Iceland Part III

Thursday, November 26, 2015

I awoke and took a 45 minute walk to The Perlan. I walk much more when I am in other cities. I love seeing the city by foot, really getting out there and covering the ground in a way you can’t in public transportation.

I was a brisk walk away from downtown Reykjavik and I enjoyed the fresh air. The Perlan is actually where there had been hot water storage tanks for years. They asked the dome, put in a panoramic viewing platform (that’s free!) to look out at Reykjavik and an award winning restaurant.

It was a somewhat cloudy day, but for the first time I was able to see some patches of blue sky during my walk back home. I decided to walk along the pond and then the Harbor to catch the blue sky glinting off the water.

I came back to my room to rest for a bit. That afternoon I decided to go to the National Gallery of Iceland where there was an exhibit on NÍNA TRYGGVADÓTTIR (until Jan 3, 2016) and one on NÍNA SÆMUNDSSON (until Mar 1, 2016). I myself am not much of a fan of abstract art. Okay, that’s a lie, I don’t like it at all. I do appreciate a woman who can build an artistic career on just her own merits as they both have done. Nina Tryggvadottir’s earlier works (before the abstract) interested me a lot and I found Nina Saemundsson’s sculptures to be remarkable.

I have a mainly (at the time) FB friend that I met June of 2014 very briefly outside a venue in Brooklyn, NY. We became FB friends and kept in touch online but he lives in Reykjavik and so when I was coming over I thought it would be nice to meet up. We had plans to meet that evening. He came with a good friend of his who was kind enough to drive us around to various sites in Reykjavik as we made our way to the pool. Some of the sites included the building where Reagan and Gorbachev met back in 1986 and the The John Lennon Imagine Peace Tower.

City pools are a huge thing in Iceland. What gets me is that they are mainly outdoors. I was skeptical at first. But then I got in and my opinion changed. Never fret if you didn’t think of packing a bathing suit (but with a lot of people coming over to go to The Blue Lagoon, really? you didn’t bring a suit?) as you can rent both bathing suits and towels right there.  The pool we went to was Arbaejarlaug (Don’t ask me how to pronounce it, I think I finally got Reykjavik down!) There are varying degrees in temperatures through the pools, a water slide, and massaging jets. It began to snow while we were there and it was actually a really surreal feeling to have the snow coming down around me as I was toasty warm submerged in water. Also they had hair dryers there!  As a lady with some rather longish locks and cold temperatures it was nice to know once I got out of the pool and showered I could dry my hair and be on my way.

Iceland has 2 malls. In the entire country. 2 malls, Kringlan and Smaralind. Where I grew up I had 3 within 30 minutes of me. There’s well over 10 malls in the state of Connecticut alone. Kringlan is within the city of Reykjavik. I have now been to half of the malls in Iceland.

For dinner we stopped by Hlöllabátar in the mall. It is listed as a fast food restaurant, and I know I haven’t had fast food since sometime in 2014. (Not that I ate it regularly, but I decided to completely cut it from my diet.) I’d consider Hlöllabátar more of quick service place like a Subway or a DeAngelo’s sub shop back in the states. I had lamb it was yummy.

From there we headed back to downtown Reykjavik where we went to BarAnanas. I had passed by it the other day and noticed a tiki bar inside and thought it looked fun so when it was brought up at the destination that was next I couldn’t have been happier. It has a kitschy decor of some far away tropical land. I liked it.

At this time it was time for us to split up as it was getting late and the two had work the next day. I myself headed to The Dubliner for a drink on my way to bed. It was Thursday, it was midnight, it was dead. It’s a dive bar, and I have no problem with the diveiest of bars when back home, so I’m sure if I was a local I’d pop in every once in awhile for a pint. But on holiday, it would not be my first choice.