Iceland: July 2015

After a late lunch just managing to fall into "happy hour" at Icelandic Fish and Chips, where we had excellent fried fish and potatoes with interesting skyr-based sauces, we donned rain jackets and rain pants (just in case) and went on a sea angling cruise with Special Tours out of the harbor.

The kids had to wear life jackets, of course, which Robert thinks is a rule created because of the resulting cuteness, and we wore extra waterproof jackets the crew provided, but we drew the line at the pants that every other passenger mindlessly donned.

Robert, Marcus, and I each caught two good-sized cod, as well as my line (Robert), my thumb (me), many many many false alarms (Marcus), and a few smaller cod that we had to toss back.

We sailed around and stopped in three or four different spots. Marcus never did bring himself to touch one of the fish he caught, but he was cutting his own bait from a semi-frozen squid and helping attach it himself. He was also fascinated by the crabs that the crew found inside the belly of one of the cod, and spread out on a bench for him to examine.

When we were back in the harbor, we all ate the cod that had been filleted and grilled and seasoned (served with Icelandic potatoes, possibly the only bit of produce we ate all week that was actually palatable), and at the end of the trip, everyone who wanted was presented with a bag of more raw fillets to bring home and cook tomorrow.

Tomorrow--Friday--was our last day in Iceland, and we started by driving out of the city to Mariuhellar, the caves of the Virgin Mary. These are three lava caves in Heidmork Nature Preserve just about fifteen minutes outside of Reykjavik. We kept reading that the caves were "close to the road," and "well-marked," but no one on the internet seemed to specify (at least not in English) that this is only the case if you enter Heidmork from the north-western corner. We happened to enter via the north-eastern corner, and found nothing, until finally some park employees on their way to work drove us 20 minutes across the park to the opposite end, and deposited us in front of the above sign.

The first cave you come to from the road is the one pictured above. It's large and easy to walk into, quite tall inside, and has a smaller but still comfortable opening out the back.

The second cave is northeast of the first, and is also easy to walk into, though slightly smaller inside and without an extra exit. The third cave, to the west of the second opening of the first cave, has a very small opening (pictured above right) that you have to climb/jump down into. Once inside, there were places where even Samantha couldn't walk upright, and the cave is completely dark, with no other openings. It stretches on for quite a distance, though, as it stretches underneath the road, even, and it does get tall enough that Robert could stand. The caves were a hit: both kids loved them, and Robert felt satisfied that we had finally had a "real" Icelandic experience.

From Heidmork we drove to the Reykjavik Zoo, which is cheap and cute, as zoos go, but also has a huge, elaborate playground and mini amusement park attached to it. We saw seals and fed rabbits, goats, and sheep before pausing for lunch in the cafeteria.

Samantha helped herself to the extra whipped cream after we finished off our waffles (and hot dogs and cheese sticks and cured meat on rye flatbread). After lunch, Samantha rode an Icelandic horse and Marcus went back to feed more rabbits and some chickens.

The playground section has a few rides that require an extra cost/ticket, but there are also a lot of free sections. The giant ship was great, and the two trampoline-like structures, as were the cool swing, zipline (Marcus discovered he could "drop" his hat on the way out and pick it up on the way back), pedal-powered cars, electric cars on their own track, raft on a rope tow, and moored Viking ship in the marsh.

We spent hours there, on a day when it was bright sun and just about sixty degrees: The hottest day of the summer, everyone was saying, as they repeatedly told us what unseasonably nice weather we'd been having.

From the zoo we went to the nearby Laugardalslaug where we swam until after 6:00 in the evening (still bright sun, of course). Both kids loved the huge heated waterslide with lights on the ceiling--Marcus just went down over and over by himself with some bigger boys (including a chatty twelve-year-old from Utah, dubbed by Robert "the friendiest person we met in Iceland"), while Samantha went down carefully with Robert. I even went once, screaming the entire way--"just for fun," I insisted to Marcus. After the pool we went to Don's Donut truck near the bus station (Hlemmur) for delicious mini donuts with your choice of toppings, and then we set about finding a supermarket for some ingredients to cook our cod, and also to bring home as food gifts.

After forty-five minutes of fruitless hunting (things close early on Friday nights, apparently, and nearly all the supermarkets had closed at 6:00 or 7:30 at the latest), we went back downtown, parked the car, and went to a glorified mini-mart near our hotel. It was sufficient to get some butter and paprika salt for cooking the fish as well as some sugar kelp (not sugary, and generally not good), pylsur (hot dog) mustard (odd and sweet and sort of like sweet mustard crossed with gravy), chocolate-covered licorice in various guises, and some Icelandic geothermal salt. Back at the hotel, Samantha stayed sleeping straight from the car, while Marcus stayed up to eat some cod with us and then fell asleep too. We had more fish than we could eat, sadly, but it was a lovely final night's feast.

On the plane the next morning, the pilot announced that we were lucky with the cloud cover and route and had great views of Greenland (above). We landed in New York, made a bit of a tight connection, and found ourselves back home in Boston by 3:00.

 

Marcus also kept a journal on our trip. Here's his take on things (click on each image for the larger one if zooming in doesn't work).

 

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