Oh! hello there… it’s been a minute hasn’t it? When we last left off we’d just returned from a fabulous week in Joshua Tree. That was back in the blissfully ignorant “right before everything went haywire” time which was late February 2020. Seems like a million years and a different lifetime ago, but I don’t have to tell you that. We’ve been through a lot since then, and I don’t have to tell you that either. Even if we’ll never get back to the way things “used to be” the world is still full of beauty and after all the ugliness we’ve endured recently I want to shout that from the rooftops. So, I’m back with my first travel post in 17 months. I’m a little rusty, but bear with me because I’m here to tell you about Iceland, which is probably one of the most magical places on the entire planet. Notice I said probably, because you never know ’til you’ve been everywhere and I haven’t been everywhere YET. But in any event Iceland has got to be pretty darn close to the top. Here’s how we spent our time in the land of fire and ice…
Reykjavik
The weather in Iceland is pretty grey, but it’s still a very colorful country. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. It’s also impressively progressive, with the first openly LGBTQ government leader. No glass ceiling here either, as she also happens to be a woman. That’s probably why it’s such a well run country… just sayin’
There are like a million and forty nine (give or take) churches in Iceland, but Hallgrimskirkja is probably the tallest and most impressive. I say probably, because maybe I missed a church or two and they could have been better. You just never know.
Also, it’s not true that the only thing you can find to eat in Iceland is either a type of fish, or something smoked, or some type of smoked fish. There are a lot of other options, like the bread which is amazing and kleiner which is like a donut but way better.
With kleiner in hand, you’re ready to explore…
This was my Wes Anderson moment. I’m always looking for Wes Anderson moments because they make me happy.
There are more than 100 public art installations in Reykjavik, which is pretty cool for such a small city. This is Þúfa, and we loved it, but were worried about the person who has to cut the grass.
Every building seems to be a work of art in its own right.
And the interiors are just as interesting and generally very cozy (probably on account of all the rain). This is The Icelandic Bar, which we picked because we thought there was an off chance they’d have tasty traditional Icelandic food. Spoiler alert: we were right!
You don’t have to go traditional if you eat here though because there are lots of other menu items like burgers and salad and other stuff that’s not Icelandic, but if you don’t have the salmon dog you’re probably missing out. Also, you won’t be able to say you had a salmon dog.