The Rest of Iceland

Saturday morning we met an Icelandic man named Oli (pronounced like Ole in Ole and Lena) he is a historian, and he gave us a tour of the downtown area of Reykjavik.  It was an interesting tour, in addition to seeing a lot of historical buildings we heard a lot of interesting stories and backgrounds of things in addition to just dates. It was raining that day, and so although the tour was fun, it was a bit dreary since we were all pretty wet.  A few people (including me, thanks Mom!) had waterproof coats but our feet, purses, etc. still got all wet. 

On the tour, we saw the parliament building of Iceland, which had NO security that we could see...there was a garden in the back, and we just walked into the back of it and stood around.  Oli said that there's no need for security, since there are so many people that want to be politicians. Also, there is only one murder every two years in Iceland, on average.  Unless you're a hardcore criminal, there is also a waiting list to go to jail since the government hasn't made building the new jail a priority.  The house that serves as the prime minister's office is the same way, with very little security.  At first I was thinking it was strange, and it still is a bit, but I doubt that the government of Iceland is a big target--all of their banks collapsed and went bankrupt a few years and I never even heard about it.

After our tour, we were free for the rest of the day.  We were all wet and a bit tired of trudging around in the rain, so we got lunch and went back to the guesthouse.  We weren't super excited to go out in the rain, so we sat in the kitchen of our lodging for a bit.  It felt like a bit of a waste to sit inside when we were in Iceland, but we had a chance to get to know each other better.  After a bit we went to the two free museums in town.  One was a modern art museum, and one was a photography museum.  The modern art museum was a lot cooler than I thought it would be--I was a bit skeptical.  There was one exhibit that was a room set up with a circus tent in the ceiling, ominous music, and silent movies of this character wearing a big head-mask type thing with a smiling face on it.  It made me think about how much the music could affect how we felt, since none of the individual things were really very creepy, but with the ominous music we were expecting something creepy.  The photography museum was a little disappointing, there were only about 40 photos of decaying homes and buildings.  They were interesting, but it wasn't something I would think of as being advertised as a "museum." 

After we walked through the museums, we went to a fish and chips restaurant.  We ordered a group meal, and each got two pieces of fish, potatoes (chips), salad, and a bunch of sauces for the fish.  It was really good--I hope the rest of the fish we eat while gone is that good.

The next day we went to a museum/exhibition called 871 +/-2.  It is a museum that talks about the original inhabitants of Iceland, and is around the remains of an ancient longhouse, thought to be dated to the year 871 +/-2.  Oli told us that the anniversary of Iceland being settled is traditionally on 874, so it seems to be a little inconvenient that the house is dated to as early at 869.  It didn't seem to bother him that much, so maybe its not that big of a deal to most Icelanders.   I have inserted a few pictures of things I thought were cool around town, there aren't a lot since it was hard to take pictures while it was raining. I love the colors used in the buildings, both in Norway and Iceland.  I wish the Americans would follow along, someday I hope to live in a colorful house--I really like the dark navy ones we've seen so far! 

After that museum we again had the rest of the day free.  As we were walking back to the guesthouse, the girls stopped at a coffee shop called Babalu.  It was in the upstairs, and decorated with lots of eclectic, random stuff.  There was a wall with postcards from all over--I am hoping to remember to send them one sometime!  I ordered a half cappuccino, half hot chocolate, and the girl that was working there thought I was really strange and asked me if I really thought that would be drinkable.  I thought it was good, she seemed a bit skeptical when I told her it was delicious.

Here is the outside of Babalu

We ordered mini pizzas together, and then had an early-ish night since we had to get up early for a 5 am taxi to the airport to get on our plane to NORWAY!  Make sure you look back at the previous post because I've added some pictures that were more relevant to that post.