Iceland Day 15ish

Between packing and thumping night clubs and probably a bit of end-of-vacation anxiety I didn't get to sleep until almost 6am Saturday morning. I had scheduled to be picked up by the bus for Blue Lagoon at 10:30am so I didn't have much time for sleep, which was quite unfortunate considering the long 2 days ahead. I had allotted 2.5 hours at Blue Lagoon thinking that would give me more than enough time to relax, eat, and wonder around to take pictures. In reality, I was rushing to get showered and changed in time to make the bus to Keflavik airport. The lagoon is very well set up with a large array of showers, lockers, and other accommodations. When you arrive you have the option to rent or buy towels, swimsuits, and robes and then you proceed to the shower rooms. Iceland takes their geothermal spa/pool/sauna hygiene very seriously. You're not allowed into any of the hundreds of hot pots and pools, including Blue Lagoon, without showering fully. The Blue Lagoon even has signs with depictions of all the areas of the body they expect you to wash. They're that serious about it. Which is commendable...no one wants to swim in other peoples soupy ass. And then 2 hours disappeared without a clue.

Iceland Day 14 - Photos

Iceland Day 14 - Greatest Hits

Today was mostly spent revisiting some of my favorite things and places I've found during my time here in Reykjavik. It wasn't really eventful, and not even particularly interesting. I slept in, ate a late breakfast at Prikið, had a late lunch at Icelandic Fish and Chips, wasted time reading in the coffee shop of Mál og Menning. I even did some dreaded touristy shopping, which I now have some slight regret that I waited until the last day to do as there is a thing or two I won't be able to get...at least not this time around. The only really new experience was eating dinner at a small bistro called Gata where I had what they called Fishsoup, but I call Every Damn Thing In The Sea Soup. No doubt it was a Nordic version, perhaps even the great-grandfather, of a frogmore stew or a low-country boil where you you toss a little bit of everything you have at hand into it and voila, you've got soup. And soup is good food. This particular variant had mussels, clams, shrimp, and some kind of white fish (I'm assuming cod) in a well seasoned and pleasantly salty tomato broth.

Iceland Day 13 - Photos

Iceland Day 13 - Home Away From Homecoming

I awoke in my tiny bed in my tiny room to the sweet sounds of a small bulldozer scraping the ice and snow off the street in front of the hotel. I wasn't ready to be awake, but there's not much point in arguing with a bulldozer. Since I was up at what most would consider a respectable hour I decided to give hotel breakfasts another chance. I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much, or I'm just too American, but toast, pickled fish of some sort, and rather pathetic looking fruit wasn't what I was looking for. I tried the fish and at first bite it was OK, but after a few bites I realized one was enough. So I filled up on bread and orange juice and then I went back to sleep. It's my vacation and I'll sleep if I want to.

Iceland Day 12 - Photos

Iceland Day 12 - Waiting

If there was one thing I did more than anything else today it was wait. I waited at the airport in Akureyri for two hours because of a misunderstanding when I called to fix the mistake I had made booking the flight. Then I waited for 2 hours in Reykjavik because it turns out the flight from Akureyri to Ísafjörður is actually a flight from Akureyri to Reykjavik and then to Ísafjörður. Had I known that, which is not mentioned anywhere on the English version of the Air Iceland site, I might have planned things differently. Not that things would have worked out any better. As it was I didn't arrive in Ísafjörður until about 5PM and this is a town the seems to start shutting down in the Winter at about 6.

Iceland Day 11 - Photos

Iceland Day 11 - Back In Action

Finally things went according to plan. After a night of listening to wind battering the side of the hotel, to the point where I could hear the windows in other rooms rattling, I finally got some sleep. The cab showed up on time, the plane landed at the correctly airport, and I only felt afraid for my life near landing when we hit some intense turbulence. The airline, Air Iceland (not to be confused with Iceland Air) is one of those small airlines that still has it's passengers board by walking out to the tarmac and on board the small twin-prop airplane. These small planes get batted around in the wind like..well..little planes...in the wind. On the upside, I've become a bit more at ease with flying. It was only a 30 minute flight though.

Iceland Day 10 - Photos

Iceland Day 10 - Not Surprised

If there's a single theme to this trip, it's undoubtedly that nothing goes according to plan. Between staying up late doing laundry and just plain old insomnia I didn't manage to get to sleep until near sunrise and then in an attempt to keep my schedule as intact as possible I only slept for a few hours. As a result I didn't get my flight rescheduled until much later, and had to move the trip to Ísafjörður back to Wednesday instead of moving the flight to Akureyri up to today (because I had inadvertently scheduled both for the same day). The urge to spend the day lounging around my room or just stumbling to the bookstore coffee shop and planting myself there all day was strong, but I feared the roots of lethargy were starting to take hold and I didn't want to get stuck in a lazy rut. Instead I decided to take advantage of the balmy 33F temps and the initially clear afternoon and hit the western part of the city and Tjörnin lake near city hall, called Ráðhús Reykjavíkur.

Iceland Day 9 - A Change Of Pace

Laundry was far more of an adventure than I had ever expected. Aside from not having a clue how to operate the machinery, I ended up setting off the smoke alarm as well. After almost 2 hours of not drying and trying various settings that I wrote down and then translated online I finally went up to check on the laundry, deciding if it wasn't dry I would just hang it up all over the room. What I found when I entered the tiny laundry room were walls dripping with condensation and the fire alarm blaring because the steam had set it off. And the clothes were still wet. Hot, but wet. I threw all my clothes into my bag, took a detour on my way to my room to let the front desk know that I was trying to burn the place down and then draped my clothes off of anything I could find. The room has two radiators that soon were covered in socks and underwear while shirts and pants hung from cabinet knobs, lamps, doors, and curtains. By this point it was almost 4am, the dance club across the street was still bumping (at one point there were easily 50 people lined up outside waiting to get in) so I plugged my ear holes and slept until noon.

Iceland Day 8 - Photos

Iceland Day 8 - No Treasures Here

I officially feel old now. I didn't quite lean out the window and yell at “those pesky kids” or call the cops or anything, but instead of being out partying with those pesky kids I put in the ear plugs I packed along when I learned the hotel was next to a dance club and was asleep by 1AM. I have finally joined the ranks of “squares.” But another day dawned and I eventually dawned with it. It seemed that some part of me felt guilty for the day of laziness yesterday so I ended up walking about 4 or 5 miles grand total around the shore front area along Sæbraut, which may or may not mean sea route.

Iceland Day 7 - Cut From Different Cloth

Between the return of the Icelandic Opera across the street and then just flat out sleeping like shit I dragged myself out of bed and that was about the most active I was all day. Except for walking a handful of blocks for dinner my day was pretty much just drifting from one coffee shop to another to read, drink coffee, and eat croissants (I'm not sure why that was the snack of choice all day, but it was). The coffee shops are great people watching places as they all look out on the main shopping street where the action is. It also doesn't hurt that the winter fashion for women seems to be big jackets and tights or really tight pants. They are quite often just wearing some kind of long shirt or short trouser-shorts over the tights, but the fact is they're still braving the cold ass weather wearing tights. I'm not sure how in the world that's even remotely comfortable, but I don't really care. Most Icelandic women seem to have amazing legs, presumably from all the walking, so it's greatly appreciated.

Iceland Day 6 - Photos

Iceland Day 6 - Of Fish and Freshness

Last night I fell asleep to the drunken lullabies of two guys outside the bar across the street singing what sounding like Icelandic opera. This morning I woke to the serenading tappa-tap of frozen rain being blown against my window. I think I preferred the drunk tenors, at least they gave up after an hour. The wind and frozen rain on the other hand faded in and out all day long. Despite the weather I was determined to get out and see a little more of the city. Up today was a jaunt downhill to the harbor, which sadly meant I had to jaunt back up the hill once I was finished.

Iceland Day 5 - Photos

Iceland Day 5 - Lazy Day

I think I've finally deciphered the weather here in Iceland. If the report says 50% chance of snow, that means it's going to snow half the day. Which is an improvement over the last several days. Actually it was only random patches of really light snow today. Even the wind played along, for the most part. It was however a good bit colder today but I still managed to snap a few more photos. Of particular note is the church Hallgrímskirkja (meaning “church of Hallgrímur” - a minister and one of Iceland's most famous poets). It's easily the most unique and identifiable part of the Icelandic skyline. Compared to a lot of the large churches you see back in the states it's a surprisingly small church considering it's the largest in the country. It does happen to have a beautiful, both aesthetically and aurally, pipe organ.

Iceland Day 4 - Delicate Delicacy

I'm beginning to think the abnormally inconvenient weather that has become the norm is just that – normal. I'm not really surprised by the temperatures, though they are a little cooler than I expected. I'm not even surprised by the snow, though it's been far more frequent than I thought. What I am surprised by is the wind. It just won't go away and it's completely unpredictable. Somehow on the approximately mile round-trip to dinner I was assaulted both from the front and back on both legs of the trip (it was not uphill both ways, though). The steady 10+ mph winds blowing little frozen daggers is annoying enough, but the swirly-twirly 30+ gusts that feel like they are cutting my ears and neck and making my eyes water like I'm crying is just infuriating. Also infuriating was the fact that while walking to and from dinner the wind was relentless, but the second I sat down in the restaurant not only did the wind die down, but the clouds parted and the moon was out. And yet I'm not having a bad time. Not by far. It seems to be making the experience that much better and every successful outing is a small victory over nature.

Iceland Day 3 - Photos

Iceland Day 3 - Unpredictable Normality

It seems that just about anywhere you go the locals have the same joke about the weather changing every 15 minutes. Nowhere else has that been more appropriate than my time so far in Reykjavik. One minute I look outside and the wind is blowing the torrents of rain sideways, and the next the clouds are parting and the sun is trying to peak through. By the time I got geared up to go outside, it had gotten dark again and the wind was whipping everything around. To give you an idea of the severity of the wind, the news was full of stories of trucks being flipped over while driving and cars being whipped to the side of the road. There was a brief period where the wind died down a bit and the rain never got to be more than a drizzle and I took advantage of that 15 minutes to snap a small handful of pictures. The weather again changed and by the time I had gotten back to my room I had a minor case of wind burn on my face and had avoided being blown into side streets from rogue gusts several times.

Iceland Day 2 - The Homebody

Sure, I could have stayed at home if all I was going to do was stay at home, but then I wouldn't get to watch Icelandic cartoons and eat skyr. It just wasn't the best of days to be out and about. With it snowing on and off all day, sometimes a thick and heavy snow and others and onslaught of tiny ice razors, and winds gusting over 40mph at times it was hard to stay outside for long. Despite the weather I did make a few trips outside to try and get a better feel for the immediate area. The hotel I'm staying in is on the main road in the entertainment and shopping district, known as 101 Reykjavik. On the Fridays and Saturdays there is an abundance of shopping and milling around the plethora of coffee shops during the day, and raucous partying until the wee hours of the morning. Most clubs in the area don't even close until 6am, and they stay busy and bumping the whole night. Sunday on the other hand is a day for church and nursing hangovers. The energetic and lively people I saw walking around on Saturday were replaced with haggard and rough looking people that obviously haven't had much, if any, sleep recently.

Iceland Day 1 ¾ - The Nearly Departed

I don't enjoy flying. It's not something I like doing. I don't like small spaces, and they quite often don't get smaller than the seats on airplanes. I always have this moment of anxiety right as the plane gets ready to take off, but by the time its in the air I'm over it. After all, what can I do about it at that point? The flight from Charlotte to JFK in New York was no different. That fear spiked as the engines revved up, and subsided while we were still gaining altitude. By the time the plane took off from JFK to fly to Reykjavik, worrying about being trapped, crashing, or my head suddenly exploding under unnatural pressures was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to be done with it. The five hours between landing at JFK and taking off again had been less than enjoyable.

Iceland Prologue: A Failure To Communicate

OK, I admit it - I've done a horrible job of chronicling the days and weeks leading up to what is an extremely exciting and amazing trip for me. It's not that I haven't felt the same anticipation and feeling of significance that preceded my big preemptive midlife crisis last year. If anything, I'm escalating the stakes as this is my first international trip. OK, so I spent a month in Canada in the summer after graduating from High School and took a couple day trips to Tijuana (Fake Mexico), but those don't really count. For this trip I'm crossing an ocean, several time zones, and combating claustrophobia and a slight fear of flying to get to a harsh land of fiercely patriotic and culturally proud people that eat fermented shark, drink Viking beer and Black Death schnapps, and party like it's 1999 every single weekend.