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.

Landing in Akureyri was both awe inspiring a bit disappointing. The city is perched on the inside of a small fjord, licked at by a sea of deep blue water and hugged on both sides by two small sets of snow covered mountains. It's beautiful. It's also a surprisingly small town for a place called the “Capital of the North.” It's got a population of about 16,000 people, which unbelievably makes it Iceland’s 2nd largest...town...city...area. For all that, it's a cute town with several bakeries, although I probably picked the most mediocre one to have lunch in, restaurants, and churches. It's even the home of the Grand Lodge of Iceland's Freemasons (Swedish Rite).

I picked one of the towns less mom-and-pop restaurants for dinner, skipping the large 40 year old home cooked meat and three - slash - Italian Ristorante - slash - burger joint. It's really three different restaurants, all under one name, in one building. While 40 years of success is extreme longevity in Iceland, considering the oldest restaurant in Iceland (Prikið) is only 60 years old, I just couldn't bring myself to sit down at what seemed like Akureyri's culinary equivalent of a Super Wal-Mart. Instead I found myself perched on the fifth floor of one of the taller buildings and overlooking the port of Akureyri in Strickið, where I had a simple but tasty meal of fried salted cod, sit being a staple food in Iceland both historically and currently, in a chile and tomato sauce on rice. It was...wait...here it comes...salty. Though not in a bad way. Just simple, good food. It didn't hurt that it was served by a beautiful blond girl with eyes the same color as the waters outside. I mention this because historically I've never been terribly fond of blondes, but I'm finding that resolve crumbling in my time here. I'm not sure what it is about Iceland, but the blondes are just different here. There's also a fuckton of them...so that might have something to do with it too.

I just want to briefly mention the hotel here in Akureyri. I didn't realize it until coming here, but I have become ridiculously spoiled by the place I'm staying at in Reykjavik. While there isn't anything horrifically wrong with the place I'm staying tonight, it's more expensive and less impressive than my Icelandic home-away-from-home. The shower here sucks, barely getting more than lukewarm where the other shower shoots out ultra-sonic jets of lava hot water. The room is easily half the size, and the decor is much more formal where my other room is more modern and Scandinavian. Even the staff here is less interesting or to my liking. I guess I'm just not happy without a night club and windows rattling in 60mph gusts (no, really).

Tomorrow it's off to Ísafjörður on what will no doubt be another terrifying puddle-jumper of an airplane.