I went to Iceland .. it is a cool place

Iceland is not too far from here and has a lot that is familiar and a lot that is new.   When I discovered that they would let me in by showing my vaccination certificate and I would take another test on arrival and be a good boy and go to my hotel for a few hours, I knew I was going.  So I did.

The Hotel Alda was fine.  Soft down duvets on the beds bring a touch of home and I even managed to work out how to construct my shower, as two of the ‘walls’ were folded against the wall, so I could have  more room in the bathroom …. just WHY I needed more room I was not sure about but it was very comforting to know that had I decided to entertain there, then we would have enough space to be adequately accommodated.  But there was still only one place to sit.  I ate my regulation Icelandic skyr for breakfast (think yoghurt) and of course felt very Ice-better for that.  Ices like their food which everywhere is very fresh and wholesome.   I ate a LOT of cod, but that is a good thing as I like cod and this is the WHQ for it.  There is always a ‘fish of the day’ on the menu and it is always cod.  It may be the law.

Reykjavik is a manageable place as it is really just an overgrown town, now with lots of suburbia.  They do love cube shaped buildings, often with much smaller windows than I would have expected. I began to think of it as the new Legoland, except that the big ones are all a dreary grey.  It reminded me in a way of Warsaw, which is ALL dreary grey buildings.  But the older individual houses are very cute as they like to paint them all colors, so just walking around the inner part of downtown, it is quite a mass of color.  I noticed that the traffic lights change faster than in the rest of world, which must the most useless bit of info you are receiving today, but if you come here and hire a car, it might just save your life.  Everyone is driving new cars and I even had my first Tesla sighting. Not that I really get excited about cars, but I just thought I should mention it here.

I went to several restaux and bars with Bjorg, as we were often meeting up with some of the crew members I had met when they operated the private jet trips, so it was great to see them.  Ice ladies are FUN !  We ate and drank and laughed a lot.  And I discovered that not only does Ice have good vodkas, they are quite in to some very different gins.  There was barely time to scratch that surface….

One day we went driving out of the city and went past a prison (which is probably a 3* facility) and also a cod liver oil factory.  I just hope they do not have what the French would call a ‘salon de degustation’ as that would not be to my taste. We inspected a lovely old wooden Lutheran church, set on a small bluff virtually on the lava rocks beach.  In dim winter light, it would be a perfect set for an Ingmar Bergmann film and Death would have been sitting right outside.  And there we bumped in to the lovely blonde Sigga, who I had been drinking champagne with the evening before.  Iceland is quite small ! 

 

And we stopped at the Þingvellir National Park to see the waterfall and also the celebrated crack in the rocks which stretches for miles and show just how platetechtonics work once they come out of the sea.   Note that funny looking letter.  It is the Ice. equivalent of ‘th’, so do not pronounce as Ping but Thing.   This may be on the test.

On the coast, the Arctic Tern’s swooped around overhead.  They are so elegantly shaped and are more like small fighter planes than birds.   There are a LOT of dandelions everywhere.  Ices see them as pretty yellow flowers, whereas I was brought up to kick the heads off to prevent the seeds spreading..  One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

The south-western part of Iceland, which is where I was, is really just one huge lava field from previous eruptions, over hundreds of thousands of years. In winter, it presents a very boring grey look but come Spring, aka now, then the mosses start to grow back and with a few days of rain and mild temperatures, then the whole place will become green. Walls are built of lava and soon they will all have a green cap.

One day we had lunch in the middle of a working tomato farm.  Cherry tomato vines going up about ten feet above us. All in the huge heated greenhouses, so a damp and very tomato scented atmosphere.  The menu mainly featured tomatoes too, so you can help yourself to as much tomato soup and home-made breads as you wished.  We then had some barrata cheese and huge thick slices of enormous yellow and red beefsteak tomatoes.  I am sure we were glowing a good pink afterwards.  Some cute Icelandic horses outside liked their heads stroked.  They have the regulation short legs and are very friendly and are slightly cave-man-picture like.

And then I had some more cod.   When I asked what the fish of the day was and the young waiter replied ‘cod’, I feigned huge shock and he thought I was very funny.  I suppose the locals just take it for granted.

We went to a very realistic audio/visual presentation called Fly Over Iceland.  It had all been filmed from a camera slung under the nose of a helicopter. We were strapped into our seats and suddenly it was all huge screen and we were whooshing up and down, over the edge of mountains and practically through waterfalls.  It was all VERY realistic and made you feel you were sitting on the front of the helicopter.  With my total fear of heights, I just had to shut my eyes often or I wudda passed out.  I am not sure if the seats moved, it sure felt like it and they even managed a sort of misting effect when near a waterfall, which was amazingly real.  The power of auto-suggestion. But the scenery was fabulous and the Ices are all going to see it and it is not just for forangs.

We inspected the still being built apartment complex where Bjorg and her husband Haldor have bought. (and here is the test… if you read all this, let me know, otherwise I know you only look at the pix … tisk task)  We were allowed to climb around the concrete floors etc without anyone asking us just who we were and what were we doing there.  Not far away is a newly developed bath/pool (kind of like the celebrated Blue Lagoon).  Using natural hot mineral water that just comes up from underneath, you could spend hours just sitting in it.  The building is roofed in sod, like the original buildings were in both Iceland and Greenland.  Turf basically is very good at keeping the cold out.

Before I could leave the country, I had to go for another Covid test and again a small sample of my brain was removed and part of the back of my throat too.  This info then goes to your phone and you show it to the check in agent at the airport and that permits you both to leave and also to be allowed to arrive at the other end. There is a HUGE global Covid business and not just in hospitals.

And then I came home.
Tim

ps.  Try the cod.  It is very good.

pps   The report on my visit to a certain erupting volcano is still being worked on.