Accommodation and Food
The places we stayed in were homely, family-owned guesthouses usually located in the country. They were single level and most had stunning ‘big sky’ views. One was built like an eagle with the reception and restaurant in the middle and accommodation wings that spanned out either side. Each room had a stunning view. It was built on an old lava field which had a layer of tussock and looked all the world like Poolburn dam in NZ where my family go fishing. There were many similarities with NZ. Some parts looked like Canterbury, others like Otago, Southland and sometimes the West Coast. Very similar, and yet without the trees quite different.
The guesthouses all had small restaurants where Mum or Dad cooked up sensational offerings. My favourite meal was baked local cod and a very close second was local lobster roll. The ‘restaurant’ where we had the lobster roll had linoleum floor and plastic seats. It reminded me of the mess rooms from my mining days – able to be easily hosed out when things got messy. We had a window seat where the open window looked out on a paddock of newborn lambs that were frolicking around and racing each other. It was a warm evening and the purple lupins (pretty, despite being invasive) were in full flower. Because of the 24 hour sun I often enjoyed a walk after dinner and that night I walked around the paddocks to the neighbouring farm. Because of the lack of trees, I assume, many of the birds were nesting in the long grass and were singing and chirping to keep me at bay.
Rhubarb is a bit of a specialty in Iceland and they enjoy it in savoury, sweet and liqueur form. I really enjoyed it in the form of ‘Happy Marriage Cake’ – a gooey biscuit slice that I only ever saw served in gigantic proportions. JR rarely got a look in when I ordered it so I’m not sure about the name.
Return to Reykjavik
We returned to a very different Reykjavik than the windy one we had landed in the previous week. We headed downtown after a stop at the excellent Perlan museum which summarised our various Iceland experiences in a series of interactive and cinematic displays (also a great restaurant and bar on the top floor with panoramic views). We had been warned parking would be problematic downtown, despite or possibly because of free street parking after 9 pm, but lo and behold we got one right outside our hotel (which didn’t provide parking). After dumping our bags we went out and joined the many locals and visitors enjoying curb-side drinks. Various establishments had set up impromptu outdoor bars and with few fine evenings everyone was making the most of it. We thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and a few drinks. About midnight we walked up to the iconic Lutheran church designed to resemble hexagonal basalt columns from the natural environment. In the evening sun and with the buzz of a great trip and a top final day it was absolutely magic.
The following day we returned the rental car and joined our cruise which will form the next series of blogs. The first four days of the cruise were to outer lying areas of Iceland not easily accessible by car, and for the purpose of ‘Iceland completeness’ I’ll add here that I saw a colony of puffins which was my number one Iceland goal. I felt so lucky to watch them for about 15 minutes. Some were nesting. Some ‘jumped off’ the cliff rather clumsily and some ‘slammed back’ onto the cliff even more clumsily. I could have watched them forever and I felt very reluctant to leave. On the way back I got attacked by nesting arctic terns (I was walking through their territory so fair enough). We both saw plenty of eider ducks (source of eider down) while travelling through outer Iceland.
Many people say Iceland steals a piece of your heart and I can quite see why that is the case. We’ve had a fantastic time and I feel sad to be leaving but very lucky to have visited.
I’ll finish with a couple of quirky facts that I thought were uniquely Icelandic:
There’s an app for that
It’s not easy for native Icelanders to know if they are related. It’s been an isolated country for many a long year and most native Icelanders derive from a common ancestor. And they have a different family name convention usually based on their father’s given name. To address this issue an online database was developed called The Book of Icelanders which has the genealogy records for 95% of native Icelanders. Some enterprising engineering students developed an app that uses the data. It’s referred to as the anti-incest app and quickly indicates if you are kissing cousins or good to proceed.
Linguistic Purism
Icelanders are proud of their language and go to great extremes to keep it pure. The Icelandic Naming Committee prevents loanwords entering the language. For example when computers came along, they didn’t accept ‘computer’ as a word but rather made up a new Icelandic one that translates to something like ‘Witch of floating numbers’. Names with letters not in the Icelandic alphabet are often rejected. No Warrens or Zaras allowed.