SKOLAVORDUTIGUR

SKOLAVORDUTIGUR

Iceland, wow what a place!  I write from a small square table in our Grettisborg apartment in the heart of Reykjavik.  Will and Aubrey are resting, and it is 8:40 in the current time zone, but our American bodies are still feeling like it’s 4:40 a.m.  Our flight over from Boston on Iceland Air went very well.  The plane was full, and we headed out of the states close to 9pm Thursday night.  We didn’t rest much, but we managed okay.  I was in between Will and Aubrey who enjoyed very much the small television screens in front of them in the back of their seats and watched old tv shows till late in the night.  I tried to rest but found a hollering child and a guy in front of me crinkling a bag of chips to be pretty annoying—until I found my trusty ear plugs.  Thank God for them.

We arrive in Iceland around 6 am (2 our time), and it was rather rainy and cool (like low 50s).  It was strikingly different in landscape.  Rocky soil and green.  The sky was quite gray, and the trip through customs and security was a piece of cake.  We had a nice bus trip to our flat, about 45 minutes into the city and found that all was still and quiet.  We secured our luggage in a small laundry room then headed out to see for the first time the small streets of the city.  It felt very different, especially when compared to Boston, right away.  The homes are very close together, and many people had windows cracked for cool air.  We saw an array of unfamiliar cars parked outside homes, no yards to speak of, and many different colored homes (yellows, blues, and grays are pretty popular).  We were all pretty tired but also energized by finally being here.  We immediately got tickled at the names of the streets—talk about impossible to pronounce: Skolavordutigur and Langagegur are the main streets in the city where most of the retail shops are and many of the historic sites.  Can I please buy a vowel?

We found our way to a tourist help spot owned and operated by a 40s ish age Scottish man who married a gal from Iceland.  He was very helpful, witty, and very eager to point us in many different directions.  The first honey hole he lead us to was breakfast, and my were we hungry.  It was a local spot called the Laundry Mat, a wonderfully warm and friendly restaurant on the top floor with a laundry facility below.  It has a bar in the center, lots of colorful books on the shelves, and booths all around the walls.  It was like a Stax Omega of Reykjavik.  The staff were young adult females who were all so friendly and helpful.  We ate like royalty, and the coffee (bold and dark) was delicious. The kids and Sarah had fried eggs with ham slices, and I got the “clean” breakfast, a very British style meal containing: grilled tomato, fruit (melon and pineapple), a mountain of scrambled eggs, yogurt with muesli, and chocolate butter and orange marmalade.  After lingering over a second cup of coffee and taking in all the decorations in the restaurant (maps all over the walls, lots of color, piles of books and such), we began walking all over the city enjoying the sites our Scottish friend suggested. It was so much fun, even though at various times we all struggled from the effects of jet lag.  I couldn’t be prouder of how the kids soldiered on. 

The first official stop was “The Settlement Exhibition” that was in the bottom of a hotel in the heart of the old town.  It was a step into the Viking age and was a wonderful description of how the early settlers here lived.  The centerpiece of the exhibit was the earth and stone foundation of what historians believe is the first home of people here.  The docent showed the kids all about how people cooked and what kinds of swords they used, and the kids even managed to catch a nap there. 

We stopped in many shops to get a feel for the culture, and my how they love their trolls, wool sweaters and caps, and words that are hard to pronounce: Landnamssyningin—how is that for hard to say?  We had fun going in Parliament, to city hall, and to the town pond.  We wandered in a small grocery store for a Icelandic version of a Diet Coke (Coke Light) and some food for a snack.  It was around lunch time, but we weren’t really hungry because breakfast was so huge.  The drinks were perfect and the chocolate bars were mostly good: I enjoyed a smaller 2 stick Kit-Kat and a candy bar of Iceland called a Sazza, this one in a blue wrapper, and it had milk chocolate filled with rice crispies.  Yum!  I tried something else that turned out to be pretty terrible. It was a chocolate covered piece of nasty black licorice.  I don’t mind black jelly beans, but the bar was not what I was expecting or hoping—live and learn, eh?

After snack time, we made our way to the main church in town that sits high above the city.  It is a vast concrete looking structure with a huge tower that we paid a little money to climb to the top of.  It is called “Hallgrimskirkja.”  Iceland, we learned, was not Christian until about 1000 AD, and about 80% of the people belong or are connected with the state church.  That church happens to be Protestant and is a Lutheran Evangelical Church.  When we wandered in to this gorgeous sanctuary, we heard the sound of a bold pipe organ, and an organist was giving a bit of a concert.  He was not playing recognizable hymns, but the music was really lovely.  We climbed to the top of the tower and enjoyed views of the city, the sea, and of God’s glorious island.  Wow!  We also took note of the church’s pulpit which stood high in the front corner about 8 feet above the congregation, the rectangular communion table up some stairs from the congregation, and then the very unique baptismal font, an acrylic looking piece of art really that was in front of the pulpit.  Gorgeous. 

After our church tour, we could head back to our apartment and settle in at the Grettisborg, enjoying a second floor room overlooking a little courtyard like area.  It was a lovely place with a common room, kitchenette, bath with a fantastic shower, and beds.   We got settled in, the kids watched a little tv, we rested a bit then headed out for a mid afternoon adventure.  We learned from the notebook in the flat that the locals love their time at the local pool and hot tubs.  The oldest one in town made in the 1930s was only a couple of blocks away. So we ventured there, and what fun it was!  We checked in and had to shower up before suiting up and swimming.  There was a huge indoor pool (Olympic size) with a very springy diving board, I think a 3 meter, that we all enjoyed.  Aubs ended up doing about a 2.5 front flip off of it, a little gymnast’s dream.  Then on the outer deck there were multiple hot tubs, one hotter than the other.  So for about an hour we went in and out and enjoyed the refreshing water and family fun.  One unusual feature I noticed was on the pool deck (all tile mind you) there were free weights. You could curl some dumbbells, do some crunches, then jump back in the pool!  After our swim adventure, we headed home, no quite hungry, for a quick trip to the grocery store for breakfast foods and snacks and then for supper.  We ate not far away in a wonderful pub like place called Vegamot.  I got a great Icelandic beer that was much like a Shocktop but not as fruity.  Aubs got loaded nachos, Will got chicken, pasta and veggies, Sarah got a salad with chicken on it, and I got salmon with noodles and veggies.  It was kind of a Mexican/Asian/Iceland fusion restaurant of sorts that got rave reviews in all the travel journals. 

We came back to the flat around 7:30 and were exhausted, so we got cleaned up and crashed hard!  We did watch a little tv before bed and found that most of the programming is British.  We saw some recap show of the Britain’s Got Talent program and enjoyed that much because it was similar to the American version.  We all slept well.  I got up around 2 or so for the bathroom, and the kids and Sarah were sleeping soundly.  Today we may do a tour to catch the geysers and some of the out of town sites.  Feels good to be rested.  Bring on more places we cannot pronounce!