It’s all about compromise.

So I’ve decided to help keep Kevin happy by placing all of the pictures in a gallery at the top of the post so you don’t have to read through the blog first in order to see all of them.  As a disclaimer, I have to tell you that I don’t have any of my normal picture editing software with me, so I’ll be showing you pictures that aren’t as nicely polished as I would like. And for those of you who want to read about our day, you can keep on reading below, which I’m sure all of you are dying to do!

Can I have a quadruple shot espresso and a handful of Ritalin, please?

Kevin and I arrived in Iceland around 7:30 am, local time.  Unfortunately, my Ambien did nothing, so I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane; my long limbs and ability to be easily annoyed by noises (I’m looking at you, Mr. Open-mouth chewer in seat 2D) make it really difficult for me to get comfortable.  Since we already had a full day planned, I just had to deal with not having any sleep.  I caffeinated myself as much as possible and dealt with it.  But by the time we got back to the hotel at 10:00 pm, I was ready to crash.

Hello, Reykjavík!

We started off our day by dropping off our bags at the hotel and getting a quick bite to eat.  We had a tour that was starting at 12:30, so we decided to wander around the city and get a feel for things.  Reykjavík isn’t that big and is quite walkable.  I can’t say that it’s the most beautiful city I’ve been to, but it’s clean and simply designed.  What stands out are the people; everyone is very friendly, and most people speak perfect English, which makes things much easier.

Our first stop was the main church in the city, Hallgrimskirkja.  It’s the tallest building in the city and provides a sweeping panoramic view from the upper observatory deck.  It’s also the most architecturally interesting building in the city, although competition in this category is lacking.  I would have to describe Icelandic architecture as a combination of Ikea and Tuff Shed;  an especially adorned building is one that has been updated with a green metal roof.  Anyway, Hallgrimskirkja was interesting, and it’s interior was simplistically elegant and beautiful.

We continued to walk around the city, stopping in any shop that drew our attention.  If you’re in the market for anything made out of wool, Iceland is the place for you!  Blankets, sweaters, shawls, jackets, pillows, bowties, decorative items…anything you would want has been fashioned out of wool.  Prices are high, and Kevin and I didn’t see anything that we loved enough to warrant buying.

Tour bus time!  The golden circle.

We decided to do a short tour on our first day.  We decided on a 6-hr express tour of the Golden Circle.  The Golden Circle visits three natural landmarks:  Þingvellir National Park, where the European and North American tectonic plates meet;  Gullfoss waterfall; and Geysir, where the sprouting hot springs, Strokkur, is located.

Are you even speaking English?

Even though all of the reviews we read about these tours raved about how informative and wonderful the tour guides were, I’m certain none of them were talking about the tour guide we had.  I can’t even tell you what his name was; it sounded like he was intoxicated and had a mouthful of marbles, so I only got snippets of what he was telling us.  It was surprising, most everyone here has wonderful speaking English, but not him.  It sounded like he just started some crappy online English-learning class a week or two ago.  I thought we might be in a situation where he was a new-hire, and there was an evaluator on board to determine his readiness to lead the tours by himself.  I kept hoping for someone to jump up, tell him he was just too terrible to continue, and take over the tour.  No such luck.

There always has to be one.

There’s always one person on a tour that’s annoying, loud, constantly asks dumb-ass questions, or is otherwise somehow irritating.  Usually you’re able to ignore these people, but on this tour, that person was a British woman sitting right next to me on the bus.  She first drew my attention when she decided that she wasn’t smelling as fresh as she would like, so she pulled out her can of spray-on deodorant, untucked her shirt, and gave both of her nasty pits a good spray. I never caught her name, but right after the deodorant episode, I started calling her Downton Flabby.  Kevin says that name is being generous and possibly blasphemes one of his most beloved TV series.  I told him that I was just trying to keep things classy.

Ms. Flabby was irritating the entire tour.  She and her traveling companion, Trashy Spice, gifted us with a running commentary of what was going through their simple little minds,  much of which consisted of recaps of their drunken escapades earlier in the week, to what nail polish might go with their outfits later that night.  Believe me, girls, no nail polish on this planet will help the outfits you’re wearing.

There were many interesting things to see throughout the tour, and Downton Flabby had to point at everything she was impressed by.  Unfortunately, her stumpy cocktail wiener of a finger ended up inches from my face any time she pointed to something on my side of the bus.  You would think that after getting a death stare from me several times, she would get the hint and point like any other normal human being.  Nope.  I was tempted to ask her if she was intending for me to pull it, but I decided it was in the best interest of the bus that I not do that.  She struck me as the kind of person who would pull it herself if I declined to do so.

Near the end of the tour, another upstanding tour group member decided that he really needed to use the bathroom.  There was a water closet in the back stairwell of the bus, which I thought was a random place for a toilet, and I couldn’t imagine that it would be very big; more like a urinal, perhaps?  As this guy was trying to pry open the door of the WC, Downton Flabby yelled over to him, “Oi, the door is locked because it’s full of wee.  Here, wanna use this?”, as she hands him her empty soda bottle.  Luckily he declined.

This is a reminder to Kevin and me that we should go ahead and spend a little more money and take the higher-end tours.  Next time.

Ok, enough about Downton Flabby.  What did you see?

Iceland is amazingly beautiful; it’s a rugged and pristine beauty.  Everything we visited on our first day was breathtaking, but the standout was the Gullfoss waterfall.

I wasn’t too excited to go to the waterfall….I mean, it’s just another waterfall, right?  Nope.  The scale is hard to describe; I don’t think it’s as big as Niagra Falls, but it’s quite huge.  What I found interesting was that it’s multi-tiered, so it wasn’t like a big river that had one big fall down to a basin below.  Kevin and I were grinning from ear-to-ear the entire time we were there.  And after Kevin and I hiked all over, we stopped at the gift shop and restaurant for a delicious cheese, butter and ham baguette, and a fantastic bowl of lamb stew.

The geyser area was also impressive.  Because of the large number of hot springs in this area, the air has a very noticeable sulfur smell.  At first I just assumed that Downton Flabby had eaten too many deviled eggs for lunch.  There are many small springs and spouts that give off constant billows of steam.  It makes the landscape look very etherial and mysterious.  The geyser, Strokkur, erupts every 6-8 minutes.  There are no warning signs that it’s about to blow, so everyone stands around, cameras ready, waiting to snap the perfect picture.

Ok, so what was this fermented shark about?

I told Kevin that there were two culinary items I wanted to try while we were here:  whale and fermented shark.  It’s not that either sounded appetizing to me, but how often can you say that you tried either one?  We managed to find a restaurant that had good reviews and happened to have a buffet that offered both of these dishes.  So how was it?  Actually, the whale was really good.  It tasted like a super tender steak mixed with a slight fishy taste.  The fermented shark on the other hand, was disgusting.  It’s served as a single bite-sized piece, placed in a sealed jar.  As soon as you open the jar, the smell hits you.  It smells like a combination of ammonia and dirty socks.  Sounds yummy, right?  I cut the piece in half, telling Kevin that I was not wanting the entire piece in my mouth in case it made me want to puke, but I wanted to have a little piece for Kevin to try if I managed to keep my composure while eating it.  It didn’t taste as bad as it smelled, but it’s not something I would choose to eat again.  The initial taste wasn’t the bad part, it was the aftertaste, which was like gasoline combined with ammonia.  And since I didn’t barf on the table,  I was able to convince Kevin to eat the other half; his reaction was similar to mine.

The remainder of the meal was absolutely lovely!  I thought seafood was great in Seattle, but the Icelanders have it down pat!  I had a smoked salmon that was hands-down the best smoked salmon I’ve ever had. Kevin and I stuffed our face with as much as we could eat and then went back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Whew, what a day!

So our first day in Iceland was both fantastic and exhausting.  Tomorrow we have a 14-hour tour.  We won’t be getting back to our hotel until 10:30, so my blog entry may be a little delayed.