Worldcon Trip Day 8: Fourth Day in Reykjavik
Today was our final full day in Reykjavik, as we fly out on Friday afternoon. Because of our Saga class upgrade, I rebooked our SkyBus trip to Keflavik airport for an hour earlier than originally planned, on account of we'll have access to the Saga lounge, so we might as well head out earlier. Today was also Inauguration Day for Iceland's new president, and we had a box seat of the event from our balcony. But first, we needed to do some laundry and have breakfast, and thanks to a restaurant near our hotel, we could do both things at the same time.
This is The Laundromat Cafe, located just a few steps from our hotel. It comes highly rated for brunch, but it also has a bonus for travelers needing their clothes washed.
There are four washers and four dryers in the basement of the restaurant. You pay at the counter upstairs (where you order your food as well) and they give you tokens to operate the machine. Soap is available for an extra fee. Like everything in Iceland, it's not cheap: It cost 3000 kr / $21.70 for one wash/dry plus soap. According to a little online searching, this is only a bit more expensive than other laundromats in the area, and of course it was convenient.
We put our laundry in to wash and then went back upstairs to order brunch. We both ordered the "clean brunch." I wish that I had photographed it, but you can have a look at their menu to see what it was. The cost was about 8500 kr / $61.50 for two, and we were both disappointed in it, but that may be just a matter of taste. Also, the place got really crowded and that made us uncomfortable. In retrospect, I should have asked if we could take our meals downstairs where there are also tables and we could have eaten there in relative peace. In any event, we were able to get our clothes washed and we got a meal, but once again that brunch at Apotek looks like a better deal, and we're considering eating there for our final breakfast here tomorrow.
Before breakfast, Lisa and I went back down to the harbor to re-shoot an outro for Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories and we saw that the Hamburg had been replaced by the next cruise ship calling at Reykavik, the MS Silver Wind.
We also took a picture of this remarkable building, which is the Russian Orthodox Chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, a tiny little chapel. Now it includes directions to the larger Russian Orthodox church that now exists in Reykjavik.
After breakfast, we went for a wander down to the Harbor again. We've been here before, but it was worth another look, for views like this of Reykjavik's skyline. We also were looking for a place we visited on our first trip to Iceland.
This building is now Makake, a not particularly-interesting looking restaurant on the harbor. But seven years ago, it was very different.
Back then, when we visited it on our way home from Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, it was Kumiko, a delightfully quirky Japanese tea house. Click through to see other pictures. Besides the decor, the food and drink were good as well.
Again retracing our steps from 2017, we ventured out to Þúfa (th-oo-fha), an artificial hill and art installation by Ólöf Nordal.
Climbing the hill is not too hard, but you need to watch your step or risk tumbling off the eight-meter-high mound.
There's a nice view from the top of the hill.
The rack on the top of the hill is full of drying fish, in the traditional manner.
Going back down the hill was harder, at least for me. I had to keep my eyes firmly on just where I was putting my feet, lest I get disoriented and slip off the hill.
We then spotted this ship, the MV Fram, and Lisa got excited, as she'd heard of this ship, which takes adventurous tourists to the Arctic and Antarctic. Later that day when we got back to the hotel, Lisa had us watch Mighty Ships: Fram which follows the ship on one of its voyages from Reykjavik to Greenland.
Speaking of our return to the hotel, our walking route back took us by the Bonus grocery store. While we were there, a strong rain storm moved in. We lingered in the store during what seemed to be the worst of the rain, but we did still get rather wet on the way back. I'm glad I had my jacket!
The rain mostly cleared up by the time we were back at the hotel and were drying out, and that meant we saw part of the inaugural celebration. We did not watch it all as my computer has been making bad noises in the cooling fans, and in order to try and clean the fan we walked back over past Bonus to ELKO to buy a can of canned air.
Rather than going straight back to the hotel, we headed up the hill toward Hallgrimskirkja. This time, our path took us past the Danish embassy.
We intended to make one last trip to the Vöffluvagninn, but when we got there around 5:30 PM, the said that they were closed. That was strange, because their hours were supposed to be open until 9 PM. Maybe they had special hours today that I hadn't noticed.
On our final trip down the hill, a restaurant caught Lisa's eye.
We stopped and had dinner at Salka Valka Kitchen, taking advantage of their open-air sidewalk seating, which was nice as the rain had cleared. In light of Lisa's dinner yesterday, she skipped the fish soup, but both of us had this salmon on rye bread: 9000 kr / $65 for the two of us including beverages.
We shared some of our dinner with Kuma Bear.
Finally, we returned to the hotel, where the inauguration festivities were mostly over and done with, except for a lone unicyclist riding back and forth in front of the Althing with an Icelandic flag.
We started the first part of our packing for the next leg of our trip, that being the flight from KEF to LHR tomorrow. Because we have an extra luggage allowance and I packed an extra soft-sided bag (a Montreal World Fantasy Convention bag), I can move some stuff into that bag so that we aren't living so close to the edge.
Unlike the other days we've been here, I've set an alarm for Friday morning, because we need to get going, have breakfast, finish packing, and be out of the hotel by 10:15 in order to catch the bus to the airport.
I logged more than 20,000 steps on my pedometer today, and wow are my feet sore. Being able to sit most of tomorrow should be welcome.
This is The Laundromat Cafe, located just a few steps from our hotel. It comes highly rated for brunch, but it also has a bonus for travelers needing their clothes washed.
There are four washers and four dryers in the basement of the restaurant. You pay at the counter upstairs (where you order your food as well) and they give you tokens to operate the machine. Soap is available for an extra fee. Like everything in Iceland, it's not cheap: It cost 3000 kr / $21.70 for one wash/dry plus soap. According to a little online searching, this is only a bit more expensive than other laundromats in the area, and of course it was convenient.
We put our laundry in to wash and then went back upstairs to order brunch. We both ordered the "clean brunch." I wish that I had photographed it, but you can have a look at their menu to see what it was. The cost was about 8500 kr / $61.50 for two, and we were both disappointed in it, but that may be just a matter of taste. Also, the place got really crowded and that made us uncomfortable. In retrospect, I should have asked if we could take our meals downstairs where there are also tables and we could have eaten there in relative peace. In any event, we were able to get our clothes washed and we got a meal, but once again that brunch at Apotek looks like a better deal, and we're considering eating there for our final breakfast here tomorrow.
Before breakfast, Lisa and I went back down to the harbor to re-shoot an outro for Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories and we saw that the Hamburg had been replaced by the next cruise ship calling at Reykavik, the MS Silver Wind.
We also took a picture of this remarkable building, which is the Russian Orthodox Chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, a tiny little chapel. Now it includes directions to the larger Russian Orthodox church that now exists in Reykjavik.
After breakfast, we went for a wander down to the Harbor again. We've been here before, but it was worth another look, for views like this of Reykjavik's skyline. We also were looking for a place we visited on our first trip to Iceland.
This building is now Makake, a not particularly-interesting looking restaurant on the harbor. But seven years ago, it was very different.
Back then, when we visited it on our way home from Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, it was Kumiko, a delightfully quirky Japanese tea house. Click through to see other pictures. Besides the decor, the food and drink were good as well.
Again retracing our steps from 2017, we ventured out to Þúfa (th-oo-fha), an artificial hill and art installation by Ólöf Nordal.
Climbing the hill is not too hard, but you need to watch your step or risk tumbling off the eight-meter-high mound.
There's a nice view from the top of the hill.
The rack on the top of the hill is full of drying fish, in the traditional manner.
Going back down the hill was harder, at least for me. I had to keep my eyes firmly on just where I was putting my feet, lest I get disoriented and slip off the hill.
We then spotted this ship, the MV Fram, and Lisa got excited, as she'd heard of this ship, which takes adventurous tourists to the Arctic and Antarctic. Later that day when we got back to the hotel, Lisa had us watch Mighty Ships: Fram which follows the ship on one of its voyages from Reykjavik to Greenland.
Speaking of our return to the hotel, our walking route back took us by the Bonus grocery store. While we were there, a strong rain storm moved in. We lingered in the store during what seemed to be the worst of the rain, but we did still get rather wet on the way back. I'm glad I had my jacket!
The rain mostly cleared up by the time we were back at the hotel and were drying out, and that meant we saw part of the inaugural celebration. We did not watch it all as my computer has been making bad noises in the cooling fans, and in order to try and clean the fan we walked back over past Bonus to ELKO to buy a can of canned air.
Rather than going straight back to the hotel, we headed up the hill toward Hallgrimskirkja. This time, our path took us past the Danish embassy.
We intended to make one last trip to the Vöffluvagninn, but when we got there around 5:30 PM, the said that they were closed. That was strange, because their hours were supposed to be open until 9 PM. Maybe they had special hours today that I hadn't noticed.
On our final trip down the hill, a restaurant caught Lisa's eye.
We stopped and had dinner at Salka Valka Kitchen, taking advantage of their open-air sidewalk seating, which was nice as the rain had cleared. In light of Lisa's dinner yesterday, she skipped the fish soup, but both of us had this salmon on rye bread: 9000 kr / $65 for the two of us including beverages.
We shared some of our dinner with Kuma Bear.
Finally, we returned to the hotel, where the inauguration festivities were mostly over and done with, except for a lone unicyclist riding back and forth in front of the Althing with an Icelandic flag.
We started the first part of our packing for the next leg of our trip, that being the flight from KEF to LHR tomorrow. Because we have an extra luggage allowance and I packed an extra soft-sided bag (a Montreal World Fantasy Convention bag), I can move some stuff into that bag so that we aren't living so close to the edge.
Unlike the other days we've been here, I've set an alarm for Friday morning, because we need to get going, have breakfast, finish packing, and be out of the hotel by 10:15 in order to catch the bus to the airport.
I logged more than 20,000 steps on my pedometer today, and wow are my feet sore. Being able to sit most of tomorrow should be welcome.