It should not have been a surprise that when we arrived it was snowing sideways. Very windy and super dark. We knew there wouldn't be much daylight but we hadn't paid attention to the details yet -- the sun came up at about 11 AM and went down around 3:30. When our plane landed amongst all the other Iceland Air jets and lots of big WOW planes (it seems like those are the only two airlines here), it was so crowded that we had to walk down the stairway outside and get blown into a waiting bus. In Hawaii, this is no hardship. Here, it shocked us all awake at 6:30 Iceland time.
Because Jon handles all the of the details of travel, I have no reason to fret. He frets constantly. While I sit with the luggage and knit, he waits in line for the rental car and perseverates about all that can go wrong. I read all the detailed instructions about what to be careful about (he doesn't ever read instructions) while he gets some Icelandic monopoly money from the ATM. When we plunge out into the blowing snow, he is disoriented by all that he has to worry about and we walk right past our car and wander around in the dark. As we turn around to look for some signs, his hat blows off and flies far into the parking lot. Of course we found the car and it worked fine and we figured out how to get out of the airport without any trouble.
Our house was just 8 minutes from the airport and we gladly came inside and took a nap until daylight. The hosts had generously said we could come anytime, since they had no guests the night before, and let ourselves in. We have a bed room, sitting room, bathroom, more than we need for such a brief visit.
Since we had a car and no plans, the easiest thing to do was start driving toward lunch. We headed toward a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik that was all about soup,about 45 minutes away. We drove through some rocky, bleak terrain -- nothing growing but some lichen or moss on the rocks. The occasional stubby pine tree. It felt like the island was just created in recent memory. Contrary to what we might have expected, many buildings have flat roofs. So it must not snow much here. It just blows sideways. The lava is what they would call a'a in Hawaii. Not the smooth kind, but the chunky, sharp kind.
The soup restaurant that we wanted was closed but right across the street there was a sign that said "We have the best soup in downtown." Good enough for us. We were early enough to be just ahead of the tourist crowd. I had "traditional Icelandic Meat Soup" made with lamb and lots of root vegetables, Jon had chicken soup with rice. Both were served in bread bowls made of rye bread. When we rate the food we eat, there are two categories: quality of food (compared to what we expected) and experience (the venue). The soup got a 3 and the experience was a 5. Not bad at all. If I can make a better soup than the restaurant, then they will probably never get more than a 3. But I appreciated the authentic vegetables -- partly because I cannot imagine how or where they can grow anything on this island. We didn't see any soil.
On our way out of town we saw a lot of runners finishing up a race. There were so many of them still bunched together that it made me think it must have been a short one, maybe a 5K. And they were all still wearing lots of clothes because they didn't warm up enough to take anything off. They were running along the waterfront, so it was pretty windy but it had stopped snowing by then.
We took a long route back to our starting point, going through more black and white scenery, lots of giant dunes and mossy lumpy terrain and huge sky.
There aren't many roads or settlements and there are no commercial establishments for miles and miles. The only road you can see is the one you are driving on, and today it was icy (ugh) and narrow-feeling because they don't do anything about the snow. Jon was unusually patient with my passenger-side driving. The roads are all built up about four feet above the regular ground, so falling off the side would be non-trivial. In this case, I am the one who worries but there were no issues at all.
We did go to the famous Blue Lagoon but we had already decided that it was too expensive for a quick stop ($70 each), it was way too cold, and it was getting dark. But we saw the location, we saw some of the blue water and if we had had more time to get revved up, we might have splurged. Mostly it was too cold to think about getting in and getting out.
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| We didn't go in the gates but we did get to see the hot, blue water. |
After a picnic dinner in our rooms while we watched Forrest Gump with Icelandic subtitles, we bundled up one more time so we could do our duty and go to see if there were any Northern Lights to be seen. The forecast was not optimistic -- it said on a scale of 0 - 9 it was a 3. But there were no clouds where we were and we had to go look. Just about every house has Christmas lights (to fight the darkness) and there is a lot of ambient light everywhere. We drove to the tip of the peninsula and peered north but saw nothing. It didn't help that there was a lighthouse just behind us, swooping a big beam of light past every few seconds. On the way home, we watched all the fireworks exploding all around the neighborhoods. Regular people have aerial fireworks here.
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| Jews have a lot to learn when it comes to cemetery presentation. |
