10052019
Day 3
We had leftover pastries from yesterday. The Airbnb had a little Nespresso machine, that even the “big cup” setting produces like a single shot, but the cartridges are condensed enough that you can push the button a few more times, so that took us 10 minutes to make 3 cups of coffee.
Today’s itinerary was driven by a bus tour through the Golden Circle. The pickup was the same place the airport Porter dropped us off at.
The driver/tour guide was essentially a viking. His name was Trond, he was over 2m tall (the shortest of his siblings), long red hair and beard, and was actually a Norwegian transplant to Iceland, and took an Icelandic wife and everything.
I'm betting his move to Iceland was much less violent than the typical historical Norwegian immigrant to Iceland. He was full of good stories, of both his own and the national identity.
His first bit of information was in regards to the original settling of Iceland, which I referred to in an earlier post. It's documented in the Book of Settlement, which he described as “a written record of every person that moved to Iceland, who they came with and when they came. After the initial immigration, the records go into the Book of Icelanders. Which records bloodlines and land ownership. Apparently they also use it for amarous pursuits, to ensure they aren't cousins. There are only 350,000 people here after all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Dslendingab%C3%B3k
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landn%C3%A1mab%C3%B3k
He went on to explain Iceland was populated after the initial settlers by Norwegian refugees. At the time (about the turn of the last millennium) the king was consolidating his power in Norway, and those that opposed him had to bail after he indeed unified Norway.
That's likely why they weren't keen on having a new king in Iceland, and hence established the parliament, which is one of the oldest in the world.
He had a story about the Christianization of Iceland.
The island nation was getting pressured by the Christian nations of Europe through stifling trade. Norway was going to use it as pretext to invade (always). Iceland was pretty well split evenly with maintaining their Norse paganisn and accepting Catholicism (this was prior to the Reformation), including the parliament. So they left it up to the law speaker, who decided to go with Christianity. But the speaker accepted Christianity with some caveats; the priests could marry, the chieftons would become dejure priests and the people could maintain their Norse Gods in some capacity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christianity_in_Iceland
Which all basically means, there were a Christian nation in only name.
Trond also had stories about the “discovery” of the Americas:
Erik the Red's father also killed someone in Iceland here (noticing a theme of exiled murderers *discovering* and settling new lands), he and his son Leif Eriksson left, settling in Greenland and ultimately Leif ended up settling in Newfoundland. Really, other Vikings that were coming to Greenland (typically in an exiled capacity from some other land) to immigrate to Greenland stumbled upon Newfoundland after getting lost. When they finally got to their original destination of Greenland they told Leif about it, and he went to “discover” it that too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson
Beyond that there were more bits of history, that I honestly don't remember very well, I wasn't taking diligent enough notes this time around, because I’m not being tested on this later.
Our first stop was on the edge of the Euroasian continental tectonic plate. Iceland is widening at about 2cm a year as the Euraasian and North American plates drif apart, which is exactly why Iceland is so volcanically active.
Our second stop was at the site of the original parliament. Which is where that law speaker declared on favor of Christianity, and many of he decisions across Icelandic history.
This place also sits on that point between the two Eurasian plates.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Eingvellir
Then we stopped at a local farm for some ice cream, again excellent, they had farm dogs.
The stop was about as close as this tour came to feeling like a forced exercise to get us to spend money, also it's ice cream, and happy cows, not locals “happily” producing craftiworks for foreigners.
Then we went to a tourist cafeteria for lunch, and visit a waterfall.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullfoss
Moving on we stopped at a roadside attraction to meet some Icelandic horses, which are pretty small, and very fluffy.
Next stop was a series of geysers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geysir
And the final stop was at a Hot Spring. This was a natural hotsprig, so it didn't have the silica, but it did have some algae, which I'm sure it's also good for my skin. I know Laura has all kinds of wierd ocean stuff on her face, and she's beautiful so.
Same story, nekkid shower, run to the water. This was much warmer water, you could she the spring from which this water came, and there were waves of much hotter water that would gush up and into the pool. Ultimately another really cool experience.
We finally got home around 1900.
The 4 of us went to get happy hour beers at 800isk, (cause it's super expensive here, 1000isk is on the cheaper side for a .4L beer)band then we went to a later dinner.
https://kolrestaurant.is/
We went to Kol. The had great cocktails, Laura got a negroni with cherry shrub, but cherrys grow on trees so I don't know what that is, and a donkey, which was effectively a Moscow Mule. I had some Brennvín, which I have grown to like since the last time I had it, it tastes like rye bread.
For starters we got a beef carpaccio, and a seared scallops and duck foie gras.
Oh my, the foie gras was life changing, another one of those foods where I will divide my life into before Kol’s foie gra and after, a watershed moment.
The carpaccio was great, and if we had had it at any other restaurant it would have stolen the show. But the duuuuuck.
Both Laura and my mother got the lamb sirloin, I got charred salmon with a Dill hollandaise, and my father got seared cod and scallop.
All were superb, the fish was light yet flavorful, my salmon pulled apart accross the marbling with only a fork, the lamb was structured enough to need a knife, but moist enough to soften immediately on the tongue. The scallops had that almost meaty taste, and we're perfectly done.
All in all the meal was fantastic.
We escorted my parents home, and then Laura and I had a new tradition to start.
Those of you that know us know that our dog Sicily recently lost her fight to cancer. She was diagnosed in November of 2017, went into remission in April of 2018 and it came back in January 2019. We had great times with her even when she was sick, especially in her last days. She encouraged us to explore the Pacific Northwest, getting us in the car to drive into the mountains or to the coast.
And now that she has passed, we can more easily travel further, but she is still with us. And we are bringing her physically with us too, we had her cremated and brought, and plan to bring on future trips a small amount with us. Enough to pinch a bit and spread to all the places we love, and she loved, and would have loved.
So we made our way to the Reykjavik bay, it was hella windy, and hovering around freezing, to say a few words and sprinkle some extra carbon in the ocean. We also went to a nearby park, where I'm sure she would have yelled at the ducks, to leave some of her there too.
After the sad stuff was over we took a roundabout way back to the Airbnb, stopped in a close approximation to a hipster beer bar, had some beer and went home to pack, and catch 2 hours of sleep.
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