Day 52/183: Caturday is Icelandic and well hard
Yeah, it’s -10 C and my paws are cold. What of it? Someone’s got to guard this bit of wall.
Yeah, it’s -10 C and my paws are cold. What of it? Someone’s got to guard this bit of wall.
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Day 39/183: A ferry ride to Videy Island
With apologies for jumping back in time to before the Harpa concert, I went to meet my travelling companions at their hotel around mid-day. From there, we walked up the Sculpture and Shore trail to the departure pier of the ferry to Videy Island, which is a three-minute journey from that particular bit of Reykjavik coastline.
Videy Island is home to artworks and ruins, as well as hosting Yoko Ono's "Imagine Peace" cylinder. It is lit from October to December, between John Lennon's birth and death, and for a few days in spring. The island is a wonderful place to walk and just admire the scenery, particularly Snaefellsnes peninsula, on a clear sunny day. We were lucky enough to have one of those during our trip on a Sunday, as the ferry doesn't run except in good weather on fine weekend afternoons in winter.
There are a lot of photos from the shore walk and the ferry trip below the cut. It took me some time to curate them, which is why this entry is appearing after the one about the concert at the Harpa.
Viðeyjarstofa House on Videy, viewed from the opposing shore.
( ++++ )
We grabbed a hot chocolate from the visitor centre before hopping on the ferry back to Reykjavik. So to recap, on International Women's Day, we:
I did post to my journal about the penis museum, which counteracts these points somewhat, but otoh all the penises have been detached from their dead owners, soaked in formaldehyde, and subjected to ruthless public scrutiny. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Videy Island is home to artworks and ruins, as well as hosting Yoko Ono's "Imagine Peace" cylinder. It is lit from October to December, between John Lennon's birth and death, and for a few days in spring. The island is a wonderful place to walk and just admire the scenery, particularly Snaefellsnes peninsula, on a clear sunny day. We were lucky enough to have one of those during our trip on a Sunday, as the ferry doesn't run except in good weather on fine weekend afternoons in winter.
There are a lot of photos from the shore walk and the ferry trip below the cut. It took me some time to curate them, which is why this entry is appearing after the one about the concert at the Harpa.
Viðeyjarstofa House on Videy, viewed from the opposing shore.
( ++++ )
We grabbed a hot chocolate from the visitor centre before hopping on the ferry back to Reykjavik. So to recap, on International Women's Day, we:
- spent the entire day with other women
- took a ferry ride to see a work of art by a famous woman
- drank one of the best hot chocolates ever made by anyone, but in this specific instance, by a woman
- put vodka in the hot chocolate on the ferry ride back, because we could, and if you are judging us, we don't care
- saw a chamber music concert with a majority-woman quartet, that featured the premiere of a piece by a woman composer
- ate fish tacos (fnaaar)
- patronised a bar run by women
I did post to my journal about the penis museum, which counteracts these points somewhat, but otoh all the penises have been detached from their dead owners, soaked in formaldehyde, and subjected to ruthless public scrutiny. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Day 37/183: A concert at the Harpa
I have wanted to hear a concert at the Harpa since my last visit to Reykjavik in 2009, and when I discovered that there was a chamber music recital happening at 4 PM on this day, I asked my companions if they wanted to attend. They were more than happy to go; one of them is an accomplished cellist.
We rocked up at the Harpa after our long shoreline walk from the ferry terminal, about seven minutes before the recital was due to start. Our arrival lowered the average age of the audience by a couple of decades at least, as well as comprising the bulk of the non-Icelandic attendance (there were no printed programmes in English). We settled near the back and the musicians came on stage. The first violinist was an imperious woman with a high thick red ponytail. The second violinist was a much younger woman, the violist wore glasses and a very covetable brown velvet dress, and the cellist was the only man. They played Beethoven for us first, then two modern pieces, one of which was a premiere from a composer in the audience, and finishing with more Beethoven. It was an absolutely top-class performance and we were all buzzing with the delight of it by the end, even if the third piece had been interrupted by the distinctive ringtone of an elderly person’s Nokia.
The Harpa lends itself to selfies at weird angles.
View from the floor on which we heard the chamber music recital, taken during the interval.
The concert finished in time for us to catch the tail end of happy hour at ground floor restaurant, so we stopped in for a celebratory glass of fizz.
The bartender pours us our bubbles at the Bergmal Bistro Bar.
Happy selfie with prosecco includes the ring with the iridescent green stone that I bought at the flea market.
We finished our bubbles and pootled off to find a place that my companions had ended up in the previous night after I’d gone to bed. It was the Bastarður Brew & Food bar, and as soon as I had seen that it served tuna tacos, I knew it was the right place to go for supper on International Women’s Day.
Tuna, pulled pork, and vegan tacos, enjoyed with cocktails.
Best sign for the toilets ever, y/y?
Once we’d feasted on a sampling of all the available puddings, we headed up to Vedur, a small establishment next door to Kiki’s Queer Bar and featuring lots of queer couples on first dates. We drank more cocktails and everything got quite confessional.
Finally, we settled up, made a contribution to Tippo the Hippo, and staggered back to our respective hotels, replete.
We rocked up at the Harpa after our long shoreline walk from the ferry terminal, about seven minutes before the recital was due to start. Our arrival lowered the average age of the audience by a couple of decades at least, as well as comprising the bulk of the non-Icelandic attendance (there were no printed programmes in English). We settled near the back and the musicians came on stage. The first violinist was an imperious woman with a high thick red ponytail. The second violinist was a much younger woman, the violist wore glasses and a very covetable brown velvet dress, and the cellist was the only man. They played Beethoven for us first, then two modern pieces, one of which was a premiere from a composer in the audience, and finishing with more Beethoven. It was an absolutely top-class performance and we were all buzzing with the delight of it by the end, even if the third piece had been interrupted by the distinctive ringtone of an elderly person’s Nokia.
The Harpa lends itself to selfies at weird angles.
View from the floor on which we heard the chamber music recital, taken during the interval.
The concert finished in time for us to catch the tail end of happy hour at ground floor restaurant, so we stopped in for a celebratory glass of fizz.
The bartender pours us our bubbles at the Bergmal Bistro Bar.
Happy selfie with prosecco includes the ring with the iridescent green stone that I bought at the flea market.
We finished our bubbles and pootled off to find a place that my companions had ended up in the previous night after I’d gone to bed. It was the Bastarður Brew & Food bar, and as soon as I had seen that it served tuna tacos, I knew it was the right place to go for supper on International Women’s Day.
Tuna, pulled pork, and vegan tacos, enjoyed with cocktails.
Best sign for the toilets ever, y/y?
Once we’d feasted on a sampling of all the available puddings, we headed up to Vedur, a small establishment next door to Kiki’s Queer Bar and featuring lots of queer couples on first dates. We drank more cocktails and everything got quite confessional.
Finally, we settled up, made a contribution to Tippo the Hippo, and staggered back to our respective hotels, replete.
Entry tags:
Day 36/183: Flea market and The Blue Lagoon
Post-penis museum, we went to do a bit of shopping at the Kolaportið flea market. This was a curious mixture of overpriced tourist gubbins, authentic junk, local produce, jewelry, and genuine Icelandic jumpers (hard to find amongst the tourist gubbins). One of my companions and I bought jumpers for our kids, as well as acquiring baked goods and cheap, pretty hand-crafted jewelry.
Tuckered out after our exertions, I toddled back to my hotel for a luxurious mid-afternoon zizz, a rare pleasure. Eventually I levered myself out of my pit to get ready to go to the Blue Lagoon. I ambled down the road to my companions’ hotel and we had a drink (beer for me, mimosas for them) in the lobby before the bus arrived.
We spent the bus ride goggling out the windows at the golden hour prior to sunset.
Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
slemslempike’s tip, I hired a swimming costume, which cost me all of £5 as opposed to the £40 buying a new one would have done, assuming I could even find one in March in the shops in Reykjavik, which I couldn’t.
We gathered our slippers and robes and headed inside to shower off and change. The showering-off is taken very seriously. You must strip off completely and scrub down, and put conditioner in your hair and leave it there to try to prevent it from turning to straw (top tip: it doesn’t work). Only then may you don your swimsuit and head into the lagoon waters.
A brief history: the Blue Lagoon is not a natural geothermal spa. It’s formed from the weirdly luminescent effluent of the nearby geothermal power plant. A plant worker who suffered from psoriasis was the first to discover the healing qualities of the supersaturated alkaline waters, and the first iteration of the Blue Lagoon was born, a casual affair that was neither temperature or depth-controlled, and was in fact rather dangerous. In the intervening decades, it has morphed into the much safer and more formalised tourist hot-spot that it is now, and has also grown considerably since the plant continues to operate (and provide much of Reykjavik’s power).
We had two face masks - I went with the standard mineral exfoliation, followed by the algae mask, which was very cool and soothing - and a couple of drinks. The first was the girliest option on the menu, strawberry sparkling wine, and the second, a skyr smoothie. We swam lazily about in the sparsely populated lagoon, easily avoiding Facetiming strangers. Half an hour before the lagoon shut, the one companion who’d brought a waterproof case for her camera dashed quickly back in to the lockers and retrieved it to snap a few photos.These are below and behind the cut.
( +4 )
After a long, soapy shower, my skin felt amazing and my muscles pleasantly achy from all the walking and swimming. My hair, on the other hand, was and remains a haystack, despite the mandated conditioner application. It was entirely worth it. I fell asleep on the bus home, and stumbled happily into bed, where I slept for nine solid hours.
Tuckered out after our exertions, I toddled back to my hotel for a luxurious mid-afternoon zizz, a rare pleasure. Eventually I levered myself out of my pit to get ready to go to the Blue Lagoon. I ambled down the road to my companions’ hotel and we had a drink (beer for me, mimosas for them) in the lobby before the bus arrived.
We spent the bus ride goggling out the windows at the golden hour prior to sunset.
Thanks to
slemslempike’s tip, I hired a swimming costume, which cost me all of £5 as opposed to the £40 buying a new one would have done, assuming I could even find one in March in the shops in Reykjavik, which I couldn’t.We gathered our slippers and robes and headed inside to shower off and change. The showering-off is taken very seriously. You must strip off completely and scrub down, and put conditioner in your hair and leave it there to try to prevent it from turning to straw (top tip: it doesn’t work). Only then may you don your swimsuit and head into the lagoon waters.
A brief history: the Blue Lagoon is not a natural geothermal spa. It’s formed from the weirdly luminescent effluent of the nearby geothermal power plant. A plant worker who suffered from psoriasis was the first to discover the healing qualities of the supersaturated alkaline waters, and the first iteration of the Blue Lagoon was born, a casual affair that was neither temperature or depth-controlled, and was in fact rather dangerous. In the intervening decades, it has morphed into the much safer and more formalised tourist hot-spot that it is now, and has also grown considerably since the plant continues to operate (and provide much of Reykjavik’s power).
We had two face masks - I went with the standard mineral exfoliation, followed by the algae mask, which was very cool and soothing - and a couple of drinks. The first was the girliest option on the menu, strawberry sparkling wine, and the second, a skyr smoothie. We swam lazily about in the sparsely populated lagoon, easily avoiding Facetiming strangers. Half an hour before the lagoon shut, the one companion who’d brought a waterproof case for her camera dashed quickly back in to the lockers and retrieved it to snap a few photos.These are below and behind the cut.
( +4 )
After a long, soapy shower, my skin felt amazing and my muscles pleasantly achy from all the walking and swimming. My hair, on the other hand, was and remains a haystack, despite the mandated conditioner application. It was entirely worth it. I fell asleep on the bus home, and stumbled happily into bed, where I slept for nine solid hours.
Entry tags:
Day 35/183: The Iceland Phallological Museum
Is it appropriate to post about a penis museum on International Women’s Day? Rather than spend any time at all pondering the answer, I’m just going to go right ahead and do that. The photo above is not from the penis museum. It is one of the sculptures from the “Sculpture and Shore walk” along the Reykjavik coastline. I took a photo of the bronze plaque with the title and artist but it’s unreadable so I’m calling it “ballast against the penis” since it is more yoni than lingam. Below the cut are a lot of penises, mostly in jars, so it’s probably best to label the rest of this post NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
( Click here to sample the delights of the Phallological Museum )
We were pretty hungry after all that, so after plundering the gift shop - did I mention, urologists - we went to find some lunch that was appropriate to the theme.
That’s a vegan hot dog the Icelandic way, with sweet onion and crispy onion underneath, and un-mayo, mild mustard, and ketchup on top. Washed down with a “breakfast beer” (2.25% ABV).
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Day 34/183: Car train train bus plane bus bus hotel
I picked up a bottle of Reykjavik vodka in the airport, which cost a tenner and is probably fire water but so long as I drink it cold and with the neighbouring bottle of lemon soda, I'm sure it will be fine.
I used a lot of forms of transport today to get from home to a hotel in Reykjavik - see subject line. It took 11.5 hours in total. I could probably have made it shorter by not flying from Luton airport but it was so much cheaper than flying from my local regional airport that it was worth it. Or at least it will be once I’ve got this vodka lemon thing down my neck and shut my eyes.
Tomorrow I have to buy a swimming costume because this numpty forgot she was going to the Blue Lagoon tomorrow night with my mad American doctor friends whom I haven’t seen in 15 years. We meet tomorrow morning at the Iceland Phallological Museum, because where else do you start a tour of Reykjavik with a bunch of urologists?
Day 12/183: Weekly Goal Check-in (4/52)
You know that feeling when you go to book a hotel for a short stay in Reykjavik, and you want to one that is downtown and gives you breakfast in the morning, so you book whatever deal Expedia gives you, and then you discover it is round the corner from a museum, which pleases you, and you look closely at the museum on Google maps, and it turns out to be the penis museum? I do.
( Goal Check-in 4/52: mostly success )
( Goal Check-in 4/52: mostly success )
Margaret Elphinstone, The Sea Road
Stories have a life of their own. They grow, just as children grow, and perhaps we forget the small thing they once were. But we nurture them just because we respected what was there in the beginning. -- Gudrid Thorbjornardottir
The Sea Road is a version of a saga of an Icelander, a visitor to the New World that the Norse called Vinland, centuries ago. It's beautifully told in the voice of a wise, honest and keen-sighted woman. She evokes both suffering under harsh conditions and the exceptional pleasure to be derived from moments of comfort and ease with equal facility. She makes the reader understand how "[t]he greatest blessing any human being could know is to be assured they will always have food and drink," reframing the renowned peripateticism of Scandinavian people with this practical aim in focus.
Gudrid is a solitary, contemplative girl. She loses her parents rather young - her mother to a fatal illness and her father to indifference. With the guidance of her foster mother, she develops the wariness required by a life spent primarily surrounded by men. The thread of her romantic narrative is inextricably entwined with that of her adventures, and she forges bonds with her partners in a way that a woman who has never been learned to make friends with other women her own age must do to keep away loneliness. (This part of the story spoke loudly to me.) She steps in to direct the journeying parties when necessary, a voice linked to but always independent of her husband's. The story never romanticises hardship brought on by climate, disease or violent human behaviour. Gudrid describes them all with pragmatism, sensitivity and humour.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
anthrokeight recommended this novel to me because the narrative begins in Snaefellsnes, the mountain in whose shadow I spent most of my recent Icelandic holiday. Though Gudrid spends only her childhood there before moving to Greenland and eventually Norway, the sense of it - the toughness imbued by years of deprivation and the graft required to scrape a living from a largely barren land - never leaves the story. I found it gripping. It's my habit to highlight on my Kindle the passages that resonate with me. In this case, I found it difficult not to highlight the entire book.( One more passage that reflects on both my journeys this year. )
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Snaefellsnes postcards
The 20* postcards I had printed up from this Iceland photo have arrived! They look pretty good, although the colours are not quite as vivid. Who would like one?
* If I receive more than 20 requests, I will have more cards printed.
Poll #8105 Snaefellsnes postcards
This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 10
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 10
Do you want a Snaefellsnes sunset postcard?
Yes please!
10 (100.0%)
No, thank you.
0 (0.0%)
Do I have your postal address?
Yes, you do.
5 (50.0%)
No, and I shall either leave it in the text box below or PM you with it.
5 (50.0%)
Here is my postal address:
* If I receive more than 20 requests, I will have more cards printed.
Puffins in Iceland
It has long been a dream of mine to see puffins in the flesh, so our Iceland trip included a puffin-watching jaunt in Reykjavik harbour. The puffins had given up on breeding on the islands in the harbour & were headed back out to sea, so we only got to see them on the water. They were pretty tough to photograph, being skittish and also quite small. Their take-off from water is less than graceful as it involves a lot of frantic flapping and their flying silhouette is rather chunky. But they were adorable to watch.
( Reykjavik harbour, puffins galore, arctic tern diving )
( Reykjavik harbour, puffins galore, arctic tern diving )
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Another Icelandic sunset
The bloke & I watched almost every sunset from the old fishing docks in Akranes for the eight days we were in Iceland. Each one was different and they were all spectacular. Our host told us that this one was going to be orange and blue, unlike the previous evening's, which was pink. I have no idea what combination of temperature, cloud cover, wind, season and ancient bone-bred fisherman's instinct he used to predict the colours but he was right.
I don't think it's possible that this view could grow tiresome.
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Iceland: Tres photogenic
Aside from rotation & cropping, these photos are almost SOOC (straight off of camera). Iceland just looks like this.
ETA: Number of postcard requests exceeds number of postcards. Think I will get round this by selecting the first four respondents from DW & LJ and sending them the du Maurier postcards, and everyone else will receive postcards randomly selected from the stash accumulated from my travels. Is this OK with everyone?
ETA: Number of postcard requests exceeds number of postcards. Think I will get round this by selecting the first four respondents from DW & LJ and sending them the du Maurier postcards, and everyone else will receive postcards randomly selected from the stash accumulated from my travels. Is this OK with everyone?
Auntie Nanila's Top Travel Tip for Iceland
See this wonderful pastoral view, taken from a mountainside in Iceland in summer at sunset? See those sleek Icelandic horse silhouettes?
Well, if you want to experience and maintain an unblemished appreciation for this scene, then allow me to recommend the following. Do not, I repeat, do not park your hire car within a kilometre of these animals if you cannot see a fence between you and them. If you do, you can expect to return to your car, exhilarated after a couple of hours' hiking around the mountain whilst enveloped in the scent of wild thyme, to find that your hire car has gone from its relatively pristine condition to this, because Icelandic horses apparently have developed a taste for vehicle paint.
I now understand why Icelanders have no compunctions about eating horse.
Ah, home again. Takk fyrir, British public transport.
We're home from Iceland. I have many photos and stories to share, but since the bloke & I spent a lot of time Walking Along Beaches At Sunset Whilst Holding Hands (no really), let me share two anecdotes from those beautiful moments.
Him: It's cold. Let's go back.
Me: Come on! We have a whole town to explore. Where's your adventuring spirit? Think of your fellow Britons. Would Captain Scott have turned back because it was a bit nippy?
Him: Captain Scott froze to death in the world's biggest desert.
Me: OK...um...Captain Cook, then! No, hang on...*
Him: pointed stare
Me: Er, sorry, bad example. There has to be at least one British adventurer who wasn't killed by his exploits.
Him, after a lengthy pause: Well, there was Livingstone**-
Me, in blissful ignorance: There you go!
Him: - but he died of malaria.
Me: sigh
~*~
Him: hums the tune to Women of the world/Take over/Because if you don't/The world/Will come to an end***
Me: begins singing the words
Him: No, I'm singing "nanilas of the world/Take over..."
Me: You don't want that. It would be nothing but cake, kittens and attractively decaying cemeteries.
* Captain Cook: Killed by the native Hawai'ians. Oh irony, could you have prompted a better example? I think not.
** David Livingstone: Scottish explorer and anti-slavery crusader.
*** See: Ivor Cutler - Women of the World
Him: It's cold. Let's go back.
Me: Come on! We have a whole town to explore. Where's your adventuring spirit? Think of your fellow Britons. Would Captain Scott have turned back because it was a bit nippy?
Him: Captain Scott froze to death in the world's biggest desert.
Me: OK...um...Captain Cook, then! No, hang on...*
Him: pointed stare
Me: Er, sorry, bad example. There has to be at least one British adventurer who wasn't killed by his exploits.
Him, after a lengthy pause: Well, there was Livingstone**-
Me, in blissful ignorance: There you go!
Him: - but he died of malaria.
Me: sigh
Him: hums the tune to Women of the world/Take over/Because if you don't/The world/Will come to an end***
Me: begins singing the words
Him: No, I'm singing "
nanilas of the world/Take over..."Me: You don't want that. It would be nothing but cake, kittens and attractively decaying cemeteries.
* Captain Cook: Killed by the native Hawai'ians. Oh irony, could you have prompted a better example? I think not.
** David Livingstone: Scottish explorer and anti-slavery crusader.
*** See: Ivor Cutler - Women of the World
T minus 65 minutes to HOLIDAY
Tomorrow afternoon, I will be here:
HO YES ICELAND. For one week. I need to unplug, so am unlikely to be about much.
And since it's Friday and my brain is melty, I give you an adorable animated video and ask a simple question.
HO YES ICELAND. For one week. I need to unplug, so am unlikely to be about much.
And since it's Friday and my brain is melty, I give you an adorable animated video and ask a simple question.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16
Bapple?
Ticky?
Arnaldur Indriðason - the Erlendur mysteries
In preparation for our trip to Iceland at the end of July, the bloke & I decided to sample some literature that might be informative about the culture and the landscape. This included such highbrow offerings as the diaries of poets W.H. Auden and Louis McNiece, Letters from Iceland, partially written in verse form. Most importantly, however, the package also included a crime novel by the Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indriðason.
His works are all set in Reykjavik. We were hoping they might give us a sense of the city’s geography. They didn’t. They left us with the impression that city is populated by three types of people:
Despite the lack of navigational assistance and the dubious English translation, we both devoured Jar City, the introduction to Erlendur (see Type 1 on the previous list). I can report that the translations improve in later works. It gave us a flavour for the character and rather dark humour of Icelanders. Erlendur stomps about in a gloomy funk, persistently interviewing recalcitrant witnesses, prodding suspects into incriminating themselves, getting into fights with his daughter and nursing a terrible secret in his troubled bosom. This terrible secret is slowly revealed over the larger story arc in the novels and allows the reader to understand Erlendur’s motivation and insecurities. Underneath that surly exterior is a soft-centred sensitive gentleman. It’s a classic trick for making hard-boiled detectives lovable, and Indriðason applies it masterfully to Erlendur. If you’re looking for a quick, engaging read and can handle discussion of unpleasant psychological disorders as well as a few gruesome but (thankfully) sparingly used physical descriptions, you may wish to give Indriðason a whirl.
His works are all set in Reykjavik. We were hoping they might give us a sense of the city’s geography. They didn’t. They left us with the impression that city is populated by three types of people:
- Gruff red-haired chain-smoking detectives living off takeaways in dingy flats, devoting their energies to solving grisly murders while letting their personal lives go to hell in handbaskets.
- Their gruff drug-addicted leather-jacket-wearing loud-mouthed unhelpful children, who live off takeaways in dingy flats.
- Gruff chain-smoking unhelpful citizens who may or may not be killers, living in dingy flats.
Despite the lack of navigational assistance and the dubious English translation, we both devoured Jar City, the introduction to Erlendur (see Type 1 on the previous list). I can report that the translations improve in later works. It gave us a flavour for the character and rather dark humour of Icelanders. Erlendur stomps about in a gloomy funk, persistently interviewing recalcitrant witnesses, prodding suspects into incriminating themselves, getting into fights with his daughter and nursing a terrible secret in his troubled bosom. This terrible secret is slowly revealed over the larger story arc in the novels and allows the reader to understand Erlendur’s motivation and insecurities. Underneath that surly exterior is a soft-centred sensitive gentleman. It’s a classic trick for making hard-boiled detectives lovable, and Indriðason applies it masterfully to Erlendur. If you’re looking for a quick, engaging read and can handle discussion of unpleasant psychological disorders as well as a few gruesome but (thankfully) sparingly used physical descriptions, you may wish to give Indriðason a whirl.