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.

On the food front today was rather boring other than taking a brief tour of the 101 areas many bakeries. I've heard about Scandinavian people making great breads and cheeses and I have to say Iceland is no exception. Of particular note was the Kraftbrauð from Bakari Sandholt. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's dark rye and wheat bread with what I think are sunflower seeds in it. It's got a nice crunchy crust and soft inside and is good all alone and amazing with a little butter. I also got around to trying one of the local beers. The most prevalent beer advertised is a brand called Viking, which I began to associate with being the Budweiser of Iceland (incidentally there is Budweiser here, but it's the Czech variety and not the watery piss we know). I was pleasantly surprised when the tasty, slightly hoppy golden lager appeared before me and didn't suck. Not even a little.

The forecast for tomorrow is calling for a little bit of snow, and as I think about hoping the winds die down they are at this moment gusting up again after having been relatively calm for the last hour as if telling me not to get my hopes up. The problem with the wind is that it seems to be an issue all over Iceland at the moment, so it's not even a good time to rent a car and take a drive or hop on a short flight somewhere else to spend the day. If nothing else it's giving me plenty of time to sip coffee and read in the dozens of coffee shops in the area.