I keep thinking I ought to finish this thing up, close it so I have an accurate, complete record of the time I spent in Iceland. I still have a pretty good story to recount from the Saga wax museum about a Viking girl who threatened to cut off her tits and freaked out some Native Americans so badly she won a battle. If I did that, I might pick it back up the next time Josh and I go a-wandering, and then just keep this old blog as a record for things I see in other countries.

But I'm also really tempted to start a for-real life blog again. I don't know. I miss writing. I miss being hard and apt. I miss talking about myself.

Notes on Food and Booze from the Worst Plane Ride Ever

I think this airplane is named after a volcano. It doesn't bode well.


(This is not a picture of an airplane or volcano. This is the view from the exposed ledge of the North American continental plate.)

Josh and I got stuck in different parts of the plane, which I've decided will be fine, very relaxing, like a tiny island of silence and relaxing and re-reading Triumph of Achilles. (RETROSPECTIVE NOTE: DO NOT READ LOUISE GLUCK ALONE ON A PLANE.) I'm trying to decide if I should buy some headphones for in-flight movies or white wine. Probably I should buy neither, considering the state of my checking account, yet the yappy pubescent youth behind me seems to be going through a precocious rebellious stage with his confused parents, and I'd rather not be privy to his developments.

Last night, we finally got to experience the fabled Icelandic party scene. It was something that we'd heard a lot about--the later into the week it got, the more various locals encouraged us to check it out. Icelandic youth are rumored to know how to throw down. And it is true. Worry not, my bros, I have done a research. Since drinks are so expensive, the local practice is pregame all evening with shots, and then when the sun starts to set, roll out to the bars for dancing and fighting. At about 11 pm, all previously sleepy, charming and even "quaint" pubs turn into parlors of crazy.

Josh and I expected a lot of metal, but strangely, the music scene predominantly consisted of pop rock from the early 90s. The first bar we went to was called the "Celtic Cross"--dark, wooden Irish pub decorated with like celtic knots, runes, rustic wood paneling, drippy old candles set in wine jugs. The band was playing Green Day's "Good Riddance" when we came in. Which is a great song and all. I mean. I'm not trying to say anything about enjoying 90s music, especially upon drinks.

As baffling as that was, the exceptionally hot, wildly drunken Icelandic youth more than made up for the mellow soft rock with their out of control, screaming antics. You wouldn't think "acoustic covers of hits from the 1990s" would be the number one party jam, but at one bar, I watched a young blonde guy leap up onto a table, literally rip his shirt off his body and swing it around his head in circles to the tune of Oasis's "Don't Look Back in Anger." Huh.

My favorite part of Icelandic drinking was their utter disregard for litter. The city was extremely clean, well-maintained and beautiful during the day. But at night--so, you're walking from one bar to another, right, with your transition beer? (Open container = not a thing.) And then, when they reached their destination, they'd just....literally....smash it to the ground. Soon, the once-tidy city streets were a landscape of obliterated fragments, glittering like ice across the pavement.

We mostly drank beer---Viking or Tuborg, which seem to be the Miller Lite of the North, and taste a bit like a Heineken, although each one costs about the price of a ....fancy beer sixpack. We did the "black death shot," because you know, that's a thing. Not bad--kind of a lighter absinthe--peppery. But mostly we sat in the corner and watched the procession like meek churchmice.


(Some whale bits we also found in the street. Just in the street. For scale, each one was the size of me.)

Describing food makes me want to talk about food again. So part of our mission statement was to eat as many weird things as possible, and I feel like we did a good job of that. And you know, it was good. They eat some strange fish and sheep parts, but the thing is, fish and sheep are both good, and especially good when they're very fresh. The grossest thing I ate over there was pretty normal: some creamy fish soup thing at a tourist trap viking restaurant. It tasted like chunky seawater. The best thing was fish and chips--although our hotel had this amazing breakfast buffet that formed the main part of my diet there.


(Some food things.)

Anyway. The plane rolls on. I am gonna get that wine. Probably one more post about vikings before I wrap this blog up but hey. Fun.

Is Ben Stiller still a thing?

Guest Post by Husband

Iceland was awesome. It bears repeating given the tone of this post, so I'll repeat it: Iceland was awesome. It was however far different from my expectations.
What I thought Iceland was going to look like:

What Iceland Actually Looked Like:

What I thought Reykjavik was Going to Look Like:

What Reykjavik Actually Looked Like:


What I thought Icelandic Live Music Was Going to Be Like:

What Icelandic Live Music Was Actually Like:

What I Thought Icelandic Males Would Look Like:

What Icelandic Males Actually Look Like:

What I Thought Icelandic Females Would Look Like:

What Icelandic Females Actually Look Like:


So what was Iceland like? Here are some raw facts:
Warmest day: 25 C (around 78F)
Typical Evening Temperature: 9C (around 48F)
Number of Hot Dogs Eaten: 3
Number of Fermented Shark Pieces Eaten: 3
Number of Fermented Shark Pieces Regurgitated: 0 (Whatever, they were pretty good)
Average cost of a beer: 1000 kronur ~ 8.74 USD
Number of Books Read: 1.5
Number of Times Got Lost on the Bus: 3
Number of Trolls Seen: 0
Number of Times Publicly Urinating: 1
Percentage of Icelanders Who Speak English Apparently: 100% (A mentally retarded man was selling pens outside of a grocery store. I said 'Því miður' [I'm sorry] in an attempt to tell him I wasn't going to buy his pens and didn't have any money. He said "Oh, that's OK. Bye!")

We saw hot springs, volcanoes, lava fields, lots of museums, ate fish, drank beer, got lost, got found, walked a lot, climbed hills, and had an amazing time.

blue I love you blue

SO. The Blue Lagoon was something I was most looking forward to. As I've previously babbled, I've never been in a volcanic climate, never even seen a volcano before this trip. The mountains I love are old and green and very deeply asleep. But I took a weird glee in all this newness--huge, naked mountains with violence and sulfur and Earth being churned out of nothing. Iceland literally got a new island like in the 1950s--just popped out of the freaking ocean, like yeah, I TOTALLY EXIST NOW. It's a soothing place to vacation if you are occasionally given over to fits of bitterly-suppressed rage. The very landscape seems to echo it. But something else, too, with that, something productive. Creation as an act of fury?

At any rate, the Blue Lagoon is this amazing place in the middle of a crazy lava flow where the natural hot springs are all full of this weird guts-of-the-earth sediment that turns the water this weird beautiful blue color. It also forms white crystals on the edges of the pools. They have also built this science fiction-like spa over top of it, and you can go in and paddle around and put mud on your face and pretend to be a dragon.

Josh and I were very good at being there. They had a swim up bar that served obnoxious, overprice blue cocktails, and this little hobbit hole steam room. The ash and weird blue nutrients are supposed to be amazing for your skin, but I feel like days later, I'm still washing dead bits of lava out of my hair. Still. Freaking awesome.

Wednesday yelling

Last night, I dreamed all my teeth fell out. This is actually a pretty common recurring dream for me and probably has nothing to do with the fact that IN ICELAND IT IS LIGHT FOREVER.

(10 or 11 pm--but it's not for us to ever know the time in Iceland.)

No, really. At first it was kind of fun, like sort of a competition with my expectations. "Wow, it is still light? It is *still* light?" Exciting like those home videos of natural disasters before they get really bad, where everyone's taping the tornado from a moderately-unsafe distance, like "aw yeah, this is so cool and a good idea; I'm gonna put this shit on youtube" before everybody starts screaming and staticdeath.

Yeah--so it is neat and cool-looking for a while, and then, all of the sudden is like ten pm and you've been walking for miles and miles all day without stop because you still can't figure out the whimsical bus system and you haven't eaten since breakfast because a hotdog costs fifteen dollars and you're so tired and it's so damn bright and isn't this day supposed to be ending but the little chemical hamster in your brain that tells you when to turn off is saying "GOGOGO--"

There are two English-speaking channels on the TV here: BBC and some kind of endlessly looping parade of failed crime show spinoffs. It's all like"CSI: New York" or "Law and Order: LA"--stuff nobody really actually watches. Except me. From the hours of 10:30-1am. *quivers*

Golden Circle

Okay, I take back all the mean things I said about Iceland being Moon Ikea. It is a dragon land of dynamic wyvern clouds and boiling creeks. Best of all, today was go-down-to-just-three-layers warm.

Josh and I took the basic So-You-Like-To-Look-At-Mountains-In-Iceland tour today. I guess it's different from any place else I've been because it's so sort of...new. The mountains I'm used to living around are literally some of the oldest in the world, whereas some of these are still erupting. The place is still mostly deforested from making too many Viking boats. But it's got a
lot of awesome stuff because of that.

I also faced my most dangerous and metal Iceland experience yet: being stared down by an open-mouthed middle aged rich New Yorker woman across the space of a tiny van. They bite more people per year than sharks, according to Ada Limon. (New Yorkers. Not Vans. Vans too I guess.)

I want to say about everything, babble about specific waterfalls, particular bits of scalding water we saw shoot out of things and this amazing story about Viking Parliament but my battery is dying as dead, so I'm just going to post a couple pictures and call it a night. Hopefully I can find some kind of charger converter, or I'll take notes, so I can update more later. Josh promises to do a guest blog soon which I'm sure will predominantly involve making fun of me: particularly this one recent incident in which I profusely thanked a bum for asking the time.

First Day Etc.

Here are some things about Iceland so far:

1. Actually, it's pretty freaking cold. I don't know why I didn't expect this--I looked up the weather and the name features "ice" fairly strongly. But I am freezing my tits off. I did not dress for this weather. Worse, everything here is super expensive as a result of no obvious reason, and at home, I have scarves, gloves and hats that I love dearly and am in no way lacking for---so I'd feel stupid buying extra cold weather stuff that I don't need at too high a price. The only option is to freeze. To death. Soon. Goodbye, friends.

(Look at the piddling excuse for cold weather gear I have. That scarf isn't even mine--it belongs to Jay Austin. JAY. AUSTIN. )

2. Their currency is insane. Josh and I extensively researched exchange rates and educated ourselves appropriately, but over here, we have discovered it to be inconsistent and confusing.


(CASH MONEY I think.)

3. It looks like a cross between an Ikea and THE SURFACE OF THE MOON. No, it's actually quite beautiful, but in sort of a stark, strange way. I keep telling Josh "WINTER IS COMING" and he looks at me in vague annoyance. The words I would use to describe Iceland are all the kinds that snobby people use to define white wines "flinty," or "mineral"--and I feel like a jerkoff every time I try to think about it. The lavafields are amazing, and there are all these strange little piles of stones in the middle of these giant tundra-esque moors. I think when we go out into the country tomorrow, I'll have more opinions about them.

The city itself is surprisingly modern, for a Nordic city. When I was in Norway, everything was so old, they had all these ancient churches and buildings and such. Everything here in the city is...Ikea.

4. Weirdest Thing Eaten So Far: fermented shark at a place called Cafe Loki. Yes, Legenders, CAFE LOKI. :O

It wasn't bad, actually. It smelled godawful, but you know, for rotting fish, it was pretty decent. It helped that I was having a beer called "Freya" at the time.