Within about an hour of arriving in Iceland I was party to two European experiences: the Continental breakfast and seeing naked dudes in the shower.
For all that Europe has to recommend it, the breakfasts are not on that list. Having now been to Europe—and yes, Iceland counts—twice, I’m obviously an expert in these matters. They’ve got the basic ingredients in place, but in entirely the wrong way. There are eggs, but they’re hard boiled (and in one place scrambled, but with an odd texture.) There are meats, but in cold cut form. There’s toast, if you want to make it yourself (a.k.a “bread”). And forget about home fries; the one time they were even available, they were tiny cubes of bland. So, while at home I could have a couple eggs over easy with some toast, home fries and either bacon or sausage, over there I had a hard boiled egg, slice of ham or salami and piece of bread. Like I said: right ingredients, wrong combination. It’s like hydrogen and oxygen. H20 equals water and you drink it to live; it’s the right combination. H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide, and you’re better off not drinking it, not even with a Continental breakfast.
Immediately following breakfast, and blatantly ignoring the “no going in the water for an hour after eating” rule, we crossed the parking lot to the Blue Lagoon spa. Being Americans, we live on the edge like that. The Blue Lagoon spa is the built around the outflow of a geothermal power processing plant and is one of the more popular tourist (and local) destinations in Iceland. The main concern most vocally remarked upon by my mother was the rule that you had to shower before entering the spa. Now, apparently group showers are more the norm in Europe in occasions such as these, and generally speaking Europeans apparently are more comfortable than their American counterparts in this type of situation. (Don’t forget, I’ve been there twice so I’m an expert.) Maybe it’s just that they enjoy the space, as home and hotel showers in Europe are so small that even Clark Kent would have trouble making a Superman transformation in one. I’m moved to paraphrase Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child: “Only a man who’s ass is narrow can fit in this shower. And if mine is such an ass, it will be cleaned.”
My mom’s fears of a communal shower turned out to be only partly true, at least in the mens’ shower room. It was a large shower room, but each individual shower was partitioned, and some even had doors. This, while not excluding sightings of bare ass and the unfortunate occasional penis if one’s head was downcast to avoid making eye contact with other naked men—which is a quandary all it’s own: do you look another naked man square in the eye or look elsewhere and risk seeing something else you’d rather not?—did at least minimize it. Luckily, while I’ve never had to participate in high school gym, I was a Boy Scout for may years, and the reality of a communal shower is not entirely new to me. Their motto well could have been modified to read: “Be prepared…for in every life a little bare ass must fall.”
However, the shower gauntlet had been run, a test if you will to determine worthiness of entry to the soothing heated waters of the spa. Wayne and Garth might not have made it, but the Venetos and Gradys did. And it was well worth it. We had landed that morning, after flying overnight, to a 55 degree drizzle. By the time we reached the Blue Lagoon, we were wet and weary. Speaking for myself, fairly miserable. But nothing like a nice long soak in what amounts to a giant outdoor bathtub to cheer one up. The next hour or so consisted of walking around the lagoon, hanging out by the water spout (for hotter temperatures), putting some of their special silica mud on my face, going over to the waterfall for a water massage (from the actual water, not from a masseuse; they did offer in-water massages from masseuses, but unfortunately not until later in the day), repeat. And it was damn refreshing.
(Note: If you think this is the least manly I can get about the trip, you’d be wrong. That incident would be on the flight home. In David Sedaris’ new book, there’s an essay where he talks about how being on a flight somehow makes it easier to like movies that you normally wouldn’t I decided to put this to the test by watching The Devil Wears Prada. Not just some of it, all of this terrible film, and spending at least half of that time wishing that the plane would go down like an Oceanic flight. The Sedaris Airline Movie Myth? BUSTED! Maybe I should have watched 27 Dresses instead.)
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I didn’t think I was going to like Iceland much when we first arrived. It was dreary and the landscape between the airport and Reykjavik, while interesting, was kind of depressing. However, I noticed that as we progressed eastward across the country, the weather got progressively better. At the airport in Kevlavik on the west coast, gray and somewhere in the 50s. By the time we got to Jokularson over on the eastern side, it was mostly sunny, clear, and about 60 or so degrees. Iceland actually encompasses a lot of different types of environments in a small area of land. This is the country where U.S. astronauts practiced their moon landing before actually attempting it, after all. We saw moss covered terrain, plains, mountains, a city, farmland, waterfalls, the ocean, a black sand beach, glaciers, and a forested state park, all in the span of three days and about 300 miles. I went through 6 AA batteries on my camera (and not just because it’s a power hog) and filled up half the memory card, to the point where I had to delete some old pictures to make room for more new ones.
Reykjavik itself was kind of a blur. By the time we arrived there and checked in to our hotel, all the physical goodwill I had won back for my body at the spa was pretty much gone again, and given a choice between walking around and exploring or taking a nap…well my body didn’t actually give me that choice. It was nap. Actually, it was nap, brief exploration of the nearest blocks of the city, and then nap again, dinner, sleep.
As much as I would have liked to have seen some Reykjavik nightlife—Icelanders are supposedly heroic drinkers—it was just not in the cards for this trip. And being that we were leaving early the next morning, that was essentially the extent of my Reykjavik experience.
The next day was spent largely traveling and sightseeing, including pretty much all of the various terrains I mentioned above. Now would probably be a good time to address the issue of pictures of said terrains for you, my faithful readers. Luckily all three of you are already friends with me on Facebook, and if you go there, you’ll see I’ve already uploaded my pictures from the trip. You may also be wondering why there are no actual wedding pictures, as that was the reason we were all there. That would be because the bride and groom has asked that we refrain from posting them until the reception at the end of the month.
Unfortunately I did not get to actually stand on a glacier (not allowed), or see the northern lights (not the best time of year for it) or any puffins (also a bad time of year). I did however get to stand behind and more or less on top of a waterfall (cool), touch the north Atlantic (cold) and see a Asatru wedding ceremony. Yes, that ceremony would have been my sister’s. Although she was raised Catholic, Catholicism is not really that big in Iceland, and someone needed to officiate the wedding. I’m not sure where my sister hooked up with Johanna, the Asatru priestess (??? Not sure of the correct title here, but priestess sounds badass), but the result was a wedding that included some ceremonial wreath holding, a ring of fire and drinking of wine from a horn. Some of that wine, a spicy Spanish vintage we had purchased from the farm we were staying on, was then poured on the ground in respect of her homey, Mother Earth, who she had earlier thanked for “being with us here today”; the remained of that wine was poured down my throat with the spaghetti dinner back at our guest house that night.
Does this make me one with Mother Earth? I’m still working that one out.
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You would think that a country like Iceland that is known to have produced some hearty-type folk would be able to produce a good beer, but you’d be wrong. This was really my one real disappointment of the trip, and one that I tried to assuage with the purchase of plenty of duty free alcohol on my way home. Specifically a bottle of 17 year old Glengoyne scotch and a bottle of the Icelandic national schnapps known as Brennivin, which translates into “burning wine”, is known as “black death”, and was remarked upon by someone in line behind me when she asked: “Are you buying that for your enemies?”
Sounds tasty, and I can’t wait to try some. Hopefully it will put a softening haze on my beer disappointment. But really, with beers named Viking and Thule, I’m at a loss how they could be such total failures. I was expecting full-bodied and flavorful beers brewed from the blood of vanquished foes and what I got were slightly less skunky version of Heineken.
Luckily the food was better, Continental breakfasts aside. In that department, Iceland is known for three things: hot dogs, fish, specifically arctic char, and lamb. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to try the lamb at any point. Not because I really like lamb, which I do, but more out of spite. Upon first arriving at our guest house in Hali, I walked over to where the sheep were grazing nearby to say “Hey” and take some pictures. They immediately all walked off behind the building. Who would have guessed that sheep were nature’s antisocial assholes. I vowed that I would “show them” by eating one of their number, but from that point on all our meals were either preset or just didn’t include a lamb option. The horses on the farm were much friendlier, which made me grateful that the restaurant we had visited the night before in Reykjavik, while having horse on the menu, was all out, because I had seriously been considering trying it.
Instead, I went with the “wild sea bird” that came smothered in a delicious game sauce, some of which is still residing on the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I’m trying not to think too much about what a wild sea bird might actually be, because the only thing I keep coming up with is: seagull. But whatever it was, it was damn tasty.
Also on this trip, I was really hoping to see some puffins. Supposedly they migrate to or from (I don’t really know the details) Iceland over the summer, and in the town of Vik, where we stopped for lunch one day and home of the black sand beaches, there was a good chance of seeing them during that migration. Well, I did see some puffin, but unfortunately it was on a plate in appetizer form and not live, as we just missed the migration period. My verdict is that puffin is more adorable than delicious, being a fairly fatty and tasteless meat that definitely benefited from the liberal use of mustard.
The vaunted hot dogs, which can be purchased at any gas station? OK, but nothing to write home about.
The arctic char was very good and marked my return to any seafood that didn’t come in a can of Bumblebee in eight years. That’s how long it’s been to the Great Shrimp Food Poisoning Incident. I’m happy to report that the arctic char was delicious going down, and moreover stayed down once there. There was a brief little bit of stomach discomfort after that meal, but it could have been any number of things, including a psychosomatic response, bad Icelandic beer, or a combination of the courses aside from the char, which included a cream of mushroom soup that was delicious but heavy, and a rhubarb dessert that had the consistency of jellied snot. But even that was pretty good.
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That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Sure, I could tell you about how Cool Ranch Doritos are actually called Cool American Doritos over there, or about the two French couples that used our guest house kitchen to cook and eat dinner one night, as their rooms didn’t have one, or about how Icelandic wool is really scratchy. But that would just be a cheap way of me trying to fit in a few last observations that didn’t sit well anywhere else on this blog. And I would never stoop to that.
