Iceland 2010

Iceland was really cool.

Shauna and I left Philly around 2 on Friday afternoon. The snow was a little bit of a hassle driving, but we made it to JFK in under 2 hours and had no trouble getting through security. The flight took off at 8 p.m. and it was smooth sailing. It was a 5 hour flight and we slept a lot of the way, but they also had some awesome in-flight movies. I watched Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. When we got close to Reykjavik it was like we were landing on the moon. We could see single lights in the distance and even further away we could see one strip of lights in the middle of complete darkness, like a city on a hill. As we landed it was like we were going straight into the darkness and at the last second the airport's lights were in front of us. The airport is 45 minutes outside of Reykjavik. We landed around 6, got through customs, got our very first stamps on our passports, and by 8 o'clock we were on the road to Reykjavik. The architecture of the buildings was straight out of an IKEA catalogue. The colors, the shapes, everything looked like it got made at IKEA and it also looked like it had just been built recently. We got to the hotel and it was very different from American hotels. Everything was much, much smaller. We got into the room and it was half the size of a regular hotel room. There were two tiny single beds pushed together instead of a huge queen size bed. There was no alarm-clock and the TV station only had 3 channels we could watch. One of the 3 was in Icelandic half the time. As soon as we got in the room we crashed and went to sleep.

We woke up around noon and got out of the hotel around 1. We were staying right off the main strip of stores, restaurants, and bars, so we walked up and down the street. We explored where we were going to go that night and what we should do while we were there. You wouldn't believe the Icelandic girls. Every single girl has platinum blonde hair to the point where it's funny. I later learned that the cool thing for Icelandic girls to do is get their hair bleached, so it wasn't natural. All the clothing stores were boutiques for women and they were as overpriced as here. A lot of the stuff was so cheap because of the economy, but most of it was still expensive. A drinking horn was $60, so we didn't get it. We had booked a glacier trip for Sunday and all I had were sneakers, so I went to a mountaineering store and the cheapest boots they had were $230. I said I would make due with sneakers and kept going on my way. The stores on the main strip closed at 4 on Saturdays (and they didn't open until noon, my kind of working hours), so we thought everything was going to close that early. We were wrong.

We continued walking and exploring the city and went to Reykjavik's flea market. Judging from the amount of T-shirts I will say this about Icelanders: They love Titanic, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Nirvana. The flea market was cool and I found a pair of hiking boots for 4,990 krona. That came out to around $50. We tried some dried fish chips and looked around at all the cool stuff. It was indoors and probably a lot like American flea markets, but with way different stuff. When we looked outside we saw that blizzard had started. The Icelanders said it was the worst storm so far that year. We went out to walk in it.

We braved the blizzard and walked a few blocks along the harbor to a small restaurant called the Seabaron. They are famous for their lobster bisque and it was honestly the best soup I have ever tasted. They also served minke whale meat and we got a whale kabob. It looks like steak and at first it tastes just like steak, too, but better. If they had told me it was steak I would have told them that it was one of the best pieces of steak I've ever had. After a few minutes, as it was going down, I started to taste fish. Hours later, and a few drinks later, I still had the fish taste in my mouth and my hands smelled like fish the rest of the night. We met a few American tourists from Boston in the Seabaron and they taught us how to convert the currency. After the food we left and continued along the harbor until the snow got too bad and we had to turn around and head back. On the way back we stopped at the Seafood Cellar, a restaurant that we had really been looking forward to. They have an exotic menu with all kinds of Icelandic delicacies. It wasn't open yet and we were still full from the lobster and whale so we made plans to come back. Across the street was the famous Icelandic Ice Bar. It is a room in a restaurant that is always kept freezing. The walls and the bar are made out of ice. More about that later.

We continued walking home and stopped in a Mexican restaurant/bar for a drink. The bars and restaurants don't open until 5 or 6, so we were the only people in there. Most of the bars in the country don't serve Miller Lite or Bud Light, they serve Icelandic beers like Viking, Pilsner, Polar Beer, and Thule. With the exception of Pilsner they all taste very similar and resemble Miller and Bud, but they are more alcoholic. The bartender taught us some words in Icelandic (thank you, fuck, etc.) and she told us that nobody tips in Iceland. That was lucky for us because we didn't have any of their currency, the krona. We asked about the bar scene and she said that people start to come out around midnight because alcohol is so expensive there and people pre-game beforehand. She said that everybody really starts partying around 2 and the bars stay open until 8 a.m. After a drink we left the bar and walked back to the hotel. The hotel employee, Emma, told us that our Sunday glacier hike had been cancelled due to snow and we rescheduled for Monday. We were wet, freezing, and tired. We passed out immediately.

We woke up at 10 p.m. (5 p.m. Phila. time), took showers, and got ready to go out. We started at one end of the main drag and went into a bar called Karaoke Sports Bar. All the bars are very small, the biggest ones being slightly smaller than Oh Bryons. This one was a room the size of the front of O'Mare's with bigger ceilings, a bar on the side, a huge Karaoke screen in the front, and a small room with slot machines on the side. They had a drink and shot special and the bartender, Frida, introduced us to Opal Vodka, an Icelandic specialty. It was strong and it was hardcore going down. We brought back a bottle, so you'll be able to do a taste-test with us the next time we see you. We left there and went to a place called (I think) Dillon's. It was a rocker bar and played awesome rock music, with everything from the Rolling Stones to Smells Like Teen Spirit. Like I said, Nirvana is huge there. They supposedly played the largest concert in Icelandic history. I'm not sure if that's true, but it's what Johann at the bar told me. More on Johann later.

We left Dillon's and I fell on the icy stairs on the way out. We were starting to feel it and as we were walking down the main drag a few of the bars started to have lines to get in. We didn't want to wait in line in the cold, so we decided we would go into every bar that didn't have a line. Get this, there is no such thing as a cover charge at any place in Iceland. I heard a song coming out of a bar, "It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine........" so I made Shauna go in so we could dance to Biggie Smalls. We stayed for a few drinks and danced. I loved the dynamic of the bar. It was playing old hip-hop music, it had a bar and a dance floor downstairs, and upstairs it had another bar and places to just chill. After the second Biggie song we continued on our way.

This is where things started to get fuzzy. There were so many bars that there was no way that we could go to all of them so we started to be choosy. We both had to go to the bathroom and this one bar (much bigger than all the rest) had a big dance floor that was near empty but still had techno music and laser lights like the A Lounge used to have. We walked into what we thought was the bathroom area and it took us downstairs to another techno/dance/bar/hangout. No bathrooms. We walked up another flight of stairs and it took us outside to the smoker's area. No bathrooms. We walked into the next room and realized we were back at the beginning and there were still no bathrooms! Amazing.

The next place we hit was an Irish bar. I think it was called Dubliner's. We tried the Opal again and it really started to grow on us. There are Icelandic legends about the "little people," what we call trolls or elves. They take them very seriously and everything we read said that people really believe in them. One building company actually had to pay a "troll finder" to make sure there weren't any "little people" on the building site. I know, it sounds like bullshit, but I kid you not, we saw a little person. He was in an outside smoking area within Dubliner's so we went outside to see him and he started a snowball fight. We quickly made a retreat. The "little people" are feisty.

We went to another bar, but we were starting to slow down and needed some energy. At that point we stopped at a sub stand and had the Best. Drunk Food. Ever. It was called a Pepperoni Boat and I don't know what exactly was on it, but I do know that I will never have anything so greasy and delicious ever again. After we had that we decided to walk to the bars closer to the hotel and stopped at a 24-hour grocery store for some supplies. We got a 2-liter of coke, a nasty sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, paprika chips, and proof that there is a store like Wawa in even the most remote Western cities. We took some pictures on the stumble home, but none of them came out due to our inability to walk straight. We decided to drop off the food, regroup, and then go back out to the bars and rock until 8 in the morning. By the time we actually made it to the hotel, though, it was 4:30 and we collapsed on the bed.

We were really disappointed that the glacier walk got cancelled, but we made the most out of it and did some more exploring in Reykjavik. We left the hotel at noon and did what I consider an urban hike. We walked down to the harbor and now that the storm was over the view was incredible. We could see across the harbor and there was a huge mountain chain. All the mountains were covered in snow and looked amazing. We walked back to the Seabaron to get some horsemeat, but they had run out. I call it horsemeat, but the horses in Iceland aren't real horses. I'm tempted to call them ponies, but it's more like a cross between a horse and a sheep.

We had counted on the horsemeat and were still hungry, so we went to the most famous hot dog stand in Iceland, nay, all of Europe. Iceland is famous for their hot dogs (Pylsas) the way that Philly is famous for its cheesesteaks. I thought, I'm an American, I'm a part of the people that invented and perfected hot dogs, there is nothing that could surprise me or change my feelings towards hot dogs. I was wrong. A Pylsa is a hot dog (that I suspect also has lamb in it) with chili sauce on the roll, raw onions, crunchy fried onions, the hot dog, a crazy Icelandic mustard sauce, and remoulade (a crazy French mustard sauce). I shit you not, it was the best hot dog either of us has ever eaten. Over the course of the trip we had 3 or 4 hot dogs each. In a way it's depressing because I know that I'll never have a hot dog as good as a pylsa.

We continued to walk around Reykjavik and saw some touristy things. We saw a steel frame of a Viking ship, we saw the cathedral, which was one of the tallest buildings in the city, we saw the city hall, and watched a few minutes of the Reykjavik Chess Open (only because we had to go to the bathroom in city hall and accidentally found the tournament going on). There is a huge pond in the middle of the city that is frozen in the winter, but the city officials keep one section warm so that the ducks have somewhere to go. One of the cool things to do is to feed the ducks. The ducks, geese, and other large birds came right up to us looking for food. It scared the crap out of us, but we still went close up to get pictures. Now I know what to tell Holden when he asks where the ducks go in the winter.

Iceland has a system of public pools that are naturally heated by the geothermal properties of the island. It's on the fault line between American and Europe, so there is a lot of volcanic activity. The magma from the volcanoes mixes with the cold Icelandic water and produces a steam that heats everything and that they use for all of their energy, even electricity. I thought that there was a nude geothermal pool, but I was sadly mistaken. I don't know what we expected out of it, but when we got there and were going to go swimming it was just like a large hotel swimming pool. We passed and continued our urban adventure.

It was around 5 o'clock and we made a plan to stop at the liquor store, go make reservations at the Seafood Cellar, the restaurant we really wanted to go to and then go back to the hotel and drink wine and nap until it was time for the Seafood Cellar. Well, the liquor store was closed and the Seafood Cellar had a guest chef for the day that didn't do any of the Icelandic specialties. I was bummed and grumpy. We had been walking all day and now are plans for the night had completely fallen through. We were stuck in Iceland with no plans. The world-famous Ice Bar was right across the street and we had also heard that the restaurant it was connected to was pretty good. The restaurant was called Fish Buffet/Restaurant. Guess what they served.

We were downtrodden, cold, and aching from walking when we opened the door to see if the Fish Buffet would be worth it. As we are about to open the door and walk in, the door opened from the inside by two people dressed as medieval Viking peasants like they were straight out of a Renaissance Fair. We were so surprised we didn't know how to react. We actually both thought, "Is this how the waiters at the restaurant dress?" They told us that they were a part of a comedy show that started at 6 o'clock and they wanted us to come see it for 2,200 krona each ($44 total). We didn't know how to react and said we would think about it. They medieval Vikings said, "If you come to the show you get 10% off your dinner check and you get to go to the Ice Bar for free." The Ice Bar would have cost $40 anyway, but we were still thinking about it so the medieval Vikings said, "How about a free drink before the show starts?" We were sold and each had a Viking beer. As the female medieval Viking walked us down to the theater I asked, "Are you expecting a large turnout?" She said, "Well, it's a Sunday, so it won't be as large as usual." We walked into the theater and we were the only two people in the entire room. It could seat about 40. Before we could say anything they started the show. It was about Icelandic history and the history of Reykjavik. After the initial awkwardness, the show got really good. It was very informative about their history and the two people performing it were hilarious. I expected it to be 30 minutes at the most, but it lasted closer to 2 hours.

After the comedy show we had our Fish Buffet and got a bottle of wine. It was a South African wine and it was really, really good. I am going to get a bottle at home because it was so good. The Fish Buffet lived up to its name and had about 10 different type of fish cooked in a variety of ways. They had minke whale, lungfish, salmon, cod, catfish, and other kinds of fish that I had never heard of but ate anyway. It was a really classy restaurant and is considered high-end. Everything they cooked was gourmet-like. They had a spread of cheese and crackers at the buffet and pasta and vegetable sides. After dinner we went to the Ice Bar and had a delicious drink that I wish I could remember the name of. I don't even remember what was in it and the best way I can describe the delicious taste is to say that it tasted like grape and cinnamon, but nothing at all like grape or cinnamon. There was a girl sitting by herself in the Ice bar and she came over and introduced herself. Her name was Emily and she was in Iceland by herself. She was supposed to come with her boyfriend and another couple but everyone had backed out. Her boyfriend works on films and had to film in Washington state, so he couldn't go with her. We chatted and she took our picture.

We decided not to go back to the hotel yet and to go to the Karaoke Sports Bar to catch the end of the USA-Canada gold medal hockey game. We walked in with only 2 minutes left and I said, "Oh no, we can't win now." Frida the bartender said, "Not with that kind of attitude." A minute later Parise scored for the USA and it went into overtime. The Karaoke Sports Bar might be my favorite bar in the world. It was near empty except for the Frida the bartender, an old drunk guy that didn't talk to anybody and sat in the back, a drunk woman with a headband that looked like a crown, and Johann, the guy sitting next to us. Crosby scored the goal in overtime, but we kept getting drinks with Johann. For 1,000 krona (a little less than $10) you can spin a wheel with different prizes. There is a spot for a loser in which you get nothing, a spot for 2 shots, 1 shot, 2 beers, 3 beers, etc. Johann kept playing and eventually won the motherload: 5 beers and 2 shots. He shared the beers with us and we tried a new shot called Hot'n'Sweet. It was hot, sweet, and delicious so we brought a bottle of that home, too, that you have to taste. Frida and Johann taught us a lot about Icelandic culture that we didn't get from the brochures or official statements. They taught us Icelandic phrases, too, and they asked what their language sounded like to them. I said it sounded like a mixture of German and Russian. I started talking about the Russians in my neighborhood and told them that they make the best pizza in the world. Johann said that Icelanders make the best pizza and gave us the name of a pizzeria we had to try called Elsmidjan. It was sometime around midnight and we once again stumbled back to the hotel and passed out.

We woke up the next morning (Monday morning) at 7:30 to get ready for our glacier hike. We had breakfast at the hotel. They provided breakfast every morning and I expected pancakes, eggs, or bacon, but there was none of that. They had beets, deviled eggs, and a lunchmeat spread, but I didn't recognize any of the lunchmeats. I was skeptical, but as soon as I tried them my skepticism faded. It was like pork roll and just as tasty. The glacier tour picked us up from the hotel and we drove for 2 hours along the southern coast of Iceland in a hummer-like jeep. Once we left the city the whole land was desolate. We drove past huge snow-covered mountains and large stretches of tundra that reached as far as the eye could see. There was only one road going through this part of the country and every so often we would pass a town. We stopped at one to get sandwiches and there were only 600 people living there. It was a 2-hour drive and we slept a lot of the way. It was the 2 of us, our tour guide, and a couple our age from Hong Kong. I stopped to think about that for a second: 2 Americans, 2 Chinese, and an Icelandic mountaineer who spent 7 years in France.

We finally got to the glacier and put on our gear. We had harness belts, ice axes, and crampons. Oddly, crampons aren't what girls get during that time of the month, they are shoes to put over your boots that have spikes on the bottom to dig into the ice. I've heard about glaciers and I've studied glaciers in school, but it didn't prepare me for what a glacier really is. I always pictured a mountain of white, but this glacier was blue, a bright blue that was as blue as the bluest sky. It was the 4th largest glacier in Iceland. We had to be careful and follow our guide because there were huge chasms in the glacier that were lightly covered with snow. If we stepped on the wrong spot we would have fallen 40 feet down in some places. We climbed down into some of the crevasses and it was eery being in there. The crevasses protected us from the wind and it was magnificently silent. The snow and ice captured all of the sound. When we walked back down the glacier the sun reflected off of the ice and sparkled like diamonds. The glacier, however, has been retreating and some of the chasms we were in will be melted by the summertime. 500-year old ice will be gone in just a few short months and we hiked on top of it.

I learned a lot about glaciers. When the Vikings first settled in Iceland the glaciers were only half the size they are today and that was about 1,000 years ago. I asked why they were melting and our tour guide said that some people say it's a natural cycle and some people say it's global warming, but he thinks it's a little of both. There are so many tours going on the glaciers I can't help but think that my tourism has contributed in a way, too. It was sad to think that during this vacation we had eaten animals that are going extinct and then hiked glaciers that are melting. It's weird to think that the world is changing so much that my grandchildren may not be able to take that type of vacation.

On the ride home from the glacier we stopped at 2 waterfalls. They were cool, but what I'll remember is that the first waterfall made an incredible rainbow. It was a complete rainbow, we could see both ends of it, and it was so clear we could pick out every color of the rainbow. After the waterfalls we slept the whole way home. We woke up as our tour guide dropped our new friends from Hong Kong off at the hotel. I asked him how the economic crash had affected his business and he said that a lot fewer people were taking tours, but that the people who were doing tours were spending a lot more money because it became more affordable for people from outside the country.

When we got back to the hotel it was almost 8 o'clock and we were beat. We laid down for a minute and then decided to go get pizza from the place the guy recommended, Elsmidjan. They made an INCREDIBLE pizza, and that means a lot coming from me. We got a lot of toppings, including cream cheese. Even their cheese pizza was really, really good. The next time I hook up the pizza machine I'm going to make pepperoni and cream cheese pizzas. We walked back to the hotel and made plan to wake up at 5 in the morning and follow a path up the mountain near the harbor. Frida and Johann from the Karaoke Sports Bar told us that there was a book up there and that everyone who made it to the top signed their names. They said it should take 3 hours. The only regret we have from the trip is that we didn't make that trip. When 5 o'clock came Monday morning neither of us was able to do it. We told ourselves that we will come back and conquer that mountain. I don't know if it will mean as much without the snow, but that mountain will go down before I do.

On Tuesday morning we woke up and got up at 8:30. A bus picked us up from the hotel to take us to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa and then to the airport. We checked out of the hotel and went to the spa. An example of how nice Icelanders are is that when we checked out of the hotel the clerk asked, "Did you take anything out of the mini bar?" We said, "No," and that was that. It seems that there is an inherent trust among the Icelanders. Nobody is trying to screw over anybody else. When we got to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa it was COLD outside. We had to separate into the men's and women's rooms and were made to take showers. We had to strip naked and the showers were in open rooms. Luckily, we were the first group of people to arrive and we were mostly spared from other naked people.

The pool itself was 98-102 degrees, but the wind was cold and every part of our bodies out of the water was freezing. They had silica gel mud facemasks on the side of the pool that we put them on our faces. I hate to admit it, but my skin felt fresher and rejuvenated after I used it. There was a steam bath that they made to look like a lava tube and it got too hot for me. I thought I could take it, but I was very wrong. We spent 3 hours there, but if we had to do it all over again we would have spent the whole day there.

The bus picked us up from the Blue Lagoon and took us to the airport. We got through customs, bought some duty-free liquor, hung at the airport, got our last pylsas, took the flight home, drove back from JFK, got some Chinese food, and hung out on the couch. We felt cool being in 3 cities, Reykjavik, New York, and Philadelphia, in one day. IcelandAir has a competitor airline opening up this summer, so flight prices are expected to drop even more. Shauna and I are thinking about going for another long weekend in August. And that was Iceland.