Days 1 and 2: Museums, Vikings, and other adventures

It's a good name for a plane

We're here! And we've even slept, which was not the case yesterday.  The downside of a shorter flight (under 6 hours) is that it's really difficult to get any sleep.  As a result, we got to Iceland at 5:30ish am (1:30am my time, 10:30pm for the west coasters) and had to stumble around for half the day at the worst circadian time.  Ah, well.

Delicious Icelandic breakfast with the best sourdough bread

Anyways, to back up a bit, the flight itself was uneventful (our plane was named Odin, which I took to be a good sign), the passport control process was the quickest I've ever experienced (there was no line and the guy glanced at my picture and stamped, waving me on), the car rental process was annoying but manageable, and we were soon on our way into Reykjavik, through a totally surreal landscape of lava rock and greenery, looking like something from another planet.  We hoped to be able to check in to our AirBnB early and get a few hours of sleep, but that was apparently not to be -- first the keys were missing from the lockbox, then it turned out the cleaners hadn't gone through and changed the linens, then the cleaners still hadn't gotten there...oof.  In the meantime, we went exploring.

Super cool old book

Cathedral and statue

We started off with a wonderful Icelandic breakfast, with fruit and salad and an egg and skyr (a yogurt-like thing) and bread and butter and cheese.  Fortified, we meandered for a bit before trying to return to the AirBnB (to find that the cleaners hadn't arrived).  Michael decided to hang out and relax while Mu and I went off to see the Settlement Museum, which was on the site of an actual archaeological dig of a hall from the day of Iceland's initial settlements.  It was a really neat and informative museum, and my favorite part was that they had ancient scrolls and books!  Iceland is known for its literary output and the exhibit had a few of the original sagas, along with some more mundane (but still awesome) writings.  It's really too bad these were under glass -- I bet the old book smell would've been epic!

Great view from the tower

Context-free selfie (in the tower)

We made another attempt at the AirBnB after this, to find that the cleaners still hadn't arrived (they got there just as we were getting ready to head out again), and decided to check out the Hallgrimskirkja, the famous amazing cathedral that turned out to be a very short walk from our place.  It's super fancy and amazing!  There was a great statue of Leifur Ericsson outside (gifted to Iceland by the US, strangely), and the inside was really grand.  The coolest part was getting to go up to the top of the tower and seeing the amazing views of Reykjavik (and the fact that we didn't have to climb stairs to get there, we were worried).  The weather was pretty clear, so the visibility was really good.  There had been an organ concert just before we got there, but we were too late for it (and probably too tired to sit still without falling asleep).

Food from the street food festival

Third time was the charm for the AirBnB, so we settled in and napped briefly, then set back out to a street food festival that Mu and I had seen getting set up earlier in the day.  I don't know if this is a weekly thing or a special event, but it was a really great opportunity to have small bites of random stuff.  The thing that really stood out at me was how many ethnically diverse food options there were.  We had dim sum-ish buns, a pork "burger" (it looked like a pulled pork sandwich to me), and what turned out to be shrimp and crab balls (they were from a place called "Steakhouse," so I wasn't expecting seafood, but there we are), and other options included tapas, momos, tandoori, quinoa wraps, popcorn, and lamb.  So much goodness!  And then for entertainment, we went to a small lawn/park right next door that was having...a Viking festival? Something.  There were vendors and fighters and a bunch of people looking very Viking-ish, and we meandered and were generally amused.  It was like the SCA but a different culture.  People looked amazingly accurate, at least to my untrained eye.

Fighting Vikings.  Note the beaten ones in the field.

After spending some time at the tourist center and getting a whole bunch of brochures, we went walking around and sort of accidentally stumbled onto the Harpa, a very new and shiny concert hall.  We were trying to kill time at this point before it was late enough to sleep, so we got tickets to a one-man show called, "How to Become 100% Icelandic in 60 Minutes."  It was...somewhat amusing, and we didn't fall asleep (or at least I didn't), and it was something to do.  We learned some random factoids/stereotypes about Icelanders, so there's that.

Mu with an engine that required the wall behind it to be torn down

After all that, we walked around a bit more, then got back to our place and crashed out.  It was still light out, which was confusing.  I woke up briefly at around 3:30am and had a moment of panic that I should be getting up because it was light enough to be 7 or 8am!  In the end, I actually ended up sleeping 'till after 9, which I guess makes sense, given the all-nighter the night before.

Wax Viking settlers

Today, Mu and I had a very efficient travel morning while Michael went on a whale and puffin watching tour (we didn't go because we really don't do well on boats).  Instead, we went to the Maritime museum (small but really informative, with cool exhibits and a little section about Icelandic Seawomen), the flea market (not as exciting as I had hoped, mostly due to the fact that all the bookstores had books in Icelandic and I had no urge to purchase scratchy woolen sweaters, and also we're right at our weight allowance to begin with), the Saga museum (with an interesting and informative audio tour and life-like exhibits of people settling Iceland), and delicious fish and chips for lunch.  I think we managed to walk 5 miles just in the course of the morning!  We then met back up with Michael for more walking (cool public art, yay!) and an excursion to the Icelandic Phalological Society, aka the Penis Museum.  It was about as entertaining and puzzling as you might expect, with lots of random art, objects, and different mammalian penises preserved in formalin.  Fun!  And now, we're back at our place, relaxing and getting ready for dinner.  Plan for the evening is to do a haunted walk after dinner, which will hopefully be at least entertaining.

Somewhat burner-looking art

Elaine and a poet

Deliciousness

A very small portion of random penis-shaped items