ICELAND SAGA: Tjornin and the Metal Viking Boat

I know, I know, I'm not churning out my Iceland posts fast enough.  We got back three weeks ago and I'm only on day 4 here!

Very near our hostel was a small park featuring a man made lake called Tjornin ("tjorn" meaning "pond").

It was one of our favorite places in Reykjavik to walk around.  There were always ducks, seagulls, and geese around, and it was fun to see them go about their business.  Watching the ducks casually motor themselves around the water provided endless entertainment for us, especially when they put their heads under water to look for a snack, and their little butts popped up.  We broke into giggles as their little feet kept paddling in mid air.  It's the simple things I tell you!  The small lake is located at the edge of the city and provides a lovely view of the southern skyline.

During the afternoons at Tjornin the seagulls get quite disorderly.  We never fed them ourselves, but we did witness on more than one occasion people feeding the gulls and then trying to get up and walk away.  As they walked along the lake the seagulls followed them, flying around their heads looking for more hand outs.  I snapped a picture of a little boy and his mom unsuccessfully trying to escape.  I think a couple of the birds actually grabbed the boys' shirt.

There are just a ton of them!

A seagull and a duck are having an argument, and the duck is chasing the gull off.

This was our last day in Reykjavik before moving on to the Westfjords, so we decided to hit up the museums.  Before going to the National Gallery and the National Museum (where there were some really awesome large black and white prints of children working on fishing boats in the early 20th century), we visited the Saga Museum.  This is a fairly new museum in which there are incredibly life-like human replicas decorated to portray the history of Iceland.  Again, I didn't take pictures of these because I wouldn't hang them on my wall, and again, I'm kicking myself.  There are some pretty neat pictures here.   The building that the museum is housed in is really cool.  It's called Perlan ("The Pearl" in English).  The building is a glass dome which sits on 4 huge water heaters.

In the evening we planned on going on "The Original Haunted Walking Tour of Reykjavik," which sounds cheesy but I was totally excited about it.  Unfortunately, the guide only took cash, which we did not have, but he was NOT very nice about it and it was like $20 a person.  We've decided that the tour is a novelty scam.  Instead we went to a co-op cafe/bar where we each had a beer that tasted like a tortilla chip.  There were pig tails painted on the bathroom mirror, as shown in this totally unsuccessful photograph.  I guess I should have held the camera above my head.

Random building in Reykjavik that looks like art.   

Also that evening, we walked to the waterfront to see SunCraft, a metal sculpture of a viking ship.  Perhaps these images will better illustrate how light it stays in Iceland than the picture of the trees I peed in.  The images were snapped at 10:30 p.m.

Statue at the center of the city.

Statue down by the waterfront.  It's like the Immigrants on The Hill!

Stay tuned!  The next post to come is about puffins!

ICELAND SAGA: The Aftermath of a Runtur and the Status of Our Lost Luggage

Runtur: An Icelandic pub crawl, to be short.  On Friday and Saturday nights, cafes by day become bars; bars that normally close at 1 a.m. keep the beer flowing until 3 a.m., and the 3 a.m. establishments stay open until 5 a.m. (with people still in them).  If you recall from the last post, on our first Friday night in Reykjavik Joe and I went to Cafe Paris at 11:30.  Know here and now that we couldn't make it past 1:00 before pooping out.  We said we wanted to experience the runtur, but also didn't want to sleep the trip away.  That's what I told myself as I fought back yawns at the bar anyway.  On Saturday morning we left the hotel at 8:30 to go somewhere for coffee and wandered around until 9:00 trying to find a cafe that was open.  Until stumbling upon a chain cafe (it was obvious), we had only seen signs stating that the cafes we actually wanted to go to didn't open until 11 a.m. at the earliest...on a Saturday...in the capital of the country.  Reykjavik did seem oddly lifeless as we roamed the streets, save a handful of other tourists and the street cleaners that drove up and down the streets and sidewalks ridding the city of runtur litter.  It didn't look as bad as St. Patrick's Day in Dogtown, but it's safe to say it was a stone's throw.  We would end up seeing the same scenario on Sunday morning, too, which made me wonder how much money the city spends on street upkeep every year.  

After coffee we went back to the Salvation Army Guesthouse so we could call the airport regarding the status of our luggage, which we still had not received.  We had been wearing the same clothes for over 36 hours, and I was ready for a new shirt and fresh underwear, not to mention some socks for the used, unwashed tennis shoes I was still wearing.  When we had left the airport the previous morning the nice man at the baggage service counter had handed me two travel kits and told me they were for us to survive on until we got our belongings back. Each one contained a mini bottle of "cleansing milk" that I suppose was intended to double as shampoo and body wash--which never works with my hair--and mini bottles of moisturizer, shaving cream (accompanied by a razor) and tooth paste (with matching tooth brush).  They also came with mini deodorants that smelled like cheap men's cologne and a plain white tshirt, size XL.  I was ready to get my stuff back.  I will say that when I called Keflavik a human being picked up the telephone right away, and it was the exact person I needed to speak to for answers.  Supposedly we would be getting our bags delivered to us by 10:00 that very morning. Huzzah!  No more passing the concierge's counter with sad puppy dog faces asking if any backpacks had been delivered with only a confused look for a response!  Sigh of relief.

The satisfaction of putting on fresh clothes was, in a word, joyous.

ICELAND SAGA: Arriving in Reykjavik and Touring The Golden Circle

By the time we arrived in Reykjavik I felt pretty much over the loss of our luggage, having just spent two hours in The Blue Lagoon and taking a 30 minute nap on the bus ride to the city. Reykjavik is fairly small, and most of our activities would be around the city's center, which is very easy to navigate with a map.  We were able to quickly find our hotel, The Salvation Army Guesthouse.  After we checked in we decided to walk around the city and see what we could find.  Reykjavik is built on a hillside (mountainside?), and it immediately reminded me of a mini San Francisco.  Some of the streets went pretty steep.  The weather was a mild 55 degrees, or so, and it was sunny, but I was glad to be wearing a cardigan over my tshirt when the breeze blew.  After eating lunch at an exclusively vegetarian restaurant (delicious!!) we quickly ran into Reykjavik's largest Lutheran church, Hallgrimskirkja.  Definitely check out the pictures in that link, because this is what we saw:

Total bummer that the church was so heavily scaffolded.  It sits at one of the highest points of the city, and we could see it almost anywhere we went--a constant reminder that Hallgrimskirkja looked more like the Chrysler Building than a church.  Hallgrimskirkja is named after the Icelandic poet and clergyman Hallgrimur Petursson.  (Side note:  I love the way Icelanders form their last names.  It is always composed using the individual's father's first name + whether he or she is a son (son) or daughter (dottir).  So Hallgrimur is the son of Petur.  I would be Julie Davidssdottir, but my brother would be Jeffrey Davidsson.  Joe would be Joseph Williamsson.  Now you try!  Interestingly, since 1925 an Icelander can only create a family name if he explicitly has a legal right to do so through inheritance, at least according to Wikipedia.)  Hallgrimskirkja was designed by the architect Gudjon Samuelsson, and it took 38 years to build, from 1945-86.  I don't know what was up the building being renovated if it was completed only 23 years ago, but whatever.  In front of the church is this really awesomely large statue of Lief Erikson, who, as you may know, was the actual first European to have landed in North America--not that Columbus fellow.  


The monument was a gift from the U.S. in 1930 for the Althing Millennial Festival, which marked the 1000th anniversary of Iceland's parliament.  Hallgrimskirkja is the tallest building in Iceland.  I guess they built it so tall so they could fit this huge organ inside of it.  





The organ was built in Germany in 1992, and it includes a 50-foot-tall case and 5,275 pipes.  It was really cool to see in person, but didn't quite make up for the scaffold entombed exterior. Perhaps a trip up the tower of the church, which we were told was still open, would make up for it?  Seeing a bird's eye view of the city sounded great.  We paid our 400 kroner (a little more than $3) and took the elevator ride up.  We emerged to a room half sided with caging, and half with wooden boards blocking our view from the city.  On the wall that held, presumably, the most spectacular view of the city hung a large picture, nay, drawing, of the view we would have seen if that huge board wasn't in the way.  I did manage to stick my lens past a part of the caging on another wall for a picture.  Here, enjoy this photograph of a suburb of Reykjavik. 


That sign stating The church tower is still open!  should have at least had something in fine print that stated But you can't see anything out of it.  

One of the musts we read about things to do in Iceland was touring The Golden Circle, which consists of the prairie land at Pingvellir, the waterfall Gullfoss, and the "original" geyser Geysir (of which all geysers are now named after).  Normally the tour is taken by bus during the day, lasting 9 hours, and you're surrounded by 100 other tourists.  Here is a map of The Golden Circle (you can see where everything is in relation to Reykjavik, and you can see how far from the city The Blue Lagoon and the airport are).  We were advised to take the tour at sunset, as there would be far fewer people and it would only last 5 hours, which is plenty of time on a bus for me.  With the setting sun, I was getting increasingly worried about being cold on the tour.  I feared that my discomfort would distract me from all the cool stuff we were about to see, so I considered buying another layer.  However, the only choices I could find were $200 jackets from 66 Degrees North (like our The North Face) or a $50 hooded sweatshirt from a tourist shop that said in Icelandic I don't speak Icelandic.  I would have felt like a real boob traipsing around in that get up, and I would hate to have spent so much money on a jacket, especially if our luggage came within the next couple days.  I decided to suck it up. 

We got picked up from our hotel (nice service!) by our stud bus driver at 6:30.  I wish I knew his name.  He was a lanky middle-aged guy who was quite good-humored and talked about random Icelandic facts, but didn't talk too much.  Example fact:  Apparently there is a hot dog stand that Bill Clinton enjoyed eating at (once? several times? I don't know.) while in Iceland, and the bus driver hears that if you go there and order a "Bill Clinton" they put mustard on your dog.  He also talked about the belief in "hidden people" by the Icelanders--at least, no one dares admit that they don't exist.  The first stop was Pingvellir (Ping translates into "parliament" and vellir into "meadows").  Parliament was established here in 930 A.D. and remained until 1789.  I'm kind of disappointed in the pictures I took of it, because they're not nearly as captivating as actually being there.  I tried, though.  Sorry, I don't know how to get my panoramics bigger.  If you click on them you can view them larger in a different window.

After Pingvellir, we took a very bumpy hour long drive to Gullfoss, which means "Golden Falls."  The falls were positioned in the shade.  It would have been neat to see it sparkle in direct sunlight, but nonetheless, it was pretty amazing to see.  It's just huge.  The crevice itself is about 60 feet wide.

It was admittedly quite chilly when we were standing to the side of the waterfall (that top left cliff in this picture).  To stand in front of the waterfall, as we are here, is freezing.  The mist from Gullfoss was unavoidable.  Poor Joe in his short sleeves.  All of the people around us were in heavy coats or fancy warm jackets and hats, so I know we looked like a couple schmucks.  We snapped this picture quickly, as we were quite cold, then ran to the bus to thaw.  

Our final stop on The Golden Circle tour was Geysir (pronounced "gay-ZEER"), which is apparently the oldest known geyser.  Since the English translation is pretty clear, I'll tell you that the name Geysir is derived from the Icelandic word gjosa, meaning to erupt.  The panormic below is of the inactive Geysir, which is all we saw of it. 

 In 1910 it erupted every 30 minutes, but gradually slowed to a stop.  Random earthquakes throughout the 20th century have revived the geyser, and now it erupts about 3 times a day.  We did, however, watch the geyser Strokkur erupt several times, as it goes off every 4 minutes or so.  I used the motor drive on my camera to capture its sequence.

And here it is backlit.

We were dropped back off at our hotel around 11:30.  The sun was still out enough to see by (think 8:30 p.m. St. Louis time in the summer), which intrigued us, and we wanted to take advantage of the long days.  We decided to go out to a cafe/bar called Cafe Paris.  When we tried to order a Danish beer called Tuborg (it was the first one I saw that I was sure of on pronunciation, so that's why I ordered it), the bartender told us that if we were going to visit Iceland we need to drink Icelandic beer.  He gave us each a Gull, as in seagull, and I'm telling you that was some skunky beer.  We sat at the bar sipping on the drinks and pretty soon the bartender started doing tricks, a la Cocktail.  It was like a young Tom Cruise was standing right in front of us flipping bottles and throwing ice into the air to catch the pieces in a glass before cooly pouring a sweet liquor over them.  After making a particularly sassy looking cocktail the bartender dipped a straw in the drink and, after taking a taste, proceeded to double dip the straw back in and take another drink.  I think my jaw fell open.  I guess that's cool in Iceland, though.  When I asked him what the drink was he replied, "A cocktail."  Oh, ok, thanks.