Iceland - Reykjavik and the Golden Circle

Hello Friends!  Or as our friend at the rental car place greeted us when we first arrived in Iceland, 'Ah-Low!'  I have to apologize, I am typing on an Icelandic keyboard and although I can find all the letters I need, I am basically stuck to periods and commas for punctuation.  No question mark keys that I seem to be able to access.  I'm also having a problem getting pictures off my camera which is a damn shame since they really seem to tie the room together.  But, I will be sure to back fill those later once I get to a store with the right cable.

So yes, Anjali and I made it to Iceland, as this blog post suggests!  We took Icelandair out of Dulles and landed in Reykjavik five and a half hours later.  After renting our rental car, who is named Thor Shadowfax Runturson, we rode over to the Blue Lagoon in Grindavik which is about forty minutes away if that.

Thank goodness we got there so early, by the time we left the line had reached out the door to get in.  Everything is done electronically with a bracelet which is super convenient and very high tech.  You can purchase breakfast, cocktails, and check in and out of your locker with the bracelet.  At the end, when you leave, you click this little podium and a compartment opens up, you deposit your bracelet in there and it closes up shop like a little clam.  Easy as that.

The Blue Lagoon was extremely relaxing, steaming hot pools, naturally created once the Icelanders damned off part of the water to build their hydroelectric power plant.  There are large wooden crates of this white mud you can ladle into your hand and slather on your face - really does seem to work, our skin was fabulous in Reykjavik after the BL.  We met three girls from Maryland there who were doing a similar trip to us, so we spent a lot of the morning hanging out with them, drinking Proceseco and smoothies and walking around the pools relaxing.

Then we went into Reykjavik and dropped our things at the apartment we rented.  The streets are next to impossible to pronounce, so for short we adlibbed the names of the streets keeping them as close to the real syllables as possible.  So for three nights we stayed on Rod Stewart street, Raudarastigur.

The first day in Iceland we were pretty tired, after only sleeping on the plane about 3 hours, we forced ourselves to stay up until it was nightime.  For sustenance we stopped at the Noodle Station, a restaurant Sheetal and Nikhil told us about, Anjali's stepbrother and wife.  It was near our apartment and they only sell three things, chicken noodle, beef noodle, and vegetarian noodle.  It was absolutely delicious and actually cheap, something we continued to seek out while we were in Reykjavik, with little luck.

Next we went to the Icelandic Phallological Museum, yes, the Penis Museum.  Honestly it was interesting, it was, but it was hard to look at all of those penises disintegrating in fluids after we had just eaten, just saying.  They did have a narwhal penis and also one of a merman.  Those were probably my favorites.  They did have some male members, but mainly scrotum and foreskin, not sure they had the actual member.  There apparently is a sister museum for the vagina in Rotterdam.

 
And a poem that was written on the wall:
There once was a young man from Devizes
whose balls were of different sizes.
The one was so small
it showed hardly at all,
but the other was large and won prizes.

After the Penis Palace, we went to Hallgrimskirkja Church, one of the most famous sights in Iceland.  It is technically their national church, Lutheran, although they are not an overly religious country.  I thought it was neat to be there because my Mom and Dad stopped there on their layover to Europe for their honeymoon in 1976.  The inside is very minimalist, white and gray with stone arches and few stain glass windows.  There is a beautiful pipe organ in the choir loft.  We rode the elevator to the top of the clock tower and saw amazing views of the city.  And then... the clock started chiming, and we felt like Doc in Back to the Future when he drops the chord because he has to cover his ears to drown out the bell sound.

And at this point we dropped.  We went back to the apartment and went to sleep.

Next day started with a City Tour of Reyjkavik from a charming history major, Erik.  He told us tons of great facts and showed us around the downtown area of Reyjkavik.  These are the important facts I retained:

• Iceland doesn't have an army, they have three boats used for search and rescue (one of which is helping find refugees from North Africa trying to get to Spain), two helicopters (mainly used to help rescue German tourists from trying to climb the glacier and failing), and a handful of police who seem to be local celebrities and have very active Instagram and Twitter accounts
• Iceland high schoolers go to high school from ages 16-20, then university for a bachelor's degree for three years, and an additional year for a masters degree (all paid for except a registration fee of $500 per year)
• They have about 94 people in jail, one of the safest countries in Europe
• Tourism sky rocketed after the volcano erupted three years ago, tourism is now their second biggest industry after fishing.  They had 1 million tourists last year, and their entire population is 330,000 people
• 93% of the people living in Iceland were born here
• They achieved independence from Denmark on June 17, 1944
• Their protests to government are all peaceful and apparently successful, they bang pots and pans in front of parliament and have so far gotten their way
• And YES, lots of them, mainly the older generations, do believe in elves and trolls, or the 'hidden people'

It was a fantastic tour, Erik even offered us some Icelandic licorice which apparently is their specialty.

After the tour we stopped by the flea market but weren't impressed.  Then we walked over to the marina and I took copious amounts of pictures of the boats in the water.  Instead of heading to Videy Island, we got ice cream and waited out the rain while we people watched.

On the way home we ran into the Big Lebowski bar and went inside (of course).  That place was amazing, they had persian rugs everywhere, lining the bar walls, bowling paraphenalia, pictures of Walter and the Dude along with a hefty list of different types of White Russians.  Instead I opted to try their local beer, Gull, which wasn't too bad.

Dinner was rather uneventful after that, but we did make a valiant effort to have another drink and at least see the very beginning of the Runtur.  The Runtur is Iceland's answer to their dark and dreary days.  It is basically a bar crawl that occurs every weekend on Friday and Saturday nights and runs from 1am - 5am.  We were out at 10pm and it was still pretty empty.  We did have a drink at the rainbow tiki gay bar and talked to a charming fellow who was completely tanked.  He did try his best to tell us some good places to go in Iceland and he was able to navigate the stairs, more props to him.

Our last day in Reyjkavik was actually spent driving around the Golden Circle, which includes Thingvellir National Park, Gullfoss, and Geysir/Strokkur.  We started at Kerid Crater first, a beautiful crater lined with rocks and flowers, red dirt slope with a beautiful deep blue pool in its center.  We walked around the top of the crater and the lake at the bottom of the crater.  The bugs were active, so we didn't linger too long.

Next we stopped at Geysir, which is where the word geyser actually comes from.  It is just like Old Faithful, except it doesn't go off very often.  It's over active neighbor Strokkur, does go off every ten minutes, good news for us!  So we did get a nice show.  This was probably the most crowded place on our driving tour.  Anjali and I stayed at the visitor center and had lunch, served by a Viking looking man who only lacked the body armour.

Once the rain let up we went to Gullfoss which translates to Gold Falls, due to the large amout of rainbows that seem to appear at the falls, we did see one while we were there.  I have never seen a more powerful set of waterfalls.  It was just breathtaking.  The falls misted fields of flowers that lined both sides of the water making the colors even more vibrant.  I could have stayed down there forever, we were able to climb down pretty close to the water.

And finally we drove to Thingvellir National Park where the first parliament took place, like the first parliament anywhere took place.  This also happens to be where Iceland's continental divide falls, half on North America and half on Europe.  It was a neat place to go to and look at the large cliffs, showing you just how powerful those tectonic plates really are.

That night, back in Reykjavik, we went to Tappas Barrin for dinner and ordered a tasting menu of Iceland's finest foods.  We ate puffin, minke whale, sea bass, lobster, ling cod, and lamb, along with a dessert and shot of Brennivin, their own liquor which tastes like licorice.  The food and service were outstanding.  We left completely stuffed and had to go back home to pack for our road trip.

And now we are on the road!  Today we finished the south, tomorrow is the east, etc.  This trip is flying by so fast.  And in closing, some pictures of the street art in Reykjavik...