Day 7: Hot Springs

Hot springs seem to be nature’s recompense to Icelanders. According to info at a Geothermal Park (a small park of hot springs and steam pipes), geothermal heat and springs have been (and are now) used for everything. Back in the day, people could throw a bag of potatoes in a spring and haul them out when boiled. They used the steam to pasteurize milk. The water to do laundry. Notably, they use the heat to bake a dense, sweet rye bread, currently sold as “hot spring bread”.

Maybe they bake on platforms like this?

We went on several hikes to and around hot springs. I think we were on the Reykjanes peninsula.

Looks like a UFO crash-landed, doesn't it?

Mud is thrown in the air from the heat of its boiling

With steam rising from the ground all over, no wonder Icelanders believed in fairies. It could easily be a dragon’s breath, ghosts, or smoke/steam from dwarven smithies.

Later we stopped at Seltún Krysuvík to see more hot springs. Sulfur from here used to be sold to make gunpowder.

Lady's just chilling on the mountainside. 

Plaque say that people used to believe that there were hot spring birds that hide from humans by diving into bubbles in the boiling water. Now people think it’s either an optical trick or ghosts (I’m betting more people think the former)

 A wyrm is supposed to live in this lake.  One guide book says it’ll have to show itself soon, as the lake is shrinking.

Signs

On an unrelated side notes, signs are ridiculously descriptive in Iceland. Standardized signs indicate when you’re entering or leaving a city (a picture of buildings with or without a slash across it), and road signs for food show include not just the fork and knife icons, but also a soup with ladle, a hot dog and soda (with straw!), a glass of wine. For the whole trip, I thought the signs were specifying what kind of food you could get, but apparently they mean things like "restaurant", "cooking facilities" and "sales kiosk" (see the whole list of Icelandic signs at Cheap Jeap).

Traveler’s Tips

If you’re looking for a place to eat in Keflavík, Café Duus has great fish.

Also, the restaurant custom in Iceland is to pay your bill up front; places don’t tend to bring you the check.

Day 6: Water! Lava! Water! Genetics!

We’ve been staying at an isolated house boarded by farmland (horse farms, it seems. Icelandic horses are slightly smaller with long manes). I have to say, reading In Cold Blood at night in rural Iceland has been a bad decision (flat farmlands, no close neighbors, a family alone . . .).

I can’t get over how isolated Icelanders are

Today we drove down toward Vík, stopping at sights along the way. Much of the land is sheep and dairy farms. We see four cars this morning, far more than anywhere else outside of Reykjavik. You have to keep an eye out for places to eat on trips out here, as you can’t even count on a coming across a gas station.

A collection of waterfalls you could walk behind:

 

Skogarfoss:

Nice above the falls views, if you trek up a pretty tedious staircase. The ubiquitous sheep were chilling up top.

Eyjafjallajökull

Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted in 2010, halting plane flights:

It was right there!! Lava! Smoke! Explosion!

Look, look, I'm not lying to you! 

(Now I feel lame for photographing a photo)

Also, I guess I should show up in my own blog?

Not my worst awkward attempt at the myspace photo.

A man in Hafnarfjordur told us ash-dust from this volcano still blows over, and periodically he’ll have to clean it off his car.

Reynisdrangur

Iceland has a melancholy note that comes out most on its beaches. Gray sea beats against a black-pebble beach. Rain swept in unforgiving winds. A tall cave made of splintered rocks and geometric columns. Our first sight of Iceland’s national bird: puffin skeleton alone on the sands, head intact. (I'd show you depressing photos, but my camera keeps getting murdered by the rain).

Dyrhólaey

Cliffs above a crashing ocean. Lava rock has formed an arc. Wave hitting it spit towers of spray. The wind is brutal, throwing bullets of rain. This week’s Reykjavik Grapevine says pro-whaling Icelanders argue simply that life is hard in the North. Soft city-dwellers shouldn’t tell them how to survive.

Genetics

The Grapevine also reports that deCODE has found 2,400 women with a high likelihood of developing breast cancer. They want to alert the women so they can use the info in making health decisions, but public health authorities have argued that this would violate privacy concerns. Personally, I think either tell each person, privately, or ask them if they want to opt out of knowing what their breast cancer risk is.  

Day 5: Glacier time!

(Sorry for the late posts – I’ve been out of internet access).

The country of Iceland seems to be a present given away before it was finished being made. The landscapes and structures are impressive, but so recently formed . . .. We drive past sparsely placed sheep farms and mossy rock fields. Stretches of black rock give way to moss to wide grassy stretches. If abandoned here, we could see any house easily, thought it might take days to get there. I can’t get over the air of desolation. No wonder so many apocalyptic movies were filmed out here.

Skattafoss

We approach the glacier trekking across black gravel.  The small patches of yellow-green moss and lichen seem to glow.

The glaciers here are constantly changing and are tiger-striped with volcanic ash. The mountains nearby are smooth – glaciers, we’re told, act like sandpaper; the water picks up rocks as the glacier moves , smoothing down the mountainside. It takes 80-100 years for plants to grow on land left by a glacier, our guide adds. To some extent, it’s hard to know if the glacier has really left an area – sections of ice may be in tact, insulated underneath the dirt we walk on.

I’ve forgotten our glacier’s name in Icelandic; I just recall that pronounced in an American accent it sounds a lot like “fuck you”.

 Our guide points out various features:

“Glacier mice” look like mossy tribbles. These balls form when plant-matter grows on top of rock. If I understood him correctly, a rock will fall into an indent on the ice, and insolate it, making a deeper hole. Lichen (or moss?) can grow on the rocktop. As far as our guide knows, they’re unique to this glacier.

Moulins (“windmills”) are deep, circular holes in the glaciers. They often contain water and connect to what seems to be a labyrinth of holes and watery channels running through the glacier beneath us. 

Our guide says that people, hearing the roar of avalanches and seeing glaciers slide down the mountains, thought that the glaciers were snow dragons.

Game of Thrones’s current season’s scenes of behind the Wall were filmed on a nearby glacier, our guide tells us. He adds that volcanoes often erupt from underneath glaciers (and the ash gets trapped temporarily, with interesting effects). So yeah, it's a real land of Ice and Fire.

We forgot to bring water bottles to sample the glacier water, so our guide stuck his ice axe like a bridge across one stream. Taking a push-up position holding onto the axe, we could lower our mouths to the water.

I See Elf People?

Our guide, himself an immigrant to Iceland, said that his girlfriend’s aunt believes in fairies. He went on to tell us about a “politician/criminal/musician” who hired someone to ask elves in a particular rock if he could move the rock to his lawn. People elsewhere would lock him up as crazy, our guide said. It hit me that outside of Iceland, such people, who profess to see and hear what others can’t, might be evaluated for schizophrenia. I supposed prophets would be regarded similarly.

Glacier Pool

An hour’s drive past the glaciers is a pool of ice floes. It’s stunning in the day’s bright light, and very windy. White birds with thin wings fly and we spot a seal.

Blue ice is the coldest, having no oxygen. A group of performers was filming a dance here when we arrived; they fled the cold as soon as they could.

Traveler’s Tips

We went on Glacier Guides’ 5 hour tour, which is a little longer than you need to spend on a glacier, but was fun and we had a good guide.

What to wear:

It’s not so much colder on a glacier than on a hike, you just don’t want to get wet. I wore long underwear, pants, waterproof pants, a T-shirt, and a coat, with a hat and mittens.

Wear gloves/mittens in case you fall so that you won’t cut your hands on the ice shards. This may sound obvious, but waterproof boots are a must (ex. hiking boots).

Also, bring any food you’ll want, and a water bottle if you want to drink glacier water.

So far, we’ve never needed cash in Iceland – except for tipping this guide. We ended up giving him American money, having neglected to exchange anything.

Day 4: Waterfall, Water fly

We set out today on part of the Golden Circle, a route south popular with tourists.

Alping

First stop was a natural park that had housed the Alping, Iceland’s parliament, the first parliament in the world. For two weeks every summer, Icelanders would gather to resolve judicial cases, make political decisions, meet up and share ideas. While at Alping, vendettas were temporarily halted. This annual meeting and idea-sharing helped keep Iceland a more homogenous country.

That flag is where the Law Speaker would recite 1/3 of all Iceland's laws each year

Justice, of sorts

Interestingly, the Alping’s courts could resolve dispute and pass rulings, but had no executive power to carry out their decisions. Victim’s were allowed to exact punishment, extracting fines (punishment for small crimes) or killing the perpetrator if they didn’t obey banishments (3 year’s exile, or execution was common for larger crimes).

Conversion to Christianity brought harsher laws. People feared that God would punish an entire community for one member’s misdeed. Thus, harsh crackdowns would keep the community safe. Thieves were hung (which perhaps makes some sense, as in older times and such harsh climates, theft could jeopardize the owner’s livelihood). Somewhat horrifyingly, incest was also punishable by death: drowning for a woman, beheading for a man. Drowning was a rather common form of execution, especially for women.

When Norway took over rule of Iceland, the crown tried to express its power by assigning royal officials to carry out judicial rulings, thus challenging a culture of vengeance. Fines now went to the crown instead of the victims.

I can't remember what I asked him to pose as. To look judicial, maybe?

National Park

The park that housed the Alping is an interesting, impressive area of rivers and rocky cliffs. Iceland was created out lava rock spewed out of the rift between tectonic plates of Eurasia and North America and here in the park the rift is most visible.  

Denmark

Denmark received Iceland from Norway and, according to the plaques at the park (I tormented my family by taking the time to read all of them), the Danish king was super chill. The Danish king gave Iceland a constitution. Then, in 1940, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany and lost contact with Iceland. By 1944, Iceland decided it wanted to be a Republic and after debating whether or not to wait until they could ask the king for permission, chose to go ahead and do it. On hearing the news, the Danish King telegrammed them congratulations. (Because of their time under Denmark, Icelanders learn Danish and English in school).

Geysr

Geysr is the geyser after which all others are named. We approached it walking up a marshy hill. Rust-colored dirt is intercut with swaths of green and dry yellow grass, giving a mottled appearance. All around, steam gusts out of pools and small openings in the ground. Clouds and trails of steam gust across a landscape bare save for twisted red trees. The effect is ghostly, ethereal. By the muddy path ran a river, pleasantly warm to the touch on this dreary day. It had been raining continually and from horizon to horizon stretched gray cloud. A sign warned the river is typically 80-100°C.

It’s unclear if geysr is still active. Three years ago it was reported to go off 2-3 times a day, though I’ve also heard these days it only goes off in the wake of earthquakes. Fortunately just yards away is Stokkur, a more consistent geyser. Every few minutes the water level rises and falls as if in breathing, then blasts out.

Standing in the steam from the geysers is a mixed venture: warm comfort at the price of the eggy sulfur smell that clings to most water here.

Food

I tried a bite of horse meat. It tastes dark, with an intense note I couldn’t place, and is chewy. Man, I should be a food writer, shouldn’t I? I’ll just stop trying.

Gullfoss

Gulfoss is an expansive series of waterfalls cascading into a sharply-cut chasm. It makes an impressive sight. So much so that when the foreign investors tried to dam them to generate power, the owner’s daughter threatened to kill herself. The story is that the investors bypassed the owner (who refused to sell) and secured rights from the government. It’s unclear if the daughter’s threat to throw herself down the falls had any effect; the investors failed to pay their lease and lost the rights.

Villages of cairns populate the cliff tops. According to Zach’s guidebook, the Icelandic word for “cairn” is the same as the word for “priest” as both point the way but never go there themselves.

Skálholt

The story behind the church is more interesting than the sight, to be honest. This tall, plain white church was once a religious and political center, and Jon Arrson, the last bishop of Iceland was executed here.

Traveler’s Tips

The church at Skálholt is more historically interesting than visually so. Drop by if you need another stop on your way somewhere, but otherwise, don’t bother.

Day 3: Reykjavik; The non-tourist's view

We had dinner with an Icelandic one-time coworker of my mom’s and her family.

(Given their reputation for stoicism, I would have thought most Icelanders would be stand-offish, but everyone we’ve met is very approachable. The one problem with talking to them, however, is I have never felt more illiterate than when trying to pronounce Icelandic names and street names).

Food

I made sure to get sheep’s head jelly on buttered rye flatbread. The jelly seemed to be strips of congealed meat and had a light flavor. The Icelandic family reminded us that this sort of traditional Viking food is only eaten at an annual holiday. The proper way to eat putrefied shark’s fin, they said, is to take a bite so you can say you did it, then drown out the flavor with a shot of alcohol.

Sheep's head jelly

Speaking of alcohol, here’s the story behind the beer ban: like the U.S., Iceland had a time of prohibition (1915-1935). Spain caused the downfall of this, refusing to buy Icelandic fish unless Iceland would buy Spanish wine. So Iceland decided to permit wine and spirits, either forgetting about beer or assuming no one drank it anyway. From 1935 until 1989, beer over 2.25% was outlawed. (What was legal was Icelandic’s national drink a 40% alcohol potato spirit called brennivin).

But beer started to be allowed for tourists, and became available in duty free stores, and on international plane flights. One Icelandic man, David Scheving Thorsteinsson, bought beer in a duty free shop then demand that he be arrested for bringing it into Iceland. The authorities complied, and in his subsequent trial David* argued that the ban was unconstitutional; the court agreed. (This info’s from the Icelandic family, Wikipedia, and the New York Times)

*Look at me being all Icelandic and referring to people by first names. It feels weird.

So what do Icelanders actually eat? Pizza, candy, hot dogs, lamb cuts, and coca cola. One daughter told me Iceland has the most Domino’s and the most coke drinkers per capita. When Domino’s and candy stores drop prices to half-off, lines stretch outside the store. People line up outside the candy stores at midnight before the day candy goes on sale, she said. (Yet Icelanders look pretty healthy. Maybe they burn more calories in the cold. Maybe they’re just athletic. One thing that’s not just for tourists: outdoor adventure. Camping in particularly is popular).

So what do Icelanders do?

I feel like I see so little of Icelanders, even being in the capital. I’ve been having trouble envisioning how they spend their days, so I asked about the major industries here. The answer: fishing, pharmaceutical work (for one major company, I believe), tourism (a growing industry), and aluminum processing (outsourced to here to take advantage of the cheap energy). Many companies make goods for export.

Sleepy America

Like Argentines, Icelanders party late. Though they don’t drink during the week, on the weekend they hit bars around midnight or 2am, and the bars stay open to 4am or later. Mark that down as one more country shocked by USA’s early closing times.

Hidden Folks: Hard to Find what Doesn’t Exist

My mom’s ex-coworker and her family live in Hafnarfjordur, where we visited yesterday. No one my generation or my parents’ generation actually believe in elves, I was told. People keep talking about elves because it draws tourists. We weren’t shocked to hear this, but we did mention the news articles that keep telling how a construction company changed the route of a planned road in order to dodge an elf house. Sure, she agreed, if an old woman’s really upset and says there’s an elf house, why wouldn’t you just build around it?

Christmas Trolls

There are thirteen Santa Clauses in Iceland who come down from the mountains, one at a time. For each of the thirteen days after Christmas, one Santa leaves, returning home. Their mother is a troll and if you are a naughty Icelandic child, she doesn’t give you coal, she just eats you.

Education and Kids

In Iceland, kids go to the same school from elementary to 10^th grade. Next they attend a 4 year school, where the last two years are a bit more like college: in one daughter’s school at least, they could choose to concentrate more heavily in science or language and completed a thesis (for business interests, they’d have to make a start-up company). After that, 3 years of college.

The drinking age is the same as in the U.S., but you can’t drive until 17.

Costs

While food is costly and many goods more expensive because they have to be imported, geothermal energy means electricity is cheap. Also cheap: healthcare (all prices are capped or nonexistent, minus a small co-pay) and college.

Government

The current mayor of Reykjavik used to be an actor and comedian; he was elected partially out of a search for change by those disgruntled by the economic crisis. Apparently he dresses in drag at the annual gay pride parades and he dressed as a Jedi to meet Lady Gaga.

In other more photograph-friendly news, we visited Arbaejarsafn, what Lonely Planet calls a “zoo for houses”. It’s a collection of various house styles from the 19^th century, built on an old farm.  It was traditional to build turf around your house:

Traveler’s Tips

The house zoo is free and tours are at 1pm.

Café Loki has traditional Viking food – the sheep’s head jelly, and a taster of putrefied shark’s fin (I didn’t try this, because, alas, no one would share it with me. Perhaps your travel companions will be less wise than mine were).

Harry’s is a nice seafood and Filipino food restaurant the family recommended.

Day 2: Hafnarfjordur

Hafnarfjordur

Because I am an willingly manipulated tourist at heart, the place I most wanted to see was Hafnarfjordur, home of the hidden people, only visible to those with second sight. I was expecting a tour guide to point at a rock and tell me it's awesome and I still wanted to do this. 

At the Park. Are you my elf house?

Iceland has a great reputation for belief in elves, ghosts, and all kinds of mystic creatures. Even road constructions have been re-planned so as not to disturb elf houses and incur their (or the locals’ wrath). That said, rumor has it that most Icelanders will say yes, many people believe in elves, but that they’re not sure if they themselves do.

While hidden folk are noted to grace places around the country, this town, just a 20-min drive out of Reykjavik, is the most known for them. There weren’t any tours offered when we arrived, which perhaps defeats the purpose, but we wandered anyway through the grassy boulders of the public park and across the Hamarinn Cliffs where the hidden folk supposedly like to visit.  I'd been hoping to find a map of elf houses at the Tourist Center and self-guide our tour, but alas, no luck. My dad pointed to every rocky crag he saw, said “Look, Jule, an elf house!”, and speculated on each one's property prices.  

The small town is rather quiet for having two notable tourist traps: elves and a Viking hotel and restaurant.

Land of the midnight sun. The sun didn't set until 11pm.

(a black-pebble beach back in Reykjavik)

Traveler's Tips

Hafnarfjordur

Tours 1.5hrs and only offered at 2:30 on Tuesdays and Fridays, so plan accordingly. They might also only be seasonal.

Day 2: Reykjavik

Capital City

It was a bit of a surprise to discover that the area I'm staying is in Reykjavik’s downtown.  Many of the streets are only wide enough to admit one or two cars, bordered by wide sidewalks, cafés, houses, and small shops. Most buildings are colored concrete or corrugated tin walls with steeped corrugated tin roofs. Though most houses look similar, they distinguish themselves with colorings of their roofs and walls, most being red, blue, yellow, white, and/or grays. The day started out in the low 40’s (F) and rose to the 50’s. It’s been a bright, sunny day with remarkably fresh air.

In the morning, we visited a church called Hallgrímskirkja where, for a fee, we took an elevator up into the clock tower and looked out at the city. Reykjavik is a seaside city, ringed in the distance by snowcapped mountains. The effect is beautiful and makes the city feel exposed, a vulnerable patch of humanity allowed to exist on this rocky land because, for the moment, the environment is willing to humor humans.

Genetic Database

In 1998, Iceland created a genetic database, Íslendingabók, that maps the enter population’s genealogical information extending back over 1,200 years. (The database gets interesting reference in Arnaldur Indrioason’s Icelandic mystery novel Jar City).

 In 2000, Iceland seems to have sold the rights to access the database to deCODE, a US biotech company. Iceland’s been pretty isolated (which has interesting results, such as modern Icelandic being so close to old Nordic they can read the original Norse sagas, and Iceland mostly playing traditional styles of music until rock reached them). This also means it’s a great genetic sample for studying genetic diseases; deCODE has been able to develop drugs to combat heart disease, strokes, and asthma, and now offers them free to Icelanders. This deal may have been part of settlement after the database was declared unconstitutional in 2004; however, the database still exists.

Today’s Reykjavik Grapevine (a entertainment/tourist focused free newspaper) reports that deCODE celebrated its 10^th anniversary with the Incest Spoiler alert, a joke smart phone app. The idea is that before going home together Icelanders can answer a few questions on their phone, at which point either an alarm goes off telling them they’re too closely related, or a message encourages them to get it on. One columnist was pretty pissed off because apparently, international news got wind of this app and have been reporting as if Iceland is a pool of incest and this app is all that stands between them and genetic disaster.

Food

A classic food every guidebook mentions is Harofiskur, dried salted haddock. I found it at the grocery store and it tastes exactly as I should have expected – tough (it’s dried), salty (it’s salted) and with a fishy aftertaste (it’s fish). So. That’s a food then.

Food’s expensive in Iceland.

Saga Museum: Settling

The Saga Museum provided a collection of choice anecdotes on Icelandic settlers.

Originally, Irish monks found the island and stayed there because its isolation meant nothing would interrupt their studying. When “heathen” Norse arrived, the monks decided to ditch rather than stay in such company. Later, Vikings raiders would enslave Irish; so many so that at the time 20% of the men and 50% of the women in Iceland were Celtic (the rest were Norse).

Early Norsemen navigated by noting the flights of migrating birds in spring and autumn. The first Norseman to land on Iceland, Flóki Vigerdarson, took three ravens on his ship to use in navigation. Then all his livestock died and he left. Eventually a man called Ingolfor permanently settled in Iceland.

Saga Museum: Let’s Have a Religion

Iceland was divided between Christianity and belief in the Norse gods. In 1000AD the government decided they needed one religion so as not to divide the country.  A single member of the government, himself “heathen” as the museum called it, chose Christianity, but said some heathen laws would stand and that you could practice what you wanted in private. If you were caught, the punishment was three year’s exile. The last Catholic bishop in Iceland, Jon Arasson, was beheaded in 1550; against traditional Christian rules, he had many kids and most of Iceland is related to him.

Saga Museum: Let’s Have a Government

Most immigrants to Iceland came feeling oppressive European kings, and so they approached choosing a government with care. They ended up with the first Parliament, all members unpaid save for the Law Speaker, whose job was to memorize and recite all of the country’s laws. Writing was adopted around the time of the conversion to Christianity and laws recorded in books.

Saga Museum: Let’s all Die

In 1402 a ship from England under Einar Herjolsson brought the black plague. A third of Iceland died, but Einar was fine.

Saga Museum: Witches!

The first killed in Iceland’s witch hunt was a nun in 1343. Unlike most other countries, men were most often accused of witchery.

Get the View

The Hallgrímskirkja church is a nice view, but really, you want to go to Perlan/The Saga Museum (it’s the same building). While the church top let’s you peak out of barred windows, the Pearl has an outside walkway, offering an uninterrupted panoramic of Reykjavik (plus it’s free, while the church charges $7/person to enter the tower).

Food

Food’s pricey here but not quite as pricey as it looks (I was assuming an Icelandic krona was 100th of a dollar, but it's more like 100 krona = US$0.81).  It's about US$3.65 for a cappuccino or latte, and US $10.00 for a bowl of lobster soup.

Saga Museum

It’s about US $20/person, which includes an audio guide. It’s a small museum for the price. The audio-guide tells you anecdotes and tidbits of settler history while you look at wax sculptures in traditional dress and there’s a video explaining how the sculptures were made.