Iceland: Day 1 Reykjavik

[Wi-fi on this trip was expensive and poor quality, so I am posting these after our return.]

 

When I was eight or nine, I read a story in my school reader about a group of children in Iceland going for a picnic. The children lowered a metal basket of eggs into a hot spring to cook for their lunch. Ever since, I have thought it would be wonderful to visit Iceland. That’s where we are headed.

 

Steve found a great deal for business class seats on Icelandic air. The meal (salmon for me, short ribs for him) was delicious. Real headphones blocked out general noise well enough to make it hard to know when the attendant was offering me something. I read a novel by Icelandic author Hollard Laxness until I drifted off. No sleeping pill because it was less than a six-hour flight.

 

We are traveling with our friends, John and Tammy. John says it is his goal to return home still friends. We will be catching a Windstar Cruise tomorrow, but we have one night in Reykjavik. The trouble is that they don’t let you into your room at 6 AM, which feels like 1 AM to your body. We had thought of spending the day at the Blue Lagoon hot spring, but we didn’t think early enough. It was all booked out for the day. And for the day the cruise returns. We’re trying to book a different hot spring. We’ll see.

 

Instead we walked around. We headed toward the gorgeous, modern National Cathedral with a statue of Leife Ericsson out front, given by the Americans in 1930. Made us feel right at home.

 

 

 

From there we angled down to the harbor

 

And the orchestra performance hall, glittering like fish scales.

 

 

As we wandered back, we were all feeling like zombies. We still had hours to kill before 3 PM check-in, when we found this place for lunch.

 

 

This makes 90 countries in which Steve has eaten pizza. Definitely NOT the worst pizza he had ever had in his life.

 

 

As we wandered, I kept poking my nose into shops  and stalls selling sweaters. I have a weakness for nice sweaters and that is the one souvenir I would like to bring back. A shop around the corner from our hotel had one I liked. Not cheap, but as I popped in other places, the price was typical. Some of the designs look Nordic rather than Icelandic to my inexperienced eye. Others looked clunky and uncreative to me, the knitter. Not exciting enough to spend that much money on. I ended up coming back to the first sweater that had caught my eye. I’m sure it will appear in pictures during the week.