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.

I walked until I stopped seeing the point in walking, which was about the time the wind and snow picked up, so I turned around and walked back and found myself at the area flea market. An Icelandic flea market is a little bit of the stuff you'd expect; crappy food, candy, DVDs, knickknacks, clothes, and furniture. But its also a bit of a produce, meat, and seafood market. I had been hoping this would be where I would find the legendary fermented shark meat called hakarl. I prowled the aisles of produce and meats, sampling dried fish, more horse (still tastes like nothing), and some stout licorice candy (which seems to be Iceland's favorite flavor). I finally found a fish stall where there were small jars, oddly about the size of a urine sample, of cubed fish meat. I asked the woman at the booth if it was hakarl, no doubt butchering the word, but it seemed I found the one person in Iceland whose English was as bad as my Islensku. She pointed to a lacquered shark hanging from the stand and then pointed to the urine sample. I asked if it was fermented and she just stared. Finally she took a small Tupperware container and a tooth pick and gave me a sample. I stared at it for a moment, then sniffed it, then finally popped it in my mouth. Whatever it was, it wasn't hakarl. Disappointed I wandered off, never finding my rotten treasure.

Sulking at my misfortune I left the flea market and walked down the road until I found myself at an English pub called...English Pub. It was at this English Pub where I had a pretty tasty brew called Polar Beer and the worst pizza to not come out of my own microwave. Supposedly it was a pepperoni and onion pizza, but I never found a single piece. Not even the hint of pepperoni flavor. Just a crappy, dry-crusted, hard-cheesed, sauceless wafer of crap. The beer was good though. I should have known it was going to suck when there were more people with American accents than anything else. By this point I was tired, cold, my feet were soaked from walking in the snow, I had a bit of a buzz because it seems one of my medications (again with the old thing) intensifies alcohol, and I just wanted to take a nap.

So I meandered back to my room and took a siesta, waking when it was time for dinner to meander down to a cafe, Prikið, for a burger and fries. It wasn't the best burger and fries, but it definitely wasn't to worst to not come out of my microwave. Then I got to have a laundry adventure. I had put off doing laundry until I was out of the necessities and didn't have a very good excuse to go commando like I did on the roadtrip so I asked the lady at the front desk if there was a laundromat and she told me I could use the washer and dryer that housekeeping uses. This seemed like a great bit of luck until I stood in front of Icelandic washers and dryers, one with nothing but unintelligible pictograms and the other with unintelligible Icelandic. It took me FAR too long to even figure out how to get the door closed, then even longer to get it to start. I wasn't even sure what setting it was on, I was just happy that there was water in it and it was spinning. And then it ran for 2 hours. I was running out of patience so I tried to speed up the process by skipping some of the Incan pictogram steps but had a hell of a time getting the door to unlock. As I type this my laundry is spinning around in the dryer. I have no idea if I will find dry clothes, hot wet clothes, or shrunken doll clothes when it's all said and done.

Tomorrow I have to make a decision on what to do with the rest of my trip. I had wanted to spend most of my second week driving the Ring Road around Iceland, but I have concerns about the weather and I have no intention of splurging and spending $500 on a 4-wheel drive vehicle. I don't have any problems spending the next week doing more of what I've been doing, but I feel like I'm wasting a great opportunity if I don't get out of Reykjavik and see the rest of the country. I'm going to have to sleep on it...if those pesky kids will keep it down.