New Thing #87 - Iceland - Day 4 (Reykjavik)

October 29, 2016

When we got back to our hostel early this morning after the northern lights tour, I had an email from our whale watching tour saying the morning tour had been canceled due to inclement weather. This allowed us to sleep in a bit since we didn't have to be anywhere right away. This did not, however, help with the bathroom situation. It was like Grand Central Station in there. Every single time we needed it, someone else was in there. We had to wait outside the door just so we could be the next ones in line. It's a good thing we opted to shower at night, or we would have never made it to any of our tours.

After our breakfast of skyr and granola, we headed to the hostel's office to see if the afternoon tour was also canceled and what else we could do to occupy our morning. (Skyr is a type of Icelandic yogurt that is basically like typical Greek yogurt: a bit thicker and more tart than regular yogurt, and packed with protein.) The afternoon tour was still scheduled, but Thomas, the hostel manager encouraged us to come back and check in with him before we headed to the marina later in the day. Other than heading to one of the city's pools/geothermal baths, we really only had the option of doing some sightseeing and souvenir shopping. The weather was terrible, so anything in or around the sea was impossible. We instead decided to just meander around the city and do some shopping and sightseeing.

During my research for Reykjavik, I came across the Icelandic Phallological Museum, and for those of you unfamiliar with the term phallological, it was basically a penis museum. Yep. You read that right. What else could we do to get us out of the rain for awhile? Unfortunately, it was closed when we stopped by (despite it being well past the time of day when it should have been open), so we headed down the main shopping street of to see what the city had to offer.

Street was closed so they could start putting up Christmas lights.

This dress had lips and fangs all over it.

The famous volcano that erupted a few years ago wreaking havoc across Europe. I kinda wanted this t-shirt, but not for $35.

We found our dinner place early in the morning, primarily because it had seafood and a happy hour!

I really wanted one of these sweaters, but they were way out of my price range and rather impractical. While we do get true winters in my part of the Midwest, they're not nearly severe enough to warrant the purchase of such an expensive sweater.

Loved the signs and graffiti all over the city!

Impressive.

In case you wanted to know more about skyr!

Clever condom packaging. Look closely.

A magnet I bought that says "I don't speak Icelandic."

We stopped in approximately 1,362 shops in about 2 hours, and my head was spinning from all of the souvenirs. Most of it was the typical made in China stuff we saw everywhere, but some of the shops were more specialized and local. This did nothing to help with the prices though. I know it's an island, but damn, $30+ for a t-shirt is a bit much.

Around lunch time we headed back to the hostel to eat some of our groceries and get out of the rain. It was nice not to have to eat out. Thomas told us that the afternoon whale tour was also canceled, and unfortunately, we wouldn't have another day to reschedule it for. Luckily, since we booked through Viator, we got a full refund.

Since we couldn't make it out to the water, we still wanted to walk along the coast and see the marina and some other iconic Reykjavik landmarks.

Beautiful lava rocks along the coastline.

Sólfar or Sun Voyager.

Common misconception is that this was modeled after a Viking ship. Instead it's a "dreamboat" symbolizing light and hope in an ode to the sun. Whatever. Looks like a Viking ship.

No matter its intention, it's still really cool and lends itself well to great photos.

Next up was the Harpa Concert Hall, another landmark in Reykjavik.

Absolutely loved the glass exterior, once again mimicking basalt columns.

The inside was just as gorgeous, and it gave us some respite from the pounding rain.

Little shop inside carried everything from Christmas ornaments to souvenirs to books, including these gems.

This dog scared the crap out of me!

I had also read great things about their flea market, and we wanted to stop in before we bought too many other souvenirs. Originally I wanted to get a lopapeysa, the traditional Icelandic wool sweater you saw before, and people recommended getting from the flea market instead of the regular stores. Everyone is taught to knit from a young age, and wool sweaters, scarves, etc are quite popular throughout the island for locals and tourists alike. We saw a lot of natives wearing them to stay warm, opting out of even a coat because they were that cozy. After checking out the price tag though, I didn't think I needed one THAT badly, not to mention that it doesn't get that frigidly cold in the Midwest for that long. Now, if I lived further north, I would have bought one in a heartbeat.

I got us a bit lost, as we passed the flea market once, even though Ang pointed it out and I stupidly didn't listen to her, possibly because I was expecting something nicer than what it was. I was pretty disappointed when we walked in, but I suppose I shouldn't have been. It is a flea market after all, but you'd think it would have had rainbows and unicorns shooting out of the roof for all of the hype it got online. We didn't stay very long and were genuinely let down that we didn't find anything we just had to have. Though it did have a food market, and that was pretty intriguing to walk through.

Actual street name.

Meh.

Still damp from our afternoon walk, we ducked into Café Paris for some hot chocolate and coffee to warm us up a bit. Our waterproof gear was stellar at keeping us dry underneath, but it couldn't help with the overall dampness and chill in the air. There was no escaping that. I had a fantastically rich cup of hot chocolate along with Icelandic pancakes (crepes filled with Nutella and whip cream). Delish, but so decadent. I'm surprised I didn't crash immediately from the sugar high.

So tasty. And so hot!

Chocolate overload.

The rain had finally began to dissipate, so we continued on our souvenir shopping adventure, and though we didn't buy too much, it was really fun stopping in all the shops and browsing. They really had some interesting things to look at. And you couldn't beat the people watching. Including one guy I had seen a few times wearing nothing but jeans, dress loafers and a long-sleeve shirt. No jacket, no gloves, no hat. Nothing. Either he had done zero research on Iceland's weather or he had left his hotel without checking the weather forecast first. Either way, he was an idiot. But a cute idiot. He stopped us at one store because he overheard us talking to the cashier about our northern lights experience. He was apparently looking to head out on his own search and wanted to know the details of how to do so. I really hope Reykjavik was just a short stopover for him, because he was clearly unprepared.

Pop-Tarts! (J/k that's an inside joke.) It's actually a chain coffee place we kept seeing around.

Next to Café Paris.

Love when the buildings are colorful.

Do they really still have Hard Rock Cafés?

Tried to eat here one time, but it wasn't open.

Seriously, great graffiti!

Sadly, they do not make international deliveries.

Icelanders have a strong belief in trolls, elves, fairies and various other-worldly creatures.

I don't know why I feel the need to always take photos of  American chain restaurants in foreign countries.

Looking for a coke.

I wish I drank hard alcohol and carried a flask b/c I might have bought this.

Bought by sister some black and white sea salt.

Finally, we thought it would be a good time to head back to the penis museum, and it was actually open. (Can't say I ever thought I would type that sentence in my life.) The entire museum was smaller than I anticipated (that's what she said), but it was quirky and gave us an amusing way to pass some time. Who knew that Iceland was home to the world's largest display of penises? Some retired teacher thought it would be a good idea to start collecting penises from hundreds of different animals and charge money for people to look at them. Well, his theory worked, as it was pretty busy there. That could have been due in part to the crappy weather outside, but I imagine it still gets quite a bit of foot traffic throughout the year.

Sorry this is the only photo I can share of inside. You have the pay to visit the museum, and I don't want to post photos of everything I saw. Let's just say there were more whale penises than any one person needs to look at it one day.

More walking and sightseeing followed, and we stopped in to our favorite store of the trip. It was still a chain, and I'm sure a majority of the items weren't actually made in Iceland, but it still had nicer items that weren't just magnets and shot glasses. I think we spent an hour here, exploring each of the four levels quite thoroughly, and I ended up with a Northern Lights scarf and bag (since I didn't get any photos of my own) and an Iceland map (I'm a sucker for cool maps of places I've been). It's amazing the amount of restraint I had in not buying about $200 worth of more stuff.

How the hell are you supposed to pronounce this?!

Or this?

BORGA HER!! $$$

Have no fear, they do have drive-thru fast food restaurants here...

...called Aktu Taktu

Such a dreary day.

I think Angela's Fitbit calculated us around 18K steps for the day, and I don't doubt it for a bit. The city center was so walkable, and we just loved taking new side streets to soak up the architecture, the graffiti and the culture. By the time we finally finished, we headed to dinner. I was determined to have some kind of seafood, and we had picked this restaurant out early in the day. Mainly because of the seafood, but also because of the happy hour specials. Beer was damn expensive, so you better believe we were going to enjoy some happy hour drinks! And it worked, because we were literally the only two people in the entire restaurant, staying that way for at least 45 minutes. It gave us time to dry out a bit and rest our weary feet.

My meal was phenomenal and quite possibly the best salmon I've ever had in my life. I would go back to Iceland just for that restaurant alone. Okay, maybe not just that, but it was really good.

Mmmmm.....beeeeer.

And very small. The tables weren't far from each other and it was impossible not to eavesdrop on other people's conversations. As evidenced by the fact that the lady from the table next to us overheard what we were talking about and chatted us up for the better part of an hour.

She was there from Boston with her son (she had already been to Iceland with her other son....rough life, sheesh), and we found that a lot of people we talked to from the US were all from the east coast. It's such an easy flight from Boston, New York or D.C. and flights are so inexpensive. Before we finished with her, two more girls at another table interrupted us to find out more about the Northern Lights and what we had done so far on our trip. They had just arrived and hadn't really pre-planned anything. (Maybe one day I'll go on an adventure where I don't plan anything and just wing it when I get there....but today is not that day.)

After 10+ hours of walking in the wet, blustery day, we finally called it a night after dinner, and prepped for our final full day of sightseeing. Oh, and played bathroom roulette with the rest of the occupants. :/

First sets of Christmas lights up!