This really is a uniquely fascinating country and I'm glad we got to explore it in an in-depth fashion today. And we didn't even have to leave Reykjavik to do it.
But first, the obvious: happy summer solstice! (And happy anniversary to my younger girl and her love, and to my good friend in Florida and her love!)
My choice of dates for Iceland was not accidental. I wanted to be here for summer solstice because, well, it's cool to put yourself this far north on the longest day of the year. This moment in the planet's movement has always held a good dose of wonder for me. I love long hours of daylight! So here we are, reveling in the beauty of the earth's orbit. Scientific, but magical nonetheless.
We wake up to window washing. This is certainly in the hotel's favor: the rooms are full of windows and they are close to the sea and to bird activity. Clean windows we shall have. More interestingly, we watch the guy do his task with the longest washing stick I have ever seen. We are on the fourth floor. He has no trouble reaching us there.
Breakfast: again, the hotel is well organized to handle a sizeable crowd. And the foods are good. The girl is thrilled that they have hash browns. Give her a potato in some form and she is happy. (Too, she likes their smoked salmon and croissant. I'm up for some deeply seeded bread which I imagine to be Nordic.)
Next, I booked us a visit to Perlan. This place is hard to explain: perched on a hill, a significant walk away from the hotel (we take a taxi to it), it is a very modern museum that tries to give you a feel for Iceland's wonders -- both in the sky and on the ground. They call it a natural history museum, but it is not at all a typical natural history place, or at least not like I've ever seen. I wasn't sure what to expect. Snowdrop was skeptical (you had to walk through parts of it with a group). We entered.
Surprisingly, it was not crowded. Reykjavik is packed right now. Of course it is. How could you resist it on this day, in this season! But most visitors actually do not stay in the city for long. (I think this is part of the problem at the hotels: people don't much care about their overnight. They move on to do tours, take cruises; in other words, they leave pretty quickly.) And clearly most do not make the trip up to Perlan. What a shame.
We walk through the more traditional museum exhibits, though they're done with flare, and the space is so beautiful that you almost forget to look at what's displayed. Still, we do not read all that's there. Not sure why. Perhaps there's just too much.
Moreover, I took almost no photos. Again, not sure why. Though I did snap one of this significant animal -- the Arctic fox -- Iceland's only native mammal.
Snowdrop loved this next display. Puffins are one reason why she wanted to come to Iceland. We haven't seen any, but we have a couple of days to go!
And I learned something interesting here -- with the help of the museum rep who answered some troubling questions for me:
Polar bears are not native to Iceland, but they have been spotted in a number of places. They come here afloat on an ice brick. What happens to them? Well, a concerted effort is made to catch them once spotted, and to take them back to their native Greenland. But the effort often fails and the guide tells me that they then have to be euthanized. Why? Because they stay by the shore, where most of the country's population lives and they pose a real danger to communities and to local wildlife.
Now come the three segments that proved to be a whopping highlight for Snowdrop and therefore for me as well. First, there was a movie -- just 7 minutes long -- that showed the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (I cannot pronounce this!) in 2010. This volcano had a slow lava spill and so people could actually get pretty close to the eruption. Too, it's near Reykjavik -- again, easy access. The videos were nothing short of spectacular. The girl was wide-eyed throughout.
The second segment was a surprise. The museum is testing a new exhibit and as our small group was first in the museum today, we were asked if we wanted a pre-show of sorts (it's not yet open to the public). Of course we did!
They took us to a room with a wide screen below, in front and above. They warned us that some viewers may get dizzy. We would be going inside the eruption of the volcano. We were told that if we got lightheaded, or nervous or claustrophobic we should close our eyes. (Yep, several times I closed my eyes!) None of these shows permitted photos let alone videos, but here is Snowdrop, waiting for it to begin.
It was unbelievable! Obviously filmed by drones, the film engulfed you with its bursts of flame, its lava flow, its sheer seismic force! We all burst into applause at the end.
Finally, there was the ice cave. Recently opened, it is made out of ice and snow, transported from the glaciers and mountains of this country. It was a cold experience!
One more display -- of glacier debris...
... and we're done.
Upstairs, there is a gift shop, an ice cream shop, and a viewing platform, allowing us to look out on Reykjavik. We partook of all three!
The girl wrote postcards to her friends and her brother and then it was time to go back.
I was delighted that she opted for walking to the hotel -- a mere 45 minutes and downhill all the way. It was raining, but I had an umbrella (which she refused, claiming she liked getting wet). I want to reach my daily walking goal -- she tells me. Well me too!
And the walk, especially at the beginning, is absolutely gorgeous. The lupines that we saw out the window speeding from the airport, are right there by the path, flanked by golden buttercups and birch.
(And back in town again)
(all the way down, to that splendid concert hall -- and their gift shop)
Back at the hotel, we hit a wall of different desires. The manager called and told me he had a room ready for us -- one that actually matched the website description. No useless corridor and weird arrangements. An actual sitting area as promised. I said -- let's do it, I'll pack us up. Snowdrop hates room changes. We'd had one out of necessity in Copenhagen. It was a "here we go again" moment for her, just as she had found her comfortable spot. She begged to stay with what we had. I thought about it, but in the end, I couldn't just let it go. I was paying so much, for something that should have cost so little.
It took a whole lunch of fish and chips to convince her that this was the right thing to do.
The young man who helped us with luggage was from the Ukraine. He'd left just as the war started. His family is stuck there. Listening to him talk about this made you really feel incredibly sad. He had no one but his cousin here. He could not even think about his grandparents left behind -- it brought him too much grief.
He is not the first immigrant we met here. The salesclerk from Latvia, the taxi driver from an Arabic nation. The young man who delivered us some flowers, here from Portugal. The waitress from Greece. They must feel so far away from home in this very cold and uniquely isolated country. And yet they come, because they must.
(in our new space -- perhaps smaller, but so much more functional and as promised, with a place to sit)
We eat dinner at the Messinn. Another fish place. This one prepares individual pans of fish (many local varieties!), with added sauces, veggies and boiled potatoes. Here's my Arctic char:
And here's Snowdrop doing one of her favorite kill-times: creating characters on my iPhone. But I do tear her away from it by describing the Tana French mystery that I am reading. We come up with possible solutions. I ask her to read the ending when we get back and tell me if we are on the right track. Gaga! I'm a child! I love talking about this, but I don't enjoy reading about murders! I smile and tell her -- you know, kids your age do like Sherlock Holmes. (Do they? This is a guess...) She asks -- do you know if Holms dies at the end? Ha! I have to look it up. And the answer makes us laugh! (He is killed off in the final story in the series, but readers were so outraged by this ending that Sir AC Doyle resurrected him again, claiming that he had faked his death.)
Evening comes. Well, not really. Or only if you go by the clock. Like on New Year's Eve, there is the temptation to stay up, to see what it's like then. It's supposed to stop raining, but it will be cloudy. But, for that moment of wakefulness, we would pay the price, with tiredness tomorrow. And we're to have an early day. (In fact, I'm not quite sure when I'll be able to blog. I don't see a window for it!)
I convince her to go to sleep. Maybe you stayed up? Played music? Had a lovely long evening with your beloveds? I hope so.
with so much love...
