Two more days in Iceland

We got back to Iceland at the end of a mildly harrowing experience at Luton airport,.. and arrived in Reykjavik in the middle of an Icelandic version of a Nor'easter. Except this was in the southwest of the island, so whatever. It was winds between 30 and 50 mph (That's 48 to 80 kph for you metric types, which includes Icelanders. It was mildly jarring going from metric to the only other nation stupid enough to use Standard and then back to metric) and driving rain. Combined with the wind, when the rain hit our faces, it was actually painful, so that was fun. When we landed, we were supposed to go right to the Blue Lagoon, but because of some confusing email traffic, we missed the bus. $90US for a cab ride later, we were at the famous Blue Lagoon (another hot spring with a lot of blue silica in the water) and it's always fun being in a hot spring and wading up to the bar... except when you're constantly trying to not face at least one direction to keep your eyes from being hammered by the stratospheric bullets. So, yeah.

The day was mildly rescued by finding a place to eat that night that was the best food we've had on the entire trip: Salka Valka. It's down on the western end of the city, a little off the main drag of Laugavegur, and there's not a ton of seating. But it does traditional Icelandic food with modern preparation. There was a fish soup with a chickpea base that was astounding (especially fitting for a day when a nor'easter has been drenching us the whole time) and their fish stew and lamb shank were also excellent. Seriously, this was beyond everything else we've eaten. If we ever come back, we're eating there again. Maybe twice. The day was also rescued by our being able to find that weird candy shop with the salty licorice: Taste of Iceland. If was trying to find anything I could on Google and then went down to Laugavegur to see another more famous candy shop (Vinberio) because I knew we'd passed that at some point. I started walking east and was about to give up when we found Taste. Of course, I later discovered their wares in Keflavik airport, so maybe I could've saved us some of the hiking.

On our next (and last) day, we took a tour of what Iceland tourism refers to as the "Golden Circle", which is an area in this part of the island that has the most tourist attractions. We went to the continental divide, where you're standing in the 5 km gap between the North American and Eurasian plates, the first named geyser (Geysir, which is where the word comes from), the most impressive waterfall we've seen here, and yet another hot spring, known as the Secret Lagoon. It was a worthwhile way to spend the day, but followed with some less than impressive food at that same food court we visited last week. Seriously, the fish and weak-ass fries thing (instead of chips) just has to go. I realize it's a lot cheaper for restraurants to just get already-produced stuff, rather than asking staff to slice into dozens of potatoes a day, but it's really disappointing. 

On that somewhat down note, I will say that the transportation options in Reykjavik are a little aggravating. In Liverpool, we just Ubered everywhere and had a driver within one minue almost every time, no matter where we were going. In London, we had the Tubes and still had three other options (bus, taxi, Uber) if we wanted it (The service we used to get to the airport on our way out is called Bolt.) The bus system in Reykjavik is divided between city buses and tour buses with no seeming connection. Also, taxis seem to operate strictly between airport and city, as we never saw one sitting on a curb waiting for a customer and failed to find a way to call one when we weren't interested in walking a dozen blocks in the driving rain. And there is no private driver service like Uber yet operating. So, if you want to get around, you're either walking or renting a car; the latter of which is something that our friends, Katie and David, recommended to us so, y'know, they were right.

So, anyway, that's a wrap. We're leaving at the crack of dawn (that's a joke in Iceland around this time of year, where it stays light outside for around 20 hours out of the day (we have to draw the curtains and blinds to blot out the light at 11 PM so Tricia, at least, can get some sleep.)) There were a lot of highlights to the trip (Liverpool game, attending a Shakespeare performance in Shakespeare's theater) and no genuine lowlights, so a success, overall.