A Week in Iceland
Jason had a meeting in Finland the last week of school, so we decided that Alice and I would meet him in Reykjavik on his way home and spend a week showing her some of the country we fell in love with back in 2005.*
Sunday
While our outbound flight was delayed, we were alerted several hours earlier by text, so we were able to spend the additional 45 minutes at home, instead of hanging out at Logan. Once we arrived at the airport, things were remarkably smooth--a very short line at WOW Airlines' check-in and absolutely no one else ahead of us at security--I've never seen that before. Alice and I grabbed dinner and boarded our plane in a not-quite-finished section of Terminal E and then had a fairly smooth flight, sleeping much of the way.
On arrival at Keflavik, we made it through immigration and customs easily, picked up our rental car and a WiFi device that came in very handy throughout the trip, and made the 45-minute drive through light rain to Reykjavik. Since we didn't have Jason with us to navigate, I was very glad that the directions to our flat were "drive north for 43 minutes, turn left on a major street and take the third right". Our flat was just as pictured--two bedrooms and a living/dining room with a basic kitchen setup along one wall and a reasonable bathroom. One thing you can count on in Iceland is the water: plentiful (if slightly sulfurous) hot and delicious and bracing cold. The beds were both two-singles-pushed-together, which you find most places in Scandinavia, in my experience. Alice said that she wasn't at all tired, but would snuggle me to sleep and then go read.
Jason woke us up several hours later when he arrived. The plan had been for him to take a bus from the airport to the hotel across the street, but no one asked his destination and he ended up at the terminal about half an hour's walk from the flat, but didn't seem at all daunted by his jaunt. He valiantly pried us from our beds and we headed out to walk about half of the Laugavegur shopping street, before stocking up for the week at the Bonus grocery store (with a few smaller-quantity items purchased at the 10-11 convenience store) and heading home. We had a snack and then hung out for a couple of hours, intending to walk back out to find dinner. But by then Alice was pretty tired again and it was clear that she was coming down with a cold, so we just grabbed a pizza at the joint a block away. Jason and I had hoped to watch Game of Thrones that evening, but by the time Alice was asleep, so was I.
Monday
After twelve hours of sleep, we were in better shape, so after a stop at a pharmacy for cold meds we headed out on our Golden Circle tour. This is the mainstay of Iceland excursions and Jason and I had done it by bus in 2005, but this time we had the freedom to set our own agenda and Jason came up with a great plan for the day. We started by exploring Thingvellir, a valley on the Mid-Atlantic Rift where the Althing, Iceland's proto-Parliament, met for almost a thousand years. The next stop was lunch at a dairy and horse farm, Efsti-Dalur, which turned out to be perhaps the best meal of our whole trip. We ordered the mushroom soup--earthy, salty, creamy, perfect--and the sampler starter plate that included beef carpaccio, smoked trout on toast, and a bacon-cheeseburger cut in quarters and served over french fries. For dessert we had some of the amazing yogurt, or skyr, with strawberries. Alice also got some ice cream and to see the baby calves in the barn next door before we got back on the road. Our next stop was Gullfoss, one of the most amazing waterfalls I've ever seen. As we got out of the car at Geysir it began to rain, but we just grabbed our umbrellas and headed out in the geyser field. The original Great Geysir rarely erupts these days, but nearby Strokkur went off three times as we strolled through the area, once as we were close enough to see the astonishing bubble it creates just before blowing. At Fridheimar we got to check out their greenhouse tomato operation that generates more than a ton of fruit every day. We heard about the local, renewable sources of their inputs and got to see some of the bumblebees they import from the Netherlands to handle pollination. After a quick drink of their tasty tomato juice, we went on down the road to the Secret Lagoon, where we enjoyed a relaxing dip in the hot spring. Unfortunately Alice got a little overheated and disoriented, but a cold shower and drink revived her quickly and we headed back to town for a very tasty dinner at Osta Budin. That included my favorite fish of the week, a lovely pan-seared Artic char. Back at the flat after a very long day we got Alice into bed and then finally watched the Battle of the Bastards episode of GoT.
Tuesday
We had a good breakfast at the flat and then headed out to Fákasel, the Icelandic Horse Park. We had a nice lunch there that included the smoked lamb soup that is a staple of Icelandic cooking--it reminded me so much of the one my mother used to make. Then we went down the road to Eldhestar, a neighboring farm where the riding tour we'd booked through the Fákasel website was actually departing. It was raining again, so we suited up in full waterproof gear, having learned from our previous trail ride in the rain just how wet it was possible to get on horseback. We were in a group of seven, with another family of four, but the older daughter decided after a few minutes in the paddock that she was too scared to continue and the mom dropped out with her, so it was just the five of us out on the trail. The Icelandic horses are smaller than other breeds (big enough that Alice didn't notice a difference, but short enough that I could comfortably put my arm across my mount's withers. Their pleasant temperament and their thicker coats and manes make them seem cozy and friendly and their smooth gaits made for an excellent ride. After an hour's wandering around the fields of the farm, as the rain came and went, we said goodbye and made our way back to Fákasel for their short show that gave some of the history of the breed and showed off their unusual gaits. We got to meet one of the horses, a beautiful palomino named Valtish, and talk with her rider after the show. Then we piled into the car and drove around the coastal road through varieties of volcanic landscapes to the Blue Lagoon. It has changed quite a bit since we were last there--the locker rooms are sleeker than the ones I remember and they seem to be harvesting the silica mud more assiduously, so that the floor is smoother. They've expanded the pool, making it at least half-again as large, and you can't approach the source of the water any more. Our favorite section was one I dubbed "Noodle Cove," where an attendant in a lovely floral swim cap was handing out noodles for floating around in an area defined by one of the bridges. It was still a lovely experience and the one Alice is most likely to mention as her favorite, despite the lasting effects of the water on our hair. I think next time I go, I'll invest in a swim cap of my own and avoid the sensation of having conditioned with glue. Having only snacked in their cafe before our swim, we decided to grab a pizza at Devito's again before getting Alice to bed, and then watched the season finale of Game of Thrones.
Wednesday
Having had a fairly late night, we were glad to have planned a relatively late departure on Wednesday morning. We drove down to the southern coast, stopping along the way for coffee and a snack at a rest stop in the last town before the terminal, and caught the 12:30pm ferry over to Heimaey, the Westman Islands. Jason had planned that we would take the car with us, but we were waitlisted for both the over and return trips, so rather than risk getting caught with our car on one side and our beds on the other, we left the car parked on the mainland. That was the day that I felt the sickest, so I was delighted to find a comfortable couch in a warm corner and nap my way across. Once on Heimaey, we had only a few minutes to wander around before it was time for our boat tour. The boat had saddle seats with backrests and handles, so that in calm waters we could sit, but when the waves started to bounce us around we could stand and move with the waves, rather than having them slam our spines into a normal seat. Alice could only touch on one side, so she was in a middle seat with her dad behind her, holding onto the scruff of her life jacket to keep her from slamming her head against the headrest. We were disappointed that because the waves were especially rough, we couldn't make it around to the puffin breeding grounds, but we had a marvelous time racing over the waves to blaring 80's music, and then drifting into and even through several of the sea caves in the smaller islands of the chain. The volcanic rock formations are amazing and and there were tons of other birds--mostly gulls and guillemots--to see. After an hour we made our way back into the harbor and made a stop at the local aquarium, where we did get to meet a puffin, a rescue bird named Toti who was very curious about Alice's jacket and let her pet him. Then we walked up the hill, and up, and up, and turned left and walked up the hill some more, and then right and up to the very edge of town, where the cone of Eldfell looms over the Eldheimar, a museum built over the excavated remains of one of the many homes buried by the 1973 eruption that destroyed more than half the town and expanded the island by about two square kilometers. The other exhibit in the building explores the creation of Surtsey by volcanic eruption from 1963 to 1967 and the subsequent development of that island and its ecosystem. We spent about an hour there, then walked back down and down and down to the harbor, where we had a very pleasant dinner at Tanginn, including very tasty smoked cod croquettes and some of the best lobster bisque I've ever had. Sadly they fumbled the order and didn't bring the lamb Jason had ordered, but we had plenty of food to go around and too little time before our ferry. Full of good food, we boarded the very crowded boat and the only seats we could find were in the video room, so we watched some of Iceland's UEFA victory over England from the night before as we made our way back to the mainland. As we headed back toward Reykjavik, Jason couldn't find his sunglasses, so we stopped at the same place we'd gotten coffee in the morning, thinking he might have left them there and as we got out of the car he was able to see them under his seat--so that worked!
I haven't said much about the whole "midnight sun," in part because we rarely saw the sun at any hour, it being mostly overcast during our trip. But it never did get dark. This wasn't a problem for sleeping, as our bedrooms had good blackout shades and none of us are especially light-sensitive, and it meant that we never had to worry about driving home on unfamiliar roads in the dark.
Thursday
Our first three days had involved a lot of driving, so I was happy to drive only as far as the Reykjavik City airport, ten minutes from our flat, on Thursday morning. We had a bit of confusion finding the right terminal, but eventually located the Air Iceland desk and checked in for our flight to Kulusuk, Greenland. As we descended from the clouds we could see the mountains and the blindingly white icebergs floating in dark blue water.
We landed on the unpaved runway and met our guide, Johanna, in the small terminal. She is an anthropologist from Iceland, working mainly with the children of Kulusuk during the summers. She was joined by her new intern, Suluaga (sp?), who invited us to call him "Sulu". He was from Southern Greenland and had arrived only the week before and was finding Kulusuk very exciting and different from where he grew up. When I asked how it's different, he said "Well, we have paved roads and electricity and running water..."
It was about 42 degrees Fahrenheit, cold enough that we were glad we'd brought our hats and gloves. Johanna mentioned that it was an especially warm winter--the polar bears that the villagers usually hunt during the season never came far enough south for the hunters to reach them this year. The relatively chilly temperature by our standards didn't discourage the mosquitos, which were out in force. We didn't notice any bites later, but having them flying at and into our eyes, noses and mouths was pretty disconcerting. I wish that someone had suggested bringing bug repellent along.
Our group of a dozen tourists walked down the road to the village--the only road--pausing to hear about the mountain and the hotel and the DEW Line station over the hill. We stopped at the cemetery of cairn-graves--as Johanna put it, there is no "underground" in Greenland, even the electrical wires run just over the ground--marked by white crosses. There are no names, because of the traditional belief that one's name lives on to re-enter the world when it is given to a newborn. From there we hiked on up the hill for a splendid view of the village and the Torsuut Tunoq sound. To rejoin the road we had to scramble down a fairly steep, snow-covered incline. I managed to put my foot on a soft spot and wind up with my left leg embedded up to my hip. Fortunately Sulu was there with a helping hand and I made it safely back down to the road.
Johanna pointed out the house that she and Sulu share--red, like all the other government buildings--by the shore of the small freshwater lake that provides the town's drinking water. We passed several packs of sled dogs lying around and she explained that in summer they are no use at all and some of their owners take them over to one of the smaller islands for the season and just drop off food--it takes four seals a week to feed a pack. We visited the grocery store, open only during the summer, when the supply ships can reach the village. They sell everything from canned goods to shoes to rifles--you have to be twelve to buy one of those--and it's also the post office. I had mistakenly thought that lunch was provided, so we'd come without a plan and ended up buying some salami, cheese, and chips to tide us over. Our next stop was a tiny museum about traditional life and crafts of the local people. We walked past the school--they're very proud of having the highest marks in all of Greenland, earning them the right to continue schooling their kids locally until age 15, whereas most villages have to send their kids to regional boarding schools at age 12--and on to the church, built by the crew of a Danish ship that ran aground there in the early 20th century. On the way we passed some people playing with some Husky puppies, so Alice got to pet one of those.
After seeing the inside of the church, we went out and sat on rocks overlooking a smooth, grassy area along the shore, where a local woman performed a traditional drum dance, in the local ceremonial garb that included seal-fur shorts and an unusual topknot. The drum resembled a bodhran, but was played by striking the underside of the frame, rather than the head. The dancer's voice was soft and died away in the vast surroundings, with a tone that somehow balanced between sweet and eerie, as she sang a story of children playing.
After the performance we walked down to the edge of the water, where three boats waited to take us back to the airport. Gliding through the icebergs as the rain began to fall softly, staring at the other-worldly blue undersides of the ice, was a truly magical experience and worth the entire trip. We hiked back up the hill to the airport, got our passports stamped, and boarded our return flight to Iceland.
On the ground in Reykjavik, we were early enough to get a table at Old Iceland, which had been full the previous time we'd tried. I had a lovely seafood chowder and the daily special of red snapper, while Jason had the beef tenderloin in a green peppercorn sauce, and Alice chose the penne in a cream sauce topped with a filet of fish (more of the snapper, I think). In general, she was really great about trying new things and finding food that she could enjoy. She usually doesn't care much for fish, but she ate quite a bit of this, and especially liked the smoked trout we had at Efsti-Dalur. We decided to skip dessert there in favor of finding an ice cream shop--we kept hearing how much the Icelanders love ice cream, but hadn't seen a place to get it in the city. The one we found was serving gelato--I found the caramel overly sweet, but Alice was very happy with her cup of chocolate and we headed back to the flat very satisfied with our day.
One of the things that made our trip easy was the general availability of parking, even in the busiest tourist areas of the city. We could usually park right in front of our flat and never had to go more than two blocks to find a spot whenever we needed one. There are pay stations on each block that accept credit cards and an hour was 100 kroner, or about eighty cents. Plus it's free after 6pm and all day on Sundays.
Friday
We spent about three hours on Friday at the National Museum of Iceland. Their collection explores the history of Iceland from Settlement to the present. There were a lot of fascinating objects and explanations of the forces that shaped their lives in this isolated and challenging place. One of those things was the relatively high degree of mobility among the farm workers, who were on annual contracts and frequently moved to find better situations, a factor that is considered key in the uniformity of the Icelandic language, which never developed separate geographical dialects. We had a nice lunch in the cafe between the 16th and 17th centuries, and then continued through the modern era. One thing that was mentioned twice, but only in passing, was the occupation of Iceland during WW II by first the British and then US armies. There was also a special exhibit on A Woman's Place in Iceland over the century since they won the right to vote, which Alice seemed to find particularly engrossing.
After a nap back at the flat, we drove down to Harpa, the conference and performing arts center on the waterfront, where we parked and then wandered the lower reaches of Laugavegur, buying a few souvenirs, until it was time to meet Jason's college friends. Mark works for CCP, the company that makes Eve Online, and he and Nancy moved to Reykjavik in 2014. We joined them for dinner at Grillmarket and had great conversation and a really wonderful tasting menu. We got a plate of lamb for Alice, while the rest of us went with the family-style tasting menu, but she ended up tasting everything. Our dinner included a warm duck salad, crispy fish bits, minke whale, puffin sliders (Alice declared that puffins are very cute, and also tasty!), a filet of cod (I think), beef tenderloin, rack of lamb, and an amazing sampler of desserts with a focus on passionfruit and an amazing white chocolate berry cobbler.
By the time we were done with dinner, we had to really run back to Harpa. There was a funny bit with the tickets, where I hadn't printed out the confirmation, and the box office person's solution was to have me email it to her from my phone, so she could print out the tickets for us. So we missed the very first moment of the show and entered the theatre in a complete blackout--oops! But once the lights came on, we were able to take our places in the front row of the alley-style seating for Icelandic Sagas: The Greatest Hits. In a performance that owed much to The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), two actors performed (or at least referred to) forty sagas in seventy-five minutes. We all enjoyed it, but Jason may have had the best time, getting pulled up on stage to play the part of a blood brother dubbed "Justin Timberlake". We laughed at their antics and learned some valuable lessons ("Never mix skyr and beer!") and had a marvelous time.
Saturday
Our journey home was a tale of contrasts. With our check-out time at noon and our flight not until 3:30pm we were able to have a relaxed final morning, eating up almost everything in the fridge, packing up our stuff, and cleaning up the flat. We left right at noon and drove easily back to Keflavik, at which point things got trickier. First I got into a conflict with the rental car company, which wanted to charge me outrageous amounts for a tiny chip in the windshield--that was all very tense and held us up for about half an hour. When we finally got to the terminal, it was mobbed and the WOW kiosk decided that my passport number was invalid, so Alice and I stood in line, instead, only to find out that it was the wrong line, so we had to stand in another line--fortunately both were fast-moving--in order to check in and pay the outrageous fees WOW charges for checked bags. After that, another quick and smooth trip through security seemed only our due. We got a pizza on the main concourse, resisted the impulse to bring home some smoked lamb, and then Jason escorted us to our gate and waved us goodbye. We ran into a slight delay on the tarmac, but eventually pulled away and had an uneventful flight, but at Logan they didn't have a gate for us and when they found one, couldn't get the jetway to work. But once we were in the terminal the rest of the travel-obstacle-course through immigration, baggage claim, and customs was pretty fast moving. Beckie zipped in to pick us up--then got stuck in a crazy jam right at the entrance to Terminal E--and whisked us over to Belle Isle Seafood, which was completely mobbed, so we ended up at Blackstrap BBQ instead (perfectly fine, if you need a place in Winthrop, but not worth the trip when you have Redbones or, better yet, Blue Ribbon closer by). By the time we were ordering, Jason was on the ground, so we got him take-out, and by the time we'd picked up ice cream at Twist & Shake (butterscotch soft-serve and watermelon slushie--must be summer) he was ready to be picked up as well, so we could all come home together.
Overall, it was a very good trip, despite Alice and I having colds for most of it. We ate lots of tasty food, had marvelous adventures and saw more of the amazing landscape that reminds us so much of Hawaii, only completely different. We're already talking about what we would do on our next trip--Jokulsarlon tops the list, I'm interested in snorkling in the rift, and I'd still like to see more puffins! It was good to have a break and to spend so much time together and now it's lovely to be back.
*There are several journal entries from the 2005 trip, starting here, if you're interested in seeing those.
Sunday
While our outbound flight was delayed, we were alerted several hours earlier by text, so we were able to spend the additional 45 minutes at home, instead of hanging out at Logan. Once we arrived at the airport, things were remarkably smooth--a very short line at WOW Airlines' check-in and absolutely no one else ahead of us at security--I've never seen that before. Alice and I grabbed dinner and boarded our plane in a not-quite-finished section of Terminal E and then had a fairly smooth flight, sleeping much of the way.
On arrival at Keflavik, we made it through immigration and customs easily, picked up our rental car and a WiFi device that came in very handy throughout the trip, and made the 45-minute drive through light rain to Reykjavik. Since we didn't have Jason with us to navigate, I was very glad that the directions to our flat were "drive north for 43 minutes, turn left on a major street and take the third right". Our flat was just as pictured--two bedrooms and a living/dining room with a basic kitchen setup along one wall and a reasonable bathroom. One thing you can count on in Iceland is the water: plentiful (if slightly sulfurous) hot and delicious and bracing cold. The beds were both two-singles-pushed-together, which you find most places in Scandinavia, in my experience. Alice said that she wasn't at all tired, but would snuggle me to sleep and then go read.
Jason woke us up several hours later when he arrived. The plan had been for him to take a bus from the airport to the hotel across the street, but no one asked his destination and he ended up at the terminal about half an hour's walk from the flat, but didn't seem at all daunted by his jaunt. He valiantly pried us from our beds and we headed out to walk about half of the Laugavegur shopping street, before stocking up for the week at the Bonus grocery store (with a few smaller-quantity items purchased at the 10-11 convenience store) and heading home. We had a snack and then hung out for a couple of hours, intending to walk back out to find dinner. But by then Alice was pretty tired again and it was clear that she was coming down with a cold, so we just grabbed a pizza at the joint a block away. Jason and I had hoped to watch Game of Thrones that evening, but by the time Alice was asleep, so was I.
Monday
After twelve hours of sleep, we were in better shape, so after a stop at a pharmacy for cold meds we headed out on our Golden Circle tour. This is the mainstay of Iceland excursions and Jason and I had done it by bus in 2005, but this time we had the freedom to set our own agenda and Jason came up with a great plan for the day. We started by exploring Thingvellir, a valley on the Mid-Atlantic Rift where the Althing, Iceland's proto-Parliament, met for almost a thousand years. The next stop was lunch at a dairy and horse farm, Efsti-Dalur, which turned out to be perhaps the best meal of our whole trip. We ordered the mushroom soup--earthy, salty, creamy, perfect--and the sampler starter plate that included beef carpaccio, smoked trout on toast, and a bacon-cheeseburger cut in quarters and served over french fries. For dessert we had some of the amazing yogurt, or skyr, with strawberries. Alice also got some ice cream and to see the baby calves in the barn next door before we got back on the road. Our next stop was Gullfoss, one of the most amazing waterfalls I've ever seen. As we got out of the car at Geysir it began to rain, but we just grabbed our umbrellas and headed out in the geyser field. The original Great Geysir rarely erupts these days, but nearby Strokkur went off three times as we strolled through the area, once as we were close enough to see the astonishing bubble it creates just before blowing. At Fridheimar we got to check out their greenhouse tomato operation that generates more than a ton of fruit every day. We heard about the local, renewable sources of their inputs and got to see some of the bumblebees they import from the Netherlands to handle pollination. After a quick drink of their tasty tomato juice, we went on down the road to the Secret Lagoon, where we enjoyed a relaxing dip in the hot spring. Unfortunately Alice got a little overheated and disoriented, but a cold shower and drink revived her quickly and we headed back to town for a very tasty dinner at Osta Budin. That included my favorite fish of the week, a lovely pan-seared Artic char. Back at the flat after a very long day we got Alice into bed and then finally watched the Battle of the Bastards episode of GoT.
Tuesday
We had a good breakfast at the flat and then headed out to Fákasel, the Icelandic Horse Park. We had a nice lunch there that included the smoked lamb soup that is a staple of Icelandic cooking--it reminded me so much of the one my mother used to make. Then we went down the road to Eldhestar, a neighboring farm where the riding tour we'd booked through the Fákasel website was actually departing. It was raining again, so we suited up in full waterproof gear, having learned from our previous trail ride in the rain just how wet it was possible to get on horseback. We were in a group of seven, with another family of four, but the older daughter decided after a few minutes in the paddock that she was too scared to continue and the mom dropped out with her, so it was just the five of us out on the trail. The Icelandic horses are smaller than other breeds (big enough that Alice didn't notice a difference, but short enough that I could comfortably put my arm across my mount's withers. Their pleasant temperament and their thicker coats and manes make them seem cozy and friendly and their smooth gaits made for an excellent ride. After an hour's wandering around the fields of the farm, as the rain came and went, we said goodbye and made our way back to Fákasel for their short show that gave some of the history of the breed and showed off their unusual gaits. We got to meet one of the horses, a beautiful palomino named Valtish, and talk with her rider after the show. Then we piled into the car and drove around the coastal road through varieties of volcanic landscapes to the Blue Lagoon. It has changed quite a bit since we were last there--the locker rooms are sleeker than the ones I remember and they seem to be harvesting the silica mud more assiduously, so that the floor is smoother. They've expanded the pool, making it at least half-again as large, and you can't approach the source of the water any more. Our favorite section was one I dubbed "Noodle Cove," where an attendant in a lovely floral swim cap was handing out noodles for floating around in an area defined by one of the bridges. It was still a lovely experience and the one Alice is most likely to mention as her favorite, despite the lasting effects of the water on our hair. I think next time I go, I'll invest in a swim cap of my own and avoid the sensation of having conditioned with glue. Having only snacked in their cafe before our swim, we decided to grab a pizza at Devito's again before getting Alice to bed, and then watched the season finale of Game of Thrones.
Wednesday
Having had a fairly late night, we were glad to have planned a relatively late departure on Wednesday morning. We drove down to the southern coast, stopping along the way for coffee and a snack at a rest stop in the last town before the terminal, and caught the 12:30pm ferry over to Heimaey, the Westman Islands. Jason had planned that we would take the car with us, but we were waitlisted for both the over and return trips, so rather than risk getting caught with our car on one side and our beds on the other, we left the car parked on the mainland. That was the day that I felt the sickest, so I was delighted to find a comfortable couch in a warm corner and nap my way across. Once on Heimaey, we had only a few minutes to wander around before it was time for our boat tour. The boat had saddle seats with backrests and handles, so that in calm waters we could sit, but when the waves started to bounce us around we could stand and move with the waves, rather than having them slam our spines into a normal seat. Alice could only touch on one side, so she was in a middle seat with her dad behind her, holding onto the scruff of her life jacket to keep her from slamming her head against the headrest. We were disappointed that because the waves were especially rough, we couldn't make it around to the puffin breeding grounds, but we had a marvelous time racing over the waves to blaring 80's music, and then drifting into and even through several of the sea caves in the smaller islands of the chain. The volcanic rock formations are amazing and and there were tons of other birds--mostly gulls and guillemots--to see. After an hour we made our way back into the harbor and made a stop at the local aquarium, where we did get to meet a puffin, a rescue bird named Toti who was very curious about Alice's jacket and let her pet him. Then we walked up the hill, and up, and up, and turned left and walked up the hill some more, and then right and up to the very edge of town, where the cone of Eldfell looms over the Eldheimar, a museum built over the excavated remains of one of the many homes buried by the 1973 eruption that destroyed more than half the town and expanded the island by about two square kilometers. The other exhibit in the building explores the creation of Surtsey by volcanic eruption from 1963 to 1967 and the subsequent development of that island and its ecosystem. We spent about an hour there, then walked back down and down and down to the harbor, where we had a very pleasant dinner at Tanginn, including very tasty smoked cod croquettes and some of the best lobster bisque I've ever had. Sadly they fumbled the order and didn't bring the lamb Jason had ordered, but we had plenty of food to go around and too little time before our ferry. Full of good food, we boarded the very crowded boat and the only seats we could find were in the video room, so we watched some of Iceland's UEFA victory over England from the night before as we made our way back to the mainland. As we headed back toward Reykjavik, Jason couldn't find his sunglasses, so we stopped at the same place we'd gotten coffee in the morning, thinking he might have left them there and as we got out of the car he was able to see them under his seat--so that worked!
I haven't said much about the whole "midnight sun," in part because we rarely saw the sun at any hour, it being mostly overcast during our trip. But it never did get dark. This wasn't a problem for sleeping, as our bedrooms had good blackout shades and none of us are especially light-sensitive, and it meant that we never had to worry about driving home on unfamiliar roads in the dark.
Thursday
Our first three days had involved a lot of driving, so I was happy to drive only as far as the Reykjavik City airport, ten minutes from our flat, on Thursday morning. We had a bit of confusion finding the right terminal, but eventually located the Air Iceland desk and checked in for our flight to Kulusuk, Greenland. As we descended from the clouds we could see the mountains and the blindingly white icebergs floating in dark blue water.
We landed on the unpaved runway and met our guide, Johanna, in the small terminal. She is an anthropologist from Iceland, working mainly with the children of Kulusuk during the summers. She was joined by her new intern, Suluaga (sp?), who invited us to call him "Sulu". He was from Southern Greenland and had arrived only the week before and was finding Kulusuk very exciting and different from where he grew up. When I asked how it's different, he said "Well, we have paved roads and electricity and running water..."
It was about 42 degrees Fahrenheit, cold enough that we were glad we'd brought our hats and gloves. Johanna mentioned that it was an especially warm winter--the polar bears that the villagers usually hunt during the season never came far enough south for the hunters to reach them this year. The relatively chilly temperature by our standards didn't discourage the mosquitos, which were out in force. We didn't notice any bites later, but having them flying at and into our eyes, noses and mouths was pretty disconcerting. I wish that someone had suggested bringing bug repellent along.
Our group of a dozen tourists walked down the road to the village--the only road--pausing to hear about the mountain and the hotel and the DEW Line station over the hill. We stopped at the cemetery of cairn-graves--as Johanna put it, there is no "underground" in Greenland, even the electrical wires run just over the ground--marked by white crosses. There are no names, because of the traditional belief that one's name lives on to re-enter the world when it is given to a newborn. From there we hiked on up the hill for a splendid view of the village and the Torsuut Tunoq sound. To rejoin the road we had to scramble down a fairly steep, snow-covered incline. I managed to put my foot on a soft spot and wind up with my left leg embedded up to my hip. Fortunately Sulu was there with a helping hand and I made it safely back down to the road.
Johanna pointed out the house that she and Sulu share--red, like all the other government buildings--by the shore of the small freshwater lake that provides the town's drinking water. We passed several packs of sled dogs lying around and she explained that in summer they are no use at all and some of their owners take them over to one of the smaller islands for the season and just drop off food--it takes four seals a week to feed a pack. We visited the grocery store, open only during the summer, when the supply ships can reach the village. They sell everything from canned goods to shoes to rifles--you have to be twelve to buy one of those--and it's also the post office. I had mistakenly thought that lunch was provided, so we'd come without a plan and ended up buying some salami, cheese, and chips to tide us over. Our next stop was a tiny museum about traditional life and crafts of the local people. We walked past the school--they're very proud of having the highest marks in all of Greenland, earning them the right to continue schooling their kids locally until age 15, whereas most villages have to send their kids to regional boarding schools at age 12--and on to the church, built by the crew of a Danish ship that ran aground there in the early 20th century. On the way we passed some people playing with some Husky puppies, so Alice got to pet one of those.
After seeing the inside of the church, we went out and sat on rocks overlooking a smooth, grassy area along the shore, where a local woman performed a traditional drum dance, in the local ceremonial garb that included seal-fur shorts and an unusual topknot. The drum resembled a bodhran, but was played by striking the underside of the frame, rather than the head. The dancer's voice was soft and died away in the vast surroundings, with a tone that somehow balanced between sweet and eerie, as she sang a story of children playing.
After the performance we walked down to the edge of the water, where three boats waited to take us back to the airport. Gliding through the icebergs as the rain began to fall softly, staring at the other-worldly blue undersides of the ice, was a truly magical experience and worth the entire trip. We hiked back up the hill to the airport, got our passports stamped, and boarded our return flight to Iceland.
On the ground in Reykjavik, we were early enough to get a table at Old Iceland, which had been full the previous time we'd tried. I had a lovely seafood chowder and the daily special of red snapper, while Jason had the beef tenderloin in a green peppercorn sauce, and Alice chose the penne in a cream sauce topped with a filet of fish (more of the snapper, I think). In general, she was really great about trying new things and finding food that she could enjoy. She usually doesn't care much for fish, but she ate quite a bit of this, and especially liked the smoked trout we had at Efsti-Dalur. We decided to skip dessert there in favor of finding an ice cream shop--we kept hearing how much the Icelanders love ice cream, but hadn't seen a place to get it in the city. The one we found was serving gelato--I found the caramel overly sweet, but Alice was very happy with her cup of chocolate and we headed back to the flat very satisfied with our day.
One of the things that made our trip easy was the general availability of parking, even in the busiest tourist areas of the city. We could usually park right in front of our flat and never had to go more than two blocks to find a spot whenever we needed one. There are pay stations on each block that accept credit cards and an hour was 100 kroner, or about eighty cents. Plus it's free after 6pm and all day on Sundays.
Friday
We spent about three hours on Friday at the National Museum of Iceland. Their collection explores the history of Iceland from Settlement to the present. There were a lot of fascinating objects and explanations of the forces that shaped their lives in this isolated and challenging place. One of those things was the relatively high degree of mobility among the farm workers, who were on annual contracts and frequently moved to find better situations, a factor that is considered key in the uniformity of the Icelandic language, which never developed separate geographical dialects. We had a nice lunch in the cafe between the 16th and 17th centuries, and then continued through the modern era. One thing that was mentioned twice, but only in passing, was the occupation of Iceland during WW II by first the British and then US armies. There was also a special exhibit on A Woman's Place in Iceland over the century since they won the right to vote, which Alice seemed to find particularly engrossing.
After a nap back at the flat, we drove down to Harpa, the conference and performing arts center on the waterfront, where we parked and then wandered the lower reaches of Laugavegur, buying a few souvenirs, until it was time to meet Jason's college friends. Mark works for CCP, the company that makes Eve Online, and he and Nancy moved to Reykjavik in 2014. We joined them for dinner at Grillmarket and had great conversation and a really wonderful tasting menu. We got a plate of lamb for Alice, while the rest of us went with the family-style tasting menu, but she ended up tasting everything. Our dinner included a warm duck salad, crispy fish bits, minke whale, puffin sliders (Alice declared that puffins are very cute, and also tasty!), a filet of cod (I think), beef tenderloin, rack of lamb, and an amazing sampler of desserts with a focus on passionfruit and an amazing white chocolate berry cobbler.
By the time we were done with dinner, we had to really run back to Harpa. There was a funny bit with the tickets, where I hadn't printed out the confirmation, and the box office person's solution was to have me email it to her from my phone, so she could print out the tickets for us. So we missed the very first moment of the show and entered the theatre in a complete blackout--oops! But once the lights came on, we were able to take our places in the front row of the alley-style seating for Icelandic Sagas: The Greatest Hits. In a performance that owed much to The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), two actors performed (or at least referred to) forty sagas in seventy-five minutes. We all enjoyed it, but Jason may have had the best time, getting pulled up on stage to play the part of a blood brother dubbed "Justin Timberlake". We laughed at their antics and learned some valuable lessons ("Never mix skyr and beer!") and had a marvelous time.
Saturday
Our journey home was a tale of contrasts. With our check-out time at noon and our flight not until 3:30pm we were able to have a relaxed final morning, eating up almost everything in the fridge, packing up our stuff, and cleaning up the flat. We left right at noon and drove easily back to Keflavik, at which point things got trickier. First I got into a conflict with the rental car company, which wanted to charge me outrageous amounts for a tiny chip in the windshield--that was all very tense and held us up for about half an hour. When we finally got to the terminal, it was mobbed and the WOW kiosk decided that my passport number was invalid, so Alice and I stood in line, instead, only to find out that it was the wrong line, so we had to stand in another line--fortunately both were fast-moving--in order to check in and pay the outrageous fees WOW charges for checked bags. After that, another quick and smooth trip through security seemed only our due. We got a pizza on the main concourse, resisted the impulse to bring home some smoked lamb, and then Jason escorted us to our gate and waved us goodbye. We ran into a slight delay on the tarmac, but eventually pulled away and had an uneventful flight, but at Logan they didn't have a gate for us and when they found one, couldn't get the jetway to work. But once we were in the terminal the rest of the travel-obstacle-course through immigration, baggage claim, and customs was pretty fast moving. Beckie zipped in to pick us up--then got stuck in a crazy jam right at the entrance to Terminal E--and whisked us over to Belle Isle Seafood, which was completely mobbed, so we ended up at Blackstrap BBQ instead (perfectly fine, if you need a place in Winthrop, but not worth the trip when you have Redbones or, better yet, Blue Ribbon closer by). By the time we were ordering, Jason was on the ground, so we got him take-out, and by the time we'd picked up ice cream at Twist & Shake (butterscotch soft-serve and watermelon slushie--must be summer) he was ready to be picked up as well, so we could all come home together.
Overall, it was a very good trip, despite Alice and I having colds for most of it. We ate lots of tasty food, had marvelous adventures and saw more of the amazing landscape that reminds us so much of Hawaii, only completely different. We're already talking about what we would do on our next trip--Jokulsarlon tops the list, I'm interested in snorkling in the rift, and I'd still like to see more puffins! It was good to have a break and to spend so much time together and now it's lovely to be back.
*There are several journal entries from the 2005 trip, starting here, if you're interested in seeing those.