A Cold, Wet Beginning

Iceland looks like the moon.

My opinion of Iceland, based on my very brief visit, can be summed up with...... a tough bunch of people live here.   It's cold and wet with an inhospitable landscape.  We had a layover on the way to Europe from 6am until 4pm. I bought bus tickets for the 45 minute ride into Reykjavik and researched a few things for us to do in our short time there. Breakfast, shopping, big old famous church.  I even mapped it all out ahead of time. I was prepared. 

We started with breakfast at “The Grey Cat”. This restaurant was billed as the local favorite place to be “seen” eating breakfast. It was a cramped, musty basement with pretentious, bohemian art on the walls. I think it should be required to cook your eggs special order if you bill them as part of an “American Breakfast”. The Grey Cat served them one way, sunny side up with snotty, runny whites.  Blech.

On to the shopping.  Store after store offered the same things, souvenirs (viking stuff, lava rocks, volcanic ash in bottles, keychains and flags) and overpriced sweaters.  Oh, and they really have a thing for puffins.  I would love to have seen some puffins but we were in the desolate, lunar region of Iceland, not the cool, puffin region.  I had to take it on faith that somewhere they have puffins.

This has to be fake.

We visited this concrete church called Hallgrímskirkja.  In front was a statue of Leif Eriksson that was a gift from the egocentric US to Iceland.  Sort of a thanks for heading out on the open ocean and discovering America.

 

It was cold and wet and I was miserable because, once again, I had the wrong shoes on.  Will I never learn?

Here are my three favorite things we saw in Iceland:

This backyard fence made of stones.  Truly a work of art.

The roofs covered in grass (common in Norway too.)

These flowers that look like feathers.  (Click to enlarge and see how beautiful and unique these flowers are).

Cool facts about Iceland.  Founded in the 9th century by Vikings.  All native Icelanders can trace their origins back to the original settlers.  They speak Icelandic which is the same language spoken by the Vikings.  Population of about 400,000 and most of them live in or near Reykjavik.

The return layover was also 10 hours but it was from midnight to 10am so all we did was sleep on the cold concrete floor of the ticketing terminal.  Well, loving husband slept on the floor, he gave me the bench, but it was hard and cold too.