i keep a diary

October 21, 2003

European Vacation Part 2: Reykjavik, Iceland.

We landed in Keflavik at 5:35am local time (1:35am NYC time). After getting through customs, we figured we'd have about nine hours to explore Iceland. The plan was to rent a car, drive into Reykjavik (which as far as we could tell was only about 80km from the airport) and then play it by ear from there. Time Elapsed With No Sleep:15h 5m

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See? There's Keflavik in the southwestern corner of the map.
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We were starting to feel a little tired on the plane, but we totally rallied and got a second wind the minute we stepped off the plane (must've been that reindeer meat finally kicking in).
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We breezed right through customs...
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...without any problems...
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...and then the realization that we were actually IN ICELAND hit us. Iceland! Oh, snap.
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We quickly traded in our tacky greenbacks for a fistfulla polychromatic peningur (which is Icelandic for "money"). Or as the natives say, "Najök-najök," which is Iceland for "Bling-bling." (P.S. - I am totally lying.)
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After we got our money all squared away, we headed over to Hertz and rented a car. We told the woman at the counter that we only had a few hours and we asked her if, besides Reykjavik, there was anything that we should be sure not to miss in the short time we had. She was like "Eh, not really." So we were like, "What about that Blue Lagoon place? We saw video about it on the plane and it looked amazing! Is that worth checking out?" Once again we were met with a tepid "Eh, it's ok" and a shrug. (We wrote off her lethargy as an effect of the less than four hours of sunshine Iceland receives during its winter days).
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6:40am (local time and still pitch black out). We spent the hour-long drive into Reykjavik betting on what time the sun would rise. Price Is Right rules in effect: the one who managed to come closest, without going over would be declared the winner. It was then agreed upon that the winner would get to make out with Gemma, Grant's hot little sister, (mmmmmm....Gemma) when we stopped at Grant's parent's house in Essex on the last leg of our trip. But then we all remembered that Gemma had a boyfriend. (Booooo).
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7:25am: Lost. We were right on target until the highway we were on turned into this crazy-ass rotary that shot us off in the wrong direction. We stopped at a gas station for directions, but nobody there spoke enough English to be helpful - so we hunkered down with the map and tried to figure it out. (Check out Fatty's priceless "We're lost" expression).
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8:02am (yep, still dark). We made it to downtown Reykjavik (the world's northernmost capital) and parked our teeny-tiny Eurocar in a public lot near the Tjörn, which is a big, man-made lake in the center of the oldest part of town.

We didn't manage to get a picture of him, but on the walk over to the Tjörn, this thirty-something year-old guy, who had what looked like a giant lobotomy scar running horizontally across his forehead, ran up to us and said "Where are you from?" in perfect English. "New York City," we told him. "Oh, yeah? What do you do?" Me: "I work at a software company." He then leaned in really close towards my face and asked, "A SOFTware company, or a softWARE company?" Then cackled maniacally and ran away.
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8:15am: Just as we arrived at the Tjörn, the sun came up (which made me with my prediction of 8:10am, the big winner of the "When Will the Sun Rise in Iceland" Contest. Too bad I didn't win jack shit). That building on the left is one of the Municipal builidings of the city.
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Here's Chris and I trying our best to not look cold for a photo. We didn't want to pack a whole bunch of winter clothers that we'd only be using for a half-day in Iceland so all we had with us to fend of the 4°C temperatures (about 39°F) were our light jackets.
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A few minutes later, we watched this guy show up with a little kid and a huge garbage bag full of rolls and bread.
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As stood nearby discussing what our best plan of attack in exploring the city, , he overheard us talking and asked where we were from. "Oh shit," we thought. "Here we go again." But when we told him we were from NYC, he told us that he'd lived in NYC for a bunch of years as well. He introduced himself as Smari and told us that he'd lived in the States for 15 years and that besides NYC, he'd also worked as a bakery manager in New Hampshire and San Francisco.
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He'd moved back to Iceland a few years ago and was managing a bakery there. He'd just gotten off work - so he grabbed a bag full of day-old bread, and brought his son to the pond to feed the birds while waiting for his wife (who was originally from Russia) to get out of her class at the nearby University.
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After we told him that we were only in Reykjavik for a few hours to sightsee before having to catch a plane to London, he told us that he had a few hours to kill and if we were interested, he'd be happy to take us on a walking tour of the city. He suggested we grab a cup of coffee to warm up, and then he'd show us around. We were speechless. In a 20 minute span we'd two people: one was the craziest person in Iceland, the other was the nicest.
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As we walked along, Smari told us all about his life growing up Reykjavik - and then out of the blue he pointed to a store and said "That store right there, that's my sister's dress shop." We were like, "Oh, that's rad." He goes, "She's a fat bitch. I hope she's goes bankrupt." We were completely caught off guard and when we all started laughing Smari's like, "No seriously, she's a real cunt." I nearly lost my mind.
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It was right around this time that I decided it was time to pull out the video camera and start capturing some of this. I mean, Christ, I'd already failed to capture the lobotomy guy and Smari dropping the C-bomb about his sister - I wasn't about to miss out on any more. I asked him if he minded me filming him talking and he said he didn't. As soon as I started taping, he launched into all these stories about Iceland's crazy nightlife and told us that we needed to come back over the summer and spend a few days. "Don't worry about a hotel." He told us, "You won't be needing one." Hahaha. (Footage coming soon).
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I should also at this point tell you all that we carried Fatty's rad little MiniDV video camera with us throughout the entire trip and we ended up shooting just over 14 hours of tape (which I'm in the process of editing into a full-length video diary). Over the next few months I'll be posting some of the choice clips from it. Woo.
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We walked to the north-western edge of town and checked out the mountains across the bay.
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And also checked out a whole bunch of vehicles outfitted with monster tires.
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The Fatty.
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Then Smari took us to the Hallgrimskirkja church, the tallest building in the city.
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Out front of the church is a statue of Leif Ericsson, the Icelandic explorer credited with the discovery of Vinland (North America). The inscription on the back of the statue reads: "Leifr Eiricsson Son of Iceland Discoverer of Vinland. The United States of America to the People of Iceland on the One Thousandth Anniversary of the Althing. AD 1930" (I didn't know what an the Althing was. I've since learned, via Dictionary.com, that it's: "The parliament of Iceland. The oldest assembly in Europe, first convened in 930.")
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After Hallgrimskirkja, Smari took us over to the outdoor sculpture garden at the Einar Jonsson Museum. He's Iceland's most famous sculptor and his work (which was from the very early 1900's) was pretty far out there.
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The garden was filled with these enormous bronze sculptures mostly drawing from various Nordic mythology.
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Craziness.
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Here's me taking a picture of Fatty taking a picture of one of the smaller, detailed sculptures.
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And here's the really neat artsy picture Fatty took.
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I really wish we the indoor portion of the museum had been open because I would have loved to see some of his other work.
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There are a whole bunch of pictures of the stuff inside the museum on their website.
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Chris and Smari's son (who's name I forgot!)
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After the museum, Smari remembered that he'd only put a few minutes of time in the meter back at the Tjorn, because he'd only been planning on being there for a few minutes. So we all headed back to the Tjorn.
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Miraculously, he managed to avoid getting a ticket (but he did accidentally lock himself out of the car...Doh!). We thanked him for the tour (it's still one of the nicest things a stranger has ever done for me - so Smari, if you read this, thanks again!) and then told him that we were thinking about checking out the Blue Lagoon on the way back to catch our flight but that the lady at the rental car place had seemed underwhelmed when we asked her about it. Smari told us "Fuck that lady. If there's only one thing you could see in Iceland, it should be the Blue Lagoon. Don't miss it. Go there now." That settled it. We bid Smari farewell, and headed for Grindavik.
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