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.
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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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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.
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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.
tags:
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).
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?
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