man! it took me forever to get all these posts up! but here they are. YA! man looking at all this stuff makes me wish I was back there right now.
Showing posts with label iceland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iceland. Show all posts
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Iceland and Denmark - that's all folks!
Friday, June 5, 2009
April 7 - Skyr!
we thought it was yoghurt.. it's actually cheese. It's really tasty- all the flavours of yoghurt but not too sweet. delicious!
oh and watch this : It could be worse: Iceland
Monday, June 1, 2009
April 6 - The Golden Circle
Today was our big "tourist day"; we rented a car and started out on a tour of the major geographic sites of the Reykjavik area. Before we hit those we made a very important stop at the Alafoss Outlet Store and bought unspun wool, something you can't buy in Canada. Then we were off. The countryside is a lot like northern Canada.. low tundra and snow capped mountains; except these mountains are volcanic.
We stopped at Thingvalier for lunch and a walk around. It's the sight of the first Icelandic Parliament (the oldest in the world) and also marks the boundary of the North American and European plates. The split between the plates has created a rather dramatic looking rift beside a swiftly moving river. The plates are slowly moving apart and cause Iceland to grow by about 2 cm per year!
Oh, I mentioned lunch. It was here we decided to try some Icelandic "delicacies"
Haroifiskur: dried fish with butter
Our verdict: a bit chewy, but good
Hakari: fermented (rotten) shark..
our verdict: I thought it was chewy and tolerable..like a very strong cheese. I could grow to like it.
Mary couldn't even swallow it.
We continued up the road to Geyser... yes the one that named all other geysers.. well actually we were more interested in Strokkur which is active - Geyser stopped being active many years ago. Further up the road the sleet started .. but being good Canadian girls, we still managed to run out and look at Gullfoss the waterfall nearby. The sleet and snow was pretty miserable so we didn't stay long. We drove home via Sulfoss in the south which is near where we went horse riding before. It seems Sulfoss has the worst weather (but does have pizza with bananas!).
Saturday, April 25, 2009
April 5 - Reykjavik and the Blue Lagoon
Sunday and we made it to church. Well... not an english service, that's actually really hard to find. but we made it an Icelandic service in the beautiful Hallgrimur church. After that we cruised around to some museums. We saw the original Sagas written in Viking times chronically the exploits of Erik the Red and Leif Errikson. Many of them are still in Copenhagen, claimed by the Danish when they ruled over Iceland but a few have been returned. The Culture house had a good display of them as well as exhibits on Icelandic film and housing some of the Natural History Museum specimens.
We wandered back to the Flea Market to get me an Icelandic sweater (ya!) and ate dinner at the famous Baedarius Beztu hot-dog stand. I don't really know what was on our hot-dogs what we guessed was: raw onions, cooked (crunchy) onions, ketchup, mayonnaise with pickles??? and gravy??? Despite the unknown condiments they were quite good! We had to eat early becasue we were off to the blue lagoon.
The water really is blue, but amazingly it didn't smell terribly of sulphur (like the surrounding area did). we slathered the white silt on our faces (sorry no pictures!) and lounged around in the warm waters. when it started to get dark we hopped on the bus and headed back into Reykjavik.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
April 3 - Reykjavik and Around
I was shocked when my sister didn't put up a fight when I suggested this activity. Mary is not a fan or horses but Saying the magic word PONIES! many many times somehow convinced her. We couldn't have picked a worse day for it.. blowing sleet for half the ride. Thankfully the riding company we went with had snow suits and rain gear for us. The rain stopped as we crossed over some low mountains and it was a pleasant ride from there on but both mary and my butts are sore an I think I will be trying to make up for this excursion for a little while.
Back in town we decided to go for a walk around town and found our way up to the Perlan. The Perlan is the storehouse for a lot of the geothermically heated water supplied to reykjavik. Actually almost 90% of houses in the capital are heated geothermically. The Perlan is also a museum and a cafe that sits on the top of a mountain overlooking all of Reykjavik. There was some lovely views and some bunnies spotted. The bunnies apparently survive the winter by snuggling up the the hot water pipes. After all the riding and walking we opted for a relaxing swim at one of the 7 swimming pools in the city. All the pools are minimally chlorinated (so you have to shower before you enter) and geothermcally heated.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
April 2: Reykjavik
What do you do after not sleeping on a red eye from Toronto to Reykjavik? I mean besides wondering what the smell is (sulphur) and stopping in the duty free to impulse buy vodka and salted licorice (and then put the super salty thing in your mouth and reel back).. no, after all that you eat breakfast. yummy yummy breakfast at the Grei Kotturinn (Grey Cat) my new favorite little cafe. it was a big breakfast in the oddest little relaxed shop.
So we have arrived. and have the pictures to prove it. We did a little walking tour that ended at the suncraft sculpture down near the harbour.
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