We woke up around 8:30am and tried to figure out the shower. Somehow we got the right temperature water coming out of the right nozzle (it had a rain shower head and a handheld in addition to the normal tub spigot) and, not wanting to mess anything up, left the water running during the brief time (a minute or two at most) between our two showers. Headed downstairs for breakfast at 9:30am and ate some scrambled eggs (not awesome), meats and cheeses (not bad), bacon (decent!), bread (nice hard crust), and tea and coffee (amazing!). We were back in the room at 10am and relaxed and blogged until about 11:30am.
It being nearly lunch we figured we should probably do something more substantial with the day. We headed east towards the center of Reykjavik through a mostly residential area. We stopped at a gift shop or two but didn’t buy anything. Just past the center of town we came upon the road with the rainbow painted on it. At the far end of the road was the very impressive Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland’s center of the Lutheran faith. It looked as if the road was the rainbow Bifrost bridge leading to a very Asgardian-looking building.
We stopped in a Café Babalú, a charming cafe with comfort food for Michelle — tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. I had a grilled ham and cheese with corn chips (basically corn tortilla chips) and a chocolate croissant. All around very yummy. While we were there two American fellows came in to chat with the owner and the three sat at an adjacent table. The owner was also from America but had lived here awhile and it was a treat listening (discreetly!) to him describe the crazy intricacies of the Icelandic language. A noun has many different forms, for example “horse” has different forms depending on whether something is being done with it, for it, on it, etc. He joked (at least I hope he was joking!) that though nouns are gendered if there are five or more the gender is dropped so everyone orders five of everything.
Michelle went to the bathroom as we were getting ready to leave and came back and told me I had to go to the bathroom. I went in and it was something else — Star Wars characters all over the walls, above the toilet was made to look like a porthole to space with TIE Fighters battling X-Wings and the whole time a Star Wars ambient music / sound effect track was playing. On the way out I complimented the owner on the amazing bathroom.
After stopping in another gift shop or two we came upon Hallgrímskirkja, the aforementioned Lutheran church. In front was a statue of Leif Erikson (first European to discover the Americas). Behind was a giant concrete church, absolutely towering over the landscape atop a hill. There were also three art installations of vague male figures facing suits of armor. Inside the church was very sparse but impressive, evoking the interior of medieval European cathedrals. It also had the most “metal” organ I’d ever seen. We bought a magnet in the gift shop as well as a ticket for one to the top of the church (Michelle didn’t want to go up).
While Michelle sat in a pew I took the elevator up to a level behind the clocks. There were a few informational pieces about the history of religion in Iceland that were fascinating. Basically Iceland is unique among European countries in that from the get-go it was Christian — there was no pushing out / conversion of an existing non-Christian population. When the Norse arrived in the early 9th century there were already a couple of anchorites, Irish monks that had sailed farther afield to find even more solitude. The Norse themselves were a 50/50 mix of pagan (mostly Norse) and Christian (at that time Roman Catholic) and many of their slaves were Christian as well. Iceland tried to make a go of having both pagan and Christian and even considered splitting into two but at the first Althing it was proposed by the speaker at the time that by law everyone should just be baptized going forward and that’ll fix it. Crazy that the pagans agreed, but whatever. Iceland remained Roman Catholic until 1540 or so when the Kingdom of Denmark (which included Iceland at the time) decreed that the religion would going forward be Lutheran.
After a short climb of steps I arrived at the top of the tower. I didn’t notice the bells at first but when it rang 2pm I sure did! Loud! Once that was over I went around the tower and enjoyed the 360 degree view of Reykjavik. I headed down and sat briefly with Michelle before we headed out, this time turning north towards the harbour.
First, though, I just had to try what was considered the best hot dog stand in Reykjavik. I ordered a traditional, basically a long hot dog of unknown meat source (again, traditional!). It was in a bun atop some semi-sweet relish and some fried onions (think Durkee Onions). Atop the hot dog itself was a mustard that was on the sweet side. Yummy!
Once finally downhill (stopping only to see a French hospital built for French cod fisherman around 1900) to the harbor we saw the “Sun Voyager”, an impressive modern metal sculpture that evokes both Viking ships and, somehow, whale bones. Took a few pictures and left as a tour bus was puking out tourists. Walked west for a bit in an increasing rain that even included a bit of sleet. We arrived at an impressive glass building perched on the harbor called Harpa. In addition to shops it served as a performing arts center and conference center. On this day it served as a place to go to the restroom and dry off a bit.
As the rain showed no sign of abating we pulled our rain coats’ hoods even tighter and braved on to the west past the harbor. There was a neat series of plaques about the harbor and the role it played in Iceland’s independence (1918) and Britain’s takeover in 1940 (to prevent the Germans from capturing it first). There was also a mini skate park with a very garish basketball court (well, half of a court).
Eventually we made it to the room at about 4pm and napped for a couple of hours before heading to Flatey, a Neapolitan pizza joint. We each got a mushroom and meatball pizza (with the intent of taking home leftovers for dinner on Wednesday should time be of the essence) and I got another one of those delicious Fanta-like Applesin sodas. Returned to the hotel about 7:30pm and asked them to call our room if the Northern Lights presented themselves (you can see them from town, though it isn’t ideal). Originally they wrote down room 546 instead of 446 but I caught it — 546 wouldn’t have appreciated a middle-of-the-night call!
Blogged for a couple of hours and called it a night, needed to get rest prior to the tour of the Snæfellsnes on our last full day of vacation.
