The Buffalo Herd Theory: I'm home!

Boy, what an adventure that was.

I can see why such a high percentage of Icelanders believe in elves - the terrain and light there is absolutely wild and completely haunting. And the fact that there are sheep EVERYWHERE doesn't hurt its ranking in my personal favorites, either. Photo-heavy travelogue coming up - Reykjavik first. Then the Southern route after that. And finally, Germany.

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We landed in Keflavik at an ungodly hour, after a rather odd flight. The idea was that the kids would sleep through it all, as it was an overnight trip. That SO did not happen. As I have said before (and clearly forgot), toddlers do not get jet lag. They simply keep going. And going. Picked up the rental car (Suzuki Jimny 4x4) after some complications, and drove into Reykjavik.

I LOVE Reykjavik. If it wasn't for the fact that the Icelandic language is completely nutter, Reykjavik would have my vote for a future sabbatical location. The houses in the downtown are very interesting, architecturally speaking. Apart from the shantytowns of South Africa, I've not seen anywhere that uses so much corrugated aluminum for siding and roofing materials. And the Icelanders use it so well - the houses were sweet and tidy.

We stayed in a rental apartment in the downtown core, which I would highly recommend. Waking up each morning, walking across the street to a lovely bakery and eating fantastic pastries on the balcony is a great way to start any day, imo.

The first day, we did the usual touristy stuff. Ate legendary hot dogs, walked around the downtown core (it's a very compact city, we crossed the entire downtown in about an hour of strolling), visited the cool church in town, went up to the top of the church tower and took photos of the city (and managed to get there just in time to have the bells ring on top of our heads), and went to a swimming pool.

Oh man, the swimming pools.

Geothermally heated, very modern amenities, and a fantastic way of life. There are some major differences between most North American pools and Icelandic pools which you should know about. There is minimal chlorine in the Iceland pools, so you're required to strip naked and shower BEFORE entering the pool and also after using the pool. That means there's a lot of nudity in the changerooms, but it's cool - since everyone else is naked too, it's hard to be uptight about your own naked arse. The other thing is that the pools are mostly outdoors. But since the water is so warm, it's very comfortable even when it's 14 degrees Celsius outside. I'm going back to Iceland again someday, just for the pools. Here's a pic of the pool that we went to (Árbæjarlaug), but it's a bit different from what I remember, as darkness never really came during the entire time that we were in Iceland.

Of course, it does take a bit of time to adjust to the eggy smell of the water - all of the water in Iceland has a bit of a sulphuric taste to it, even the Coke has that taint. But you stop noticing it pretty quick. In my case, I may have been distracted by the half-naked Viking descendents lounging around. I realize that I have a bit of a Viking fetish, but the men in Iceland are ridiculously good looking.

Ahem.

Getting back to crafty things, the other reason that I'm going back to Iceland is the wool. I stopped in the Handknitting Association of Iceland's retail store on Laugavegur (the main shopping street), and was greeted by this:

Uh huh. I managed to get out with minimal damage to my wallet, amazingly. I think that I'm actually not a huge fan of the Lopi...it's too itchy for me. But when it's felted, it's amazing stuff. I picked up a pair of fingerless mitts with "mystic runes" needlefelted onto them.

I think the runes are a little hokey, sort of like people tattooing asian characters on their shoulders and then finding they've written something like "I screw dragons" on their epidermis. But who cares, my mittens are very comfy, and the blue is my favourite shade. I also picked up this,