takes this tour. It pretty much hits the high points within a 2.5-hour drive east of Reykjavík. We took the Reykjavík Excursions tour. However, what we didn't know was that Thursday was the one day a week that tours were available in French.

If you're A, it just meant that after every English explanation there would be a lot of French-sounding noise. If you're me, it meant that after every English explanation there would be a corresponding French explanation that you would do your best not to listen to, but would fail to accomplish. So I more or less heard every explanation/description/overview twice. In the words of our tour guide, "Think about that..."

Once we cleared Reykjavík and got about 45 minutes out of town, we hit a town called Hveragerði. While the town itself had greenhouses and a little bit of industry, it was pretty much just a tourist trap for unsuspecting bus people.

The garden spot that is Hveragerði...

What was surprising to me, though, was that the paparazzi were waiting for A, who was not amused.


Once we cleared Hveragerði, we made a quick pit stop at a crater called Kerið that was formed 6,500 years ago. Once we left Kerið, we got to hear about Iceland's social structure. One of the things the guide said was that 80% of the women in Iceland were employed full-time, which contributed to the downfall of many marriages. Who knew?

Yep, that's a crater...

Our first real stop was at Gullfoss, Iceland's most famous waterfall. The wind was strong, the rain was coming down, and the path was incredibly icy. Good times. That being said, though, it was a pretty impressive place, and despite the elements it was beautiful.

This is the path to the falls. Note the raindrops on the lens...

Gullfoss

After a whole 30 minutes at Gullfoss, most of which was spent navigating the path, we traveled on to Geysir (pronounced GAY-zeer). Geysir was the original spouting hot spring—all the others around the world are named after it. Before we visited the geysers, though, it was time for lunch. We were given a choice of either the buffet with traditional Icelandic delights, or what our guide called "fast food." We opted for the buffet, because we could get fast food at home. We should have gone for the fast food, because the buffet was terrible. As it turned out, what the guide called "fast food" was actually just a cafeteria, and would likely have been a hell of a lot better than what we ended up getting. Live and learn, I guess, but it was annoying.

We ventured up the path to the geysers, where it was unlikely that we would see Geysir itself erupting, as it only happenS 10-15 times a year. Happily, though, there's a backup called Strokkur (the Churn), which spouts up to 35m every 5 minutes. The signage surrounding the geyser field is virtually nonexistent, and it's up to you to figure out whether you're going to get soaked by Strokkur as you work your way to it. The whole complex smells of sulfur, but I suppose when there's steam coming ominously out of the ground it's fitting that it is reminiscent of Hell.

The Earth letting off some steam


Strokkur erupting

The obligatory racist statue in the gift shop

From Geysir we went to Þingvellir (pronounced THING-vet-lir). We saw where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates are moving away from each other, currently at a rate of two inches a year. The weather got really bad when we were there, so we got maybe 20 minutes to poke around, which is a shame. If it were nicer, it would have been cool to really explore the place, as it looked as if it could be extremely beautiful. Sadly we didn't get to see the Lögberg where the Alþing convened over 1,000 years ago. However, when I couldn't feel my fingers or my face, it was time to retreat to the bus. I will come back some day in the summer to see the rest of Þingvellir...

Þingvellir—"...like cracks on top of a cake..."

After we returned to the hotel, we decided to partake in the local shopping, because the mall was actually open late (that is, until 2100). We grabbed a cab to Kringlan (although some signs said Kringla—I never did find out why the discrepancy) while our coats dried in the hotel room. After checking out the stores (and buying a few more t-shirts, because after so much weather-related shirt changing I was running out), we opted for dinner at Café Bleu, the most upscale restaurant in the food court. As we were sitting there, a woman bumped into my chair. She then excused herself in a torrent of Icelandic, never once presuming to use English with me. This was not a normal experience with the natives, because ordinarily they could tell I was American from 1.6 km off. However, I was wearing my handy (and extremely warm) Norwegian sweater that A got me for Christmas a few years ago. It enhances anyone's Scandinavian quotient, and obviously worked for me this once. Also, we didn't really see many tourists in the mall, so the woman probably wasn't expecting any.

After a quick trip to Ben and Jerry's (see, Iceland's not completely uncivilized), it was back to the hotel to plan our next day.

Iceland, Day 3: Hoofing it around Reykjavík

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Wednesday was our first day of actually exploring Reykjavík proper. The hotel provided a shuttle to the city center, which was very helpful. As was becoming fairly customary, it was a cold and windy day, and we were smacked around by snow and ice pellets for most of it. When it wasn't raining, anyway.

We hopped off the shuttle, and were immediately confronted with a Quizno's. We figured there were better places to stop and get our bearings, so we popped into a konditori to plan our attack. A's not a big map reader, but she's always a good sport when I go into Rommel mode and start looking at the map like I'm on my way to El Alamein.

After a quick chocolate-covered donut thing, we headed for main shopping street, which, conveniently, sports a large banner that says "Main Shopping Street." Our first stop was 66˚ North, an Icelandic outerwear specialist. A picked up a neck gaiter, as she didn't have a scarf and the wind was pretty brutal.

From 66˚ North, we headed up the street to visit Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík's signature church. (There's a statue of Leifur Eiriksson in front of it, looking like he's standing in the prow of a Viking longboat.) The steeple is 75m high, and the supporting structures are supposed to look like volcanic basalt columns (more on basalt columns in a few days). It took 34 years to finish building the church. There was a funeral going on, though, and we couldn't get in until later. I had passed a couple of churches on my first day in town and they were also holding funerals. The national flag was at half-mast both times. A says this is something they also do in Norway—I'd never heard of the custom outside of state funerals/mourning.

Leifur looking intrepid

So we then worked our way through the surrounding neighborhood, where most of the houses were covered in corrugated tin rather than traditional clapboards or siding. It's probably an effective method for keeping out harsh weather, but it's certainly not the most attractive option.

Note the siding (and the snowflakes)

We ended up at the water's edge, where we checked out the Sólfar sculpture, which I have seen described as a cross between "a Viking ship and a giant centipede." It's mounted on marble, which looks very cool until you set foot on it and start inadvertently skating...

Sólfar, so good...

Because it was so cold and wet, I had my earmuffs on, and my hood pulled tightly around my head and face. I nearly got hit by a car because I couldn't hear or see very well. That would have made an interesting (and pathetic) end to my Reykjavík experience.

After an hour of freezing, we returned to 66˚ North so I could pick up a neck gaiter for myself, and so A could pick up a sort of Elmer Fudd hat, complete with furry earflaps.

Enough time had passed that the Hallgrímskirkja was open, so we trudged up the hill once again. It was worth the trudging. We went into the main area and sat down in a pew for a few minutes, listening to the organist practicing. It was then time to make our ascent into the steeple. (If the whole church is shaped like that, is it really a steeple then?)

Looking toward the altar in Hallgrímskirkja


The pipe organ created magnificent sound

Leifur Eiriksson as seen through the clock face

The elevator lets you off in the area behind the clock faces. You can look through the plexiglass and have decent views of the entire city. It's only when you brave going up one more level into the open-air (and painfully cold and windy) section that you get the full effect of the view. The weather had cleared a bit while we were there, and there was even a tiny bit of sun shining through, which made the views even more beautiful. (Check out my phlog for more photos from the steeple—they'll be there soon if they're not already.)

No plexiglass makes a difference, no?

We stayed in the open-air part of the steeple as long as we could stand it, and then started off down the hill. We found ourselves at Reykjavík's City Hall (the Raðhus), a very modern and inviting building (especially inviting when it starts snowing). After a little sit-down with some hot chocolate, I was keen to check out an old cemetery that was nearby. As soon as we got outside, though, it started snowing even harder. So much for the cemetery idea—we needed to find some dinner. Ultimately we opted for Indian food (!) at a place called Shalimar. The Pakistani ambassador to Iceland has said that this is the best Indian/Pakistani food he's ever had outside of the subcontinent. He's right, I think. The food was fantastic.

The hostess asked me what I thought of Iceland. I think she was expecting the usual "I love it," but I told her I thought it was kind of bleak, and that I didn't think I'd be able to live there. She was surprised at my response, but I think she also found it a bit refreshing to hear something besides the cliché (at least I hope so, anyway).

We hopped back on the hotel shuttle after the driver grunted at us that, yes, this was the right bus for the Hotel Nordica. When we got back, A had a drink that the hotel bar had invented and for which it had apparently won some sort of award. We signed up for the Golden Circle tour going out the next day, and then called it a day.

Iceland, Day 2: The Blue Lagoon, or Ninety Minutes of Being Pelted in the Face

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As with most of our days in Iceland, on Day 2 it was pouring down rain. Tuesday was especially bad, as there was a strong wind and the temperature was hovering right around freezing (pre-wind).

Today was our Blue Lagoon day. Anyone who has ever been to Reyjavík swears by the Blue Lagoon. I'm not much of a spa guy, but I figured when in Rome...

I hadn't known it before I got there, but the Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa that, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook,

owes its existence to the nearby Svarsengi geothermal plant, which is powered by superheated seawater drawn from deep bore holes in the lava. After the steam has passed through the turbines, huge condensers convert it back into water, which is channelled into a huge artificial lagoon that permanently hovers at 37˚–39˚C.

We hopped on the hotel shuttle and headed to the Reykjavík bus station (BSÍ), where we transferred to the Blue Lagoon bus. This is what it looked like pretty much all the way there:

The view from the bus

The first thing you have to do upon arrival is get hooked up with a blue, plastic wristband. The wristband allows you to use the lockers in the locker room. The lockers were really cool, if lockers can be cool. The next thing you do is get naked and shower. I had heard about "shower police" who were there to make sure you showered appropriately, but thankfully we were left to shower on our honor. (The shower is necessary because the water isn't treated chemically like a swimming pool, so they want to divest you of anything harmful before you muck it up for everyone else.)

The natural pools outside the spa campus

Duly bathed, I headed down to the entry pool, where I met A. This is an indoor pool that is warm and gets you prepped to move out into the outdoor lagoon. There's a door that hangs just above the water to keep the elements out. You could swim under it if you wanted to, but that wasn't any fun. A was wearing a dark blue fleece hat, which I thought was a little funny looking. I didn't think it was so funny once we headed out into the nearly freezing rain.

It's kind of wild when everything below your neck is toasty warm while your head is being buffeted by icy wind and rain. We were forced to move backwards into the wind, as the raindrops and ice pellets hurt our face if we turned around.

Floaters in the mist

We stayed in for about 90 minutes, taking in the entire pool. There was so much steam coming off the water that at times we couldn't see more than about 3 feet in front of us.

The water is kind of a milky blue, and even though the lagoon is only about 3-4 feet deep, I couldn't see my hand past six inches under the surface. It was a little creepy. The water is cloudy because it contains blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), mineral salts, and a fine silica mud at the bottom. The silica can be used to exfoliate your skin, so A and I both tried it. She had no problems with it, but I ended up getting it in my eyes. It's kind of gritty and uncomfortable, and for about 6-7 minutes I was completely blind. I tried to rinse my eyes out in the lagoon to no avail. So I turned my face into the rain and tried to let the fresh water pummel the goop out of my eyes. Eventually I was able to see again, but I stayed well away from the silica mud. (Besides, to get to the provided containers, you had to haul yourself halfway out of the warm water. Talk about a shock to the system when you stood up...)

A and I figured his was a lonely job...

Once we'd hit our limit in the lagoon, we headed inside, where we showered again (using TONS of conditioner to get the chemicals out of our hair) and then got ready to leave. We ended up missing our bus by two minutes, which meant that we had to stay at the Lagoon for another two hours. It wasn't exactly a hardship, but it would have been nice to get back to the hotel a little sooner.

A and I ended up having linner there. She got a sandwich of some sort, and I got to try out the world-renowned Icelandic hotdog (pýlsur). They are an institution in Iceland, and I was much more inclined to try them as opposed to putrefied shark (hákarl). The pýlsur traditionally come with raw onion, crunchy deep-fried onion, ketchup, mustard, and tangy rémoulade. It was really good, and is probably the cheapest food I ate while in Iceland. I also picked up some dried fish bits, but have yet to bring myself to try them.

The infamous Icelandic pýlsur...

Once it was time to go, we ended up on a smaller, shuttle-type bus. The driver stopped for gas on the way back, leaving the engine running the entire time. Very strange. At least we didn't blow up.

Ultimately, while I may not be much of a spa guy, I must admit that I enjoyed the lagoon quite a bit. It was interesting to be there in the off season when the weather was horrible. There weren't many people and at times it felt like we had the entire place to ourselves. While I'm sure the views are much better when you can see more than three feet in front of you, this was still a great way to experience the Blue Lagoon (as long as I stay away from the silica mud).

Iceland, Day 1: The adventure begins

My flight was supposed to leave at 2045, but we ended up leaving BWI a half-hour late. We were never given a reason. It was actually fine by me, as I had about 11.5 hours to kill in Reykjavík until A arrived from Norway.

We flew over on a 757-200, which has a three-and-three seating setup. Thankfully I was in a row of seats all to myself, although I found out that I'm too tall to take advantage of them when I tried to lay down to sleep. So instead I sat up and watched the movie, 1982's Tootsie. They also showed the "Vitameatavegamin" episode of I Love Lucy. Nothing but cutting-edge entertainment on Icelandair, folks.

I arrived at Keflavík around 0700 GMT, only to find that I had to go through security again, after sitting on a plane for 6 hours. It seemed a bit silly to me, so I flat out asked a screener "Why are we doing this again, since we just did it before we got on the plane?" He responded with "Because we don't trust other countries' security procedures." Honest, but frankly a little insulting.

Sunrise over the lava floes

After a bit of confusion regarding the Arrivals signage (and the lack thereof), I picked up my luggage and made my way to the Flybus (airport shuttle). I got my round-trip ticket (which saved me a little bit of kronur), and then rode past the snow- and moss-covered lava fields on my way into Reykjavík. I got to watch the sun rise over the distant mountains, which was quite pretty. I'm sure I failed to appreciate it entirely because I was pretty tired, but it was still quite something.

After arriving at the Icelandair Nordica Hotel, I was given the keys to a very nice room on the fourth floor. Sadly, it was a smoking room and I had to return the keys for another room, this time non-smoking and on the third floor. It wasn't as good as the first room, but in many ways it was preferable. It was weird, though. The third floor was a non-smoking floor, yet they had this sort of phone-boothesque structure near the elevator where people could smoke. It kind of reminded me a bit of the Cone of Silence in some ways, but maybe that's just me.

The view from the better room

I crashed and burned for a little while, catching about two hours' sleep. Before I conked out, though, I turned on the TV. Let's just say you shouldn't go to Iceland if you're a TV junkie. However, on one of the Icelandic channels, they kept playing the same four music videos over and over. I am now the owner of the latest Robbie Williams track, "She's Madonna." When I was there, I couldn't figure out why I liked it. I just discovered that the Pet Shop Boys helped it along. That'll do it. (The audio clip doesn't really do the track justice, so check out the video here before you accuse me of having bad taste in pop music...)

After a quick nap, I set out to visit the Reykjavík Art Museum: Kjarvalsstaðir. Even better, the guidebooks told me that the museum had no entry fees on Mondays. So I set out from the hotel, only to find out that the city of Reykjavík (along with rest of Iceland, I would discover later) does not really do anything to get rid of ice on the sidewalks. The streets were bone dry, but the sidewalks were a fricking skating rink. Lots of little shuffle-stepping, trying not to become a casualty on my first day in the country. Before one can visit an art museum on limited sleep, one must fortify oneself. I did so at Reykjavík's own Ruby Tuesday. They haven't gone all upscale like the ones in the States, so it was a bit jarring yet endearingly familiar. Ordinarily I would have skipped the U.S. chain restaurant when traveling outside the states, but my Icelandic is nominal at best, and I was too tired to try anything more exotic. So sue me.

A view along the way

After a pretty decent burger, I worked my way to the museum, only to find out that the guidebook was wrong. Free admission day is now Thursday. I showed the guidebook to the woman at the desk, and she said she would get in touch with their marketing department to have it corrected in the next edition. Fat lot of good that did me 500 kronur later. The works on display were decent, and there was an installation dealing with waterfalls that I quite enjoyed. The fatigue was catching up to me, though, given the jet lag and shuffle stepping, so I decided to call it a day around 1500. I began working my way back to the hotel, but first I needed to stop and pick up some provisions (Kleenex, water, Hob Nobs, etc.). I nearly killed myself sliding down a stairway, but thankfully some spirited flailing and a vise-like grip on the railing saved me from face-planting.

There's not much more to report for Day 1. A arrived around 2000, and that's all I have to say about that. (I will mention that she brought me Norwegian chocolate...)