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| View of the BSÍ Terminal, in front of Reykjavik Airport |
Today was the first full day excursion we booked, going to the South Coast for waterfalls and glaciers, which meant an early start too since we had to be at the BSÌ Terminal before 8 to be picked up. Ugh! But we got up and by lucks chance, the first bus of the day got us there in time for a quick coffee and breakfast pastry. Except, while waiting for the almost half hour to be picked up, it became clear there was an issue - no cars or vans with our company's tour logo came by! Once looked like it might have been for us, but despite standing directly in front of the guy and trying to asking him who he was here for, we were ignored and/overlooked. After about 20 min, I finally buckled down and called the company - and was told we were marked as a "No Show," that they sat there for a good 5-8 min! After quickly correcting the, saying we've been outside freezing our asses off waiting the entire last 40 min, they finally said there wS nothing they could do as the actual bus would be leaving heir terminal shortly. After some lovely words, the agent finally said he could check on putting us on the tour for another day. Thankfully, not only did we have tomorrow open for general Reykjavik city sightseeing (thus could swap days) but they had the room on tomorrow's tour. And, after they switched me to a different booking agent to set up tomorrow's trip, they were actually able to pick us up at the Hamraborg bus stop instead of the busy BSÌ Terminal. (The stop near our guesthouse.)
By now, it was just after 9 with the entire day to now explore Reykjavik. As I go for the glacier and waterfall excursion, I actually rented a small day locker to keep a few things and lighten my bag. While sipping another round of coffee (was needed!), we roughed out our day. Reykjavik does have a City Hop On Hop Off bus which we had been considering for a simple overview of the highlights - but not only was it pricier than all other city hop on/hop off busses, but the reviews actually weren't so great. Plus, out 3-day bus pass meant we didn't need that aspect to get around. We finally opted to head downtown to the Tourism Office, to check if there was another simple city excursion that wouldn't take up our whole day. As Reykjavik is quite small, it is actually easy to walk as things aren't far apart (and the buses don't always go everywhere you want.) We hopped off the same stop as last night and walked the few blocks to the City Hall, which also houses the Tourism Office. Naturally, we passed by Tjörnin, a large lake in the middle of the city that they've built around. Here, there were ducks and more! Much of the lake was frozen on the surface, so it was neat to watch the birds try to land on the ice and slide around. Hehe!
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| Tjörnin, with the City Hall across the lake |
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| Geese and ducks on the ice! |
We finally separated ourselves from the birds and got to the City Hall. There, the desk worker from the Tourism Office tried helping us, finally convincing us to get the single day City pass so we could save getting into the National Museum and saving on a few others we were eyeing. So our initial goal then was to go check out the National Museum, head to the Old Harbour for lunch while stopping at the Settlement Exhibition on the way, hit up the Kolaportid flea market, and then head to either the Saga Museum, the Whales of Iceland Experience, or both - Quite an active day. Again, as things were close, we walked the few blocks along the other side of the Tjörnin, getting to the museum just as the sun was rising - about 11 am!
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| Actual sunrise in front of the National Museum |
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City Hall, with Tourism Office inside
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The actual museum was neat and we ended up spending a bit longer there than initially planned, despite it being rather small - just two exhibit floors. The entryway itself was quite architecturally stunning, concentric circular steps into the doorway and continuing upward to the first exhibit floor. Packed into this museum was the history and excavation findings of Iceland, which is actually relatively newly settled. My fascination was on the second floor where they had examples of the national costumes (yes, I took many detailed pictures of those!) After a quick perusal of the gift shop, we left to catch the bus over to the Old Harbour to grab lunch and continue exploring.
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| Wooden spade with runes, 12th century |
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| Copy of Guðbrandur's Bible, printed c. 1584 AD |
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| Ingjaldur, 4 man fishing boat build in 1898 |
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| Circular stair entrance to National Museum |
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| Old style national dress, faldbúningur |
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| Old Harbour |
Our hosts had advised us of a small little restaurant in a seafarer's harbour home that was now rather iconic, both for food and atmosphere of Iceland. After a short walk along the harbour, we found it, Sægreifinn, or The Sea Baron. It's actually was man's home that he opened his kitchen up to the harbour workers, there's even a wax statue of him inside under the stairs. Now, it's just the restaurant but unique in that the kitchen is in the middle and you walk right trough it to get to the rear and upstairs dining area. Known for the best lobster soup, and as that was the usual daily special, that's what we both ordered!
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Old Harbour, other view point
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Inside Sœgreifinn, the kitchen is through the door in the middle
going through to the other seating area |
They also offered a very unique flavor to Icelandic fare - Minke Whale. Now, as an avid lover of whales, I was torn between sampling such a unique meal and adding to the commercialized hunting of whales. I finally settled on just the smaller Minke Whale sample, not a while steak as my thoughts were that they had already hunted the Whale and it was more economical to have the sample and be conservative as well. [For those still uncertain, Minke Whale is one of the least concerned whale species currently; the IWC has approved of small scale commercialized Minke Whale hunting; and Iceland itself did studies to determine if hunting Minke whale again would have a detrimental impact on the species, which they concluded it would not - similar to our own deer hunting concepts.]
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| My lunch - Lobster soup, bread, Minke, and a porter |
Anyways, the lobster soup was utterly delicious and the Icelandic Porter was equally good! The Minke was different. I'm not sure of it was seasoned of flavored any, but it was quite dark yet also rather tender, I'd say it was cooked at medium rare. The initial taste was almost a teriyaki flavor but it then change into a strong iron aftertaste, much like liver. While it was good for the small sample, I'm not sure I could've finished a whole steak. Even Vic had a small bite!
After lunch, we headed to the Kolaportid weekend indoor flea market. I LOVE markets while traveling, and after finding out about this one, it definitely made it onto the list of things to do. Plus, many sites noted that if you wanted to find a Lopapeysa, the iconic Icelandic sweater with the circular yoke pattern made of Lopi wool, at a great price then the market was where to go. Vic got pulled onto the first sweater stall and bought a few, before I was finally coerced into buying one at the second sweater stall. (FYI, if you're doing Iceland on a budget, you don't want to look at even these discounted prices!) But I cannot pass up a nice sweater, especially when supporting locally made and sourced goods!
The market has a food area which utterly fascinated me with many authentic food goods at good prices, but sadly, I was limited due to feasible logistics. I still managed to pick up a few things, and had my first sampling of Hákarl, we'll chat on that later! I eventually bought some Icelandic flavored salts - it was tough to pick but I settled on a mushroom flavored, a rhubarb flavored, a spicy lava black salt, and a licorice flavored. Yum! I nabbed a can of fermented cod liver pate, though passed up in the fermented cod liver oil (an excellent supplement and fresh in Iceland but I don't do supplements consistently.) The last food items I grabbed were some Harðfiskur (dried fish), another Icelandic food staple: Steinbítur (Catfish,) and Ýsa (Haddock.)
We explored more of the market as Vic was looking for souvenirs, though many stalls had various knickknacks you'd expect at a flea market but aren't quit souvenirs. Again, we spent a bit longer than we aimed but much of that was my fault - aside from the sweater we bought right off the bat, I didn't actually buy anything else until after perusing around first. My last souvenir was the most troublesome. I wanted something jewelry-wise with lava stone - except I already wear my watch, my Fitbit, my hematite, and my quartz! Everything for men were bracelets or large stone necklaces. I finally found a vendor who had a flat circular stone that she put on a choker for me - sold! After that, we wrapped up at the market to continue onward.
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| Saga Museum |
Our initial plan was that after the market we would try and hit both the Whale of Iceland Experience and the Saga Museum - however, since we meandered our day at our other stops (which was fully worth it and enjoyable), we had to pick just one. Unfortunately for me, that was the Saga Museum, especially since they closed later than the Whale's. Due to our much needed naps yesterday, I had already resigned to the fact that we probably wouldn't be able to grab a Whale Watching tour as they only run one in the afternoon during winter. The Whale Experience was my concession, but even then it only is a huge warehouse filled with life-sized model replicas of the whales. Whereas the Saga Museum had full displays regarding all of the Icelandic Sagas - which are ingrained in Icelandic culture and heritage. So, it actually made more sense to get there anyways (and give me another reason to return back to Iceland for the whales another trip!). It was a brief walk back up past the harbour to the Saga Museum.
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Saga 4. Ingólfur Arnarson, founding of Reykjavik
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The actual museum was rather cool to experience, but not much to talk about. It's set up to walk though the displays, with one display per Saga using wax mannequins. You're given an audio headset which talks you through each of the displays. It's rather short, about 30 min to slowly walk through them all. It was really interesting to learn visually about the sagas, not knowing anything about them. Afterwards, they had a small area you can try on some classic viking garb including actual chain mail, but we passed. After grabbing a few things at the gift shop, we started working our way back to the bus stop. It was
already dark as the sun set while we were in the
Museum.
As we still had much of the evening left, we though that we'd grab some dinner on the way to the bus stop, swing back to the guesthouse to grab our suits and check out the Laugardalslaug swimming pool, the largest in Reykjavik and quite a common activity for locals! Plus, it was still rather cold and the hot water would be nice to relax in. Since we passed it on the way up to the Saga Museum, we stopped at Reykjavik Fish Restaurant for some fish & chips! I had the typical Cod & Chips, the Viking Lagar (quite yummy and light!), and since they were offering it - Hákarl (fermented shark) with a small bottle of Brennivín, which is a schnapps of potatoes and caraway. Hákarl is cured uniquely - burying it in the ground then hanging for 4-5 months till it dries. It has a unique smell though which Agnes told me lingers, thus the tradition is to eat as much of the shark bites as you can stomach before chasing it down with the bottle of Brennivín. It has a strong flavor for sure, but I had no problem eating all the bites in the small cup, though felt that the Brennivín was even stronger tasting! It didn't go the best with the Cod, but as they were both delicious and I was hungry, I was able to eat all but some of the chips.
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| Fish & chips, lagar, and traditional Hákarl and Brennivín |
After our dinner, we meandered though some of the side streets to the MR bus stop so we could get back to the guesthouse. In doing so, we happened to stumble into the actual downtown square or Reykjavik! As we had already eaten, we weren't hungry for the hot dog stand but stopped at two of the souvenir shops to grab a few things. Well, we only went to the second one across the street because the first one didn't have a shot glass that I liked! By the time we wrapped that up though, it became clear that we wouldn't have enough time to get back to the guesthouse, grab our suits, and then grab the bus to the pool before they closed - even though they were open until 10pm. Well, that seemed to be part of our trip but hey, we WERE on vacation! Instead we just went back to the guesthouse to relax, after a quick stop at the neighborhood grocery store to grab some things to snack on and for breakfast in the morning.
We actually had some time to relax and talk with our hosts, about our day, the mishap, and more. Agnes actually offered to call the company with the delay, but I explained we already had it resolved and were doing the trek tomorrow. It was sometime in there that I realized I forgot about the few things I stashed in a locker at the terminal so I started to figure out how to grab the bus there and back - except Agnes offered to drive me there and back, which ended up being much quicker. Agnes also told us that there were two girls arriving tonight to stay in the other room, but that we'll have to share the bathroom.
After we got back and we were going through our day with our hosts, and after I mentioned having the shark, our hosts got intrigued and asked me if I wanted some more "traditional Icelandic fare." So they got out their bucket of Blandadur Súrmatur - selections of meat and fish products cured in the traditional manner or whey acid and gave me a small sampler plate! Vic, politely, turned them down as she wasn't feeling THAT adventurous. Except they didn't tell me what each was until afterwards.
Quick background, January and February is the Nordic month of Þorri which is highlighted by the midwinter feast of Þorrablót (which nowadays is really any gather where Þorramatur is served!) Anyways, our hosts served me a small bit of the things. After I sampled each, they told us both what it actually was. First were two types of slátur, blóðmör or "blood pudding" and lifrarpylsa ("liver sausage"). Neither were too bad actually, though a bit sharp in taste because of the soured aspect. They apparently are actually made very similar to Haggis, perhaps why I didn't have too much of an issue with them. The other item they served me was some Hrútspungar, which looked quite unique with a bunch of ovals pressed into gelatin. Well, low and behold it's ram's testicles that are thrown into a pan, gelled, then soured in whey. Again, the taste was a tad bland for the actual testicles themselves but the gelatin was natural like most true gelatin. Overall, the strong aroma of the souring liquid was a bit much but otherwise they were alright to eat. I did pass up on seconds however!
Not too long after sampling the Þorramatur, our other guesthouse guests arrived. Both girls were from Australia and came in with an odd story of their own - they had rented a car in Iceland but when got to the airport after the whole day of traveling, the driver discovered that her license was expired and she couldn't drive! Thankfully they got into the city, but after a brief bit of chatting, they settled into their room to figure out their newly discovered obstacle. After that, Vic and I ended up just relaxing in our room, getting things ready for tomorrow's big adventure and busy day. I spent a good while copying photos off my cameras before finally crashing.
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