Iceland trip, 17 March 2016

I'm on my first international trip, and I'm lucky to share it with friends from my graduate program. We land at Keflavik Airport at 08:00 (first thing to get used to: Iceland uses the 24-hour clock) and I'm wired. I didn't sleep much on the plane, I watched 5 episodes of Downton Abbey, and I think I saw the Northern Lights briefly (but they were white and weird and honestly could have been clouds.) Getting my first passport stamp is a thrill, and I wish they'd give me a few extra besides. For my birthday, Maggie gave me this hip, design-y map of Reykjavik, and I can't wait to visit so many of the places on it.

First photo in Iceland, thanks to B for the shot. I'm being this bird in a KEF bathroom. The bathrooms in this airport are so cool- each 'stall' is a small, fully-enclosed room with toilet and sink. The sink faucet has both water for washing and warm air for drying your hands. 

Air B&B staircase. Many of the buildings we go into have these tight, narrow spiral staircases. They're all too small for my American feet. 

Once Kate, Molly, Becca, Joe, and I settle in at the Air B&B in a small Reykjavik suburb, Kate, Molly, and I venture downtown. It's a few kilometers (second thing to get used to: Iceland is metric, so units of measurement make don't make much sense to me the whole time I'm here) and we walk. The architecture I see is so different from what I'm used to. It's an odd mixture of plain concrete facades, modern design, and classical architecture. I love how cheerful Icelanders have made the otherwise plain concrete buildings. Between the bright solids and beautiful murals, these become my favorite buildings.

Apartments near downtown Reykjavik.

Mural on a downtown Reykjavik business.

Every other shop is touristy knick-knacks, but the other half are second-hand/vintage stores, boutiques, or art sellers. Downtown also has a lot of great food and museums. My feet hurt from the walking and my neck hurts from trying to look at everything all at once but I don't mind. One of our first stops is Hallgrímskirkja Church, which is interesting in its own right and also has a killer view of the city from the top. For ISK 800, you can ride the world's slowest elevator with 5 of your new closest friends to the top and look out from the clock face or the windows a story above. (Third thing to get used to: Icelandic money. They're on the Icelandic Króna, where 1 Krona is $0.008 USD. 1000 kronur equals $8, so a handy quick conversion is to just ignore the last two zeros and know your total is a little less, American. This has the added benefit of me thinking I'm spending more money than I am, so I don't spend as much.)

Hallgrímskirkja Church exterior. 

Hallgrímskirkja Church iterior. The organ pipes are lovely and huge. 

The view from the top of Hallgrímskirkja Church, with the shadow of the spire across the city. The colors are so cheerful against the grey sky and water. 

We wander around the city more. We find the Big Lebowski Bar, and the prettiest gay bar, Kiki. There's a gallery/design studio next to Kiki, and I want to buy so much of the art. There's a small installation, Netverslun, under the stairs in the basement, and sitting in it is both cheerful and a little overwhelming. I think about how long it's been since I went to a gallery back home. I miss going to art exhibits and museums and wonder why I don't make the effort to go to more. 

Kiki, advertised as "a straight-friendly queer bar." 

Netverslun inside Spark Design Studio. It's big enough to crawl into, and they have Scrooge McDuck comics in Icelandic for you to read while you're there. 

Alphabet poster in Spark. The letters are made up of bizarre, imaginary animal skeletons. 

We get ice-cream, and walk back to our apartment before dark. All five of us make the trek to Bonus, a discount grocery store, for dinner. I'm overwhelmed by people and prices and food I don't recognize and wonder what I'll eat for the next week. The aisles are full of chocolate eggs for Easter, some small and some bigger than footballs. I'll later find out the eggs are full of toys, candies, and a fortune. They advertise cartoon characters I don't recognize, and one seems to be advertised by a psychic. I think she's an Icelandic celebrity, because I see her holding an infant on a gossip mag at the checkout counter, too. I don't read Icelandic, so I can't tell if she had a baby, stole a baby, or has a line of baby clothes: they're both wearing sparkly purple. 

The larger, fancier chocolate eggs like this one are over ISK 3000. 

We go back to our apartment and make dinner. I'm glad I'm in my own small room for the night because I'm physically and emotionally drained. I miss Jason so much I cry a little, and feel childishly homesick for my parents. I feel snug in my small room, though, and love that it stays toasty even with a window cracked open. (Another Iceland discovery: geothermal power reigns supreme, and it's very inexpensive to heat homes with steam. It seems like everyone has a pet cat, and since houses heat up quickly and cheaply, they all leave a window cracked, even in winter, to let their cats roam in and out freely.) I sleep hard, and if I dream of hidden people, I don't remember it.