I have been doing so many interesting things lately that I am finding it impossible to write about everything before the next fun thing happens. I did some great things over the weekend which got in the way of the final segment of the Belle & Sebastian pilgrimage, for example.
Not to mention that there have been some splendid days here, and all I want to do is be outside enjoying them. Yesterday evening I went for a walk by the sea in the glorious golden sunshine, and ended up in a new area of town that I'd never explored. The path went along the ocean on the southern side of the Reykjavík peninsula, passing some forgotten fish-drying racks (still containing a few samples, their fish-mouths permanently dried in a gory primal fish-scream), and along to below the domestic airport. There was a youth soccer team practicing there, the orange of the jerseys glowing against the thick green grass.
To the right, before the waves began, the wild angelica bloomed full, mixing wafts of licorice spice with the sea flavors. Further down the path there was a riot of rosebushes, the good kind that smell impossibly delicious.
I passed several others, couples on a leisurely bicycle tour, friends deep in discussion over their evening walk, and sporty rollerbladers. An evening like this is irresistable. Everyone was out, even if just to pull a few weeds in the garden or trim the hedges.
Past the airport is another section of postcode 101, a strange amalgamation of 70's architecture that looks like I'd imagine a California suburb would contain, some lovely classic old houses, and a few modern expressions of architecture that included details like a three-story "stone"-trimmed watchtower, another with seven-foot stained glass human profiles flanking the front door, and several grass-topped houses. Everyone's always saying how tiny this town is but I am still finding all kinds of new unexplored corners. Long may it continue.
Ship sighting: On my way back from the walk I watched the progress of a midsized fishing boat heading in. Today we also have the Vistamar arriving. I'm a little worried about its seafaring abilities after finding this picture of it though.
09 August 2006
03 August 2006
Seyðisfjörður ramblings
First, I must mention that I am writing this on a sunny balcony with an ocean view, admiring the emerald-green grass through the latticework railing. I have hot espresso and local pastries at my side, and the most astounding thing is that I am in a knee-length skirt and a tank top. That's right, outside, in Iceland, in the sun and it's warm enough and breeze-free enough to go strappy tops.
But back to the fog of East Iceland... Seyðisfjörður, my new fascination. As I mentioned before, this is where the ferries to Norway and all points between arrive in Iceland, so it's got this Important status, and historically has so as well. This town was big news in the old days, and still retains some of its importance, if one is to judge from the Hollywood-style SEYÐiSFJÖRÐUR sign on the side of the hill as you approach the town. It's rigged with lightbulbs so it must be quite a display in the winter.
We all were staying in the house a friend of one of the group has rented for the summer, and it was all fascinatingly Bohemian. She's an artist, and had acquired a spare pair of New Zealanders who were working at a local cafe for the summer. They were staying in one room downstairs and B (renter of the house) and her son were staying upstairs, in one of a warren of tiny bedrooms. The house was a lovely traditional old Icelandic house with the center gable, the corrugated metal exterior, and typical bright paint choice (what I would refer to as New England barn red). However, nothing inside had been remodeled or updated in the slightest since the 1950s. The floors were covered in linoleum (the best was one room that had a carpet printed on the linoleum), the bathroom had been painted a lime green so bright it actually glowed in the misty darkness when we arrived, the curtains were the kind of indestructible polyester material that was so prolific in the 60s, peeking into closets showed serious water damage in the eaves, and if anyone stomped too vigorously downstairs, the lights would flicker in one of the rooms. There was a similarly ramshackle assortment of furniture- mismatched chairs, cots upstairs, and a few wooden boxes that once held English explosives serving as tables in the living room. Apparently this house is owned by some Famous Icelander in Hollywood, and is on the verge of a major makeover. So far, all that's happened is one room upstairs has been stripped of its wallpaper, exposing the wallboards that are covered with old Icelandic newspapers. Much work to be done.
We spent all of Saturday there before the concert, the kids playing with various other local kids that appeared in the house suddenly and disappeared just as mysteriously. Bikes came and went, fishing expeditions were organized and abandoned, and much fun was had at the fjord's edge until everyone realized that the tide was rising faster than they'd expected.
After enjoying the sunny morning reading, I went to explore the town in the afternoon as the fog rolled in. I went to what I think is the only grocery store in town, marveling at the peculiar selection of incredibly expensive wares. Want a chic glass breadbox, a Scottish venison steak, and a hairdryer on your next one-stop shopping trip? Samkaup Strax in Seyðisfjörður is the place for you.
Next, I went with K to the Indian "hippybúðin" across the street from where we were staying. This little old house contains a surprisingly good Indian store, with lots of cheap silver jewelry, sari material, gorgeously knotted rugs, and then, just when you're about to be really impressed by the interesting foreign goods, a collection of clothing that's from H&M, Coldwater Creek, and Zara. I found some amazing bargains which were rung up by someone that looked familiar, but I figured she just had one of those faces until K later mentioned that she was a fairly famous Icelandic actress. I'd seen one of her films back when I was living in Boston, but to my American self, running across a film actress tending a shop barefoot in a tiny fishing village is too out of context. Still, I'm proud our conversation was entirely in Icelandic, and I can report that that her amazing red hair is definitely real.
After lunch the household dispersed to visit family in the area, to read, or to work, so I took off with my camera to see what else was to be seen in town. I followed the main street down the southern side of the fjord, observing the Saturday afternoon activities of the people who live there, which seemed to mostly involve washing cars. Inevitably, I ended up in the industrial side of town, where old cranes stood next to a tumbledown locksmith shop and some impressively shiny refrigerated warehouses. From there I followed an old road that climbed straight up the side of the mountain. I scared a few sheep on the way up, but otherwise it was just me and some birds that called to each other mournfully from the heath.
The hillside there was covered with the usual blend of mosses, tiny flowers, and krækiber, all in full ripeness. These tiny purple-black berries grow all over the land here, and taste like autumn in New England- not incredibly sweet but very refreshing and there's something wild and elusive about the flavor. They also make you work to enjoy them, as one pencil-eraser sized berry is more than half seeds. Still, as I climbed higher, I kept stopping for another handful to mull over as I watched the landscape unfold.
As I climbed higher, the road became fainter and fainter, until it disappeared altogether and it was just me, the moss, and the occasional stone. After a while I stopped to sit on a rock and just watch the silence. I could still hear the hissing roar of the water in the fjord below, and the wind in the cliffs above me, but I was the only human there, sitting quietly on my stone. The fog had started to roll in with force, hiding parts of the landscape like a dancer revealing and concealing her charms with veils. Sometimes the tops of the immense peaks on the opposite side were perfectly clear, then they disappeared and all I could see was the sea below, then finally the fog erased everything and grew dense enough that water began to bead on the fibers of my lopapeysa. Time to go.
Back in civilization, I found an assortment of people wanting to go to the pool when I returned to the house. We packed up our towels and walked the five minutes to the pool, which unfortunately took some of the gloss off the town. Seyðisfjörður does not have the geothermally heated water, so the pool was entirely indoors. There were nice large windows around it and plenty of toys for the kids, but the nuddpottar were all in this strange neon-illuminated corridor with only one small window for fresh air (forget having a view to contemplate). I felt like I was in a suburban American motel, and after growing accustomed to a snap of fresh air accompanying your soak, this was a sad disappointment. No eimbað either- just a dry sauna that stood with the door ajar when I checked it, its baked heat escaping rapidly.
Still, in spite of the disappointing pool, this town is well worth another visit. Maybe next time I'll go to the technology musem there. It looks like it might be almost comparable to the Museum of Everything in Skógar.
Ship sighting: As I mentioned, I found myself down by the docks and the shipyard, where I took a picture of this wonderful, slightly peeling boat. I can't take enough photos of boats-in-progress.
But back to the fog of East Iceland... Seyðisfjörður, my new fascination. As I mentioned before, this is where the ferries to Norway and all points between arrive in Iceland, so it's got this Important status, and historically has so as well. This town was big news in the old days, and still retains some of its importance, if one is to judge from the Hollywood-style SEYÐiSFJÖRÐUR sign on the side of the hill as you approach the town. It's rigged with lightbulbs so it must be quite a display in the winter.
We all were staying in the house a friend of one of the group has rented for the summer, and it was all fascinatingly Bohemian. She's an artist, and had acquired a spare pair of New Zealanders who were working at a local cafe for the summer. They were staying in one room downstairs and B (renter of the house) and her son were staying upstairs, in one of a warren of tiny bedrooms. The house was a lovely traditional old Icelandic house with the center gable, the corrugated metal exterior, and typical bright paint choice (what I would refer to as New England barn red). However, nothing inside had been remodeled or updated in the slightest since the 1950s. The floors were covered in linoleum (the best was one room that had a carpet printed on the linoleum), the bathroom had been painted a lime green so bright it actually glowed in the misty darkness when we arrived, the curtains were the kind of indestructible polyester material that was so prolific in the 60s, peeking into closets showed serious water damage in the eaves, and if anyone stomped too vigorously downstairs, the lights would flicker in one of the rooms. There was a similarly ramshackle assortment of furniture- mismatched chairs, cots upstairs, and a few wooden boxes that once held English explosives serving as tables in the living room. Apparently this house is owned by some Famous Icelander in Hollywood, and is on the verge of a major makeover. So far, all that's happened is one room upstairs has been stripped of its wallpaper, exposing the wallboards that are covered with old Icelandic newspapers. Much work to be done.
We spent all of Saturday there before the concert, the kids playing with various other local kids that appeared in the house suddenly and disappeared just as mysteriously. Bikes came and went, fishing expeditions were organized and abandoned, and much fun was had at the fjord's edge until everyone realized that the tide was rising faster than they'd expected.
After enjoying the sunny morning reading, I went to explore the town in the afternoon as the fog rolled in. I went to what I think is the only grocery store in town, marveling at the peculiar selection of incredibly expensive wares. Want a chic glass breadbox, a Scottish venison steak, and a hairdryer on your next one-stop shopping trip? Samkaup Strax in Seyðisfjörður is the place for you.
Next, I went with K to the Indian "hippybúðin" across the street from where we were staying. This little old house contains a surprisingly good Indian store, with lots of cheap silver jewelry, sari material, gorgeously knotted rugs, and then, just when you're about to be really impressed by the interesting foreign goods, a collection of clothing that's from H&M, Coldwater Creek, and Zara. I found some amazing bargains which were rung up by someone that looked familiar, but I figured she just had one of those faces until K later mentioned that she was a fairly famous Icelandic actress. I'd seen one of her films back when I was living in Boston, but to my American self, running across a film actress tending a shop barefoot in a tiny fishing village is too out of context. Still, I'm proud our conversation was entirely in Icelandic, and I can report that that her amazing red hair is definitely real.
After lunch the household dispersed to visit family in the area, to read, or to work, so I took off with my camera to see what else was to be seen in town. I followed the main street down the southern side of the fjord, observing the Saturday afternoon activities of the people who live there, which seemed to mostly involve washing cars. Inevitably, I ended up in the industrial side of town, where old cranes stood next to a tumbledown locksmith shop and some impressively shiny refrigerated warehouses. From there I followed an old road that climbed straight up the side of the mountain. I scared a few sheep on the way up, but otherwise it was just me and some birds that called to each other mournfully from the heath.
The hillside there was covered with the usual blend of mosses, tiny flowers, and krækiber, all in full ripeness. These tiny purple-black berries grow all over the land here, and taste like autumn in New England- not incredibly sweet but very refreshing and there's something wild and elusive about the flavor. They also make you work to enjoy them, as one pencil-eraser sized berry is more than half seeds. Still, as I climbed higher, I kept stopping for another handful to mull over as I watched the landscape unfold.
As I climbed higher, the road became fainter and fainter, until it disappeared altogether and it was just me, the moss, and the occasional stone. After a while I stopped to sit on a rock and just watch the silence. I could still hear the hissing roar of the water in the fjord below, and the wind in the cliffs above me, but I was the only human there, sitting quietly on my stone. The fog had started to roll in with force, hiding parts of the landscape like a dancer revealing and concealing her charms with veils. Sometimes the tops of the immense peaks on the opposite side were perfectly clear, then they disappeared and all I could see was the sea below, then finally the fog erased everything and grew dense enough that water began to bead on the fibers of my lopapeysa. Time to go.
Back in civilization, I found an assortment of people wanting to go to the pool when I returned to the house. We packed up our towels and walked the five minutes to the pool, which unfortunately took some of the gloss off the town. Seyðisfjörður does not have the geothermally heated water, so the pool was entirely indoors. There were nice large windows around it and plenty of toys for the kids, but the nuddpottar were all in this strange neon-illuminated corridor with only one small window for fresh air (forget having a view to contemplate). I felt like I was in a suburban American motel, and after growing accustomed to a snap of fresh air accompanying your soak, this was a sad disappointment. No eimbað either- just a dry sauna that stood with the door ajar when I checked it, its baked heat escaping rapidly.
Still, in spite of the disappointing pool, this town is well worth another visit. Maybe next time I'll go to the technology musem there. It looks like it might be almost comparable to the Museum of Everything in Skógar.
Ship sighting: As I mentioned, I found myself down by the docks and the shipyard, where I took a picture of this wonderful, slightly peeling boat. I can't take enough photos of boats-in-progress.
01 August 2006
illegal
Yesterday my current residence visa in my passport expired. I am now technically living illegally in The Land. I called Útlendingastofnun to ask about this peculiar situation and after a conversation that began in English but rambled into Icelandic (yay! I can understand enough of the language to talk to Immigration Ladies!), I discovered that they are absolutely unconcerned that I had yet to receive the letter from them saying I could get my new one at the copshop. That 4000 krónur it now costs to renew your visa doesn't seem to bring expedited service, and immigrants running around without documentation is not a problem, apparently.
So I'm living lawlessly, but with the approval of the immigration office.
So I'm living lawlessly, but with the approval of the immigration office.
Pilgrimage
I went on a long weekend trip to a concert in the tiny village of Borgafjörður Eystri over the weekend. Since this place is a full day of non-stop driving from Reykjavík, we decided to make it a road trip, and stopped at some of the major attractions along the way. The drive to Vík by now has become a bit of a routine, and for some reason it seems to recently be plagued by impressive rain. The unchartered territory began for me just outside of Vík, when we passed the rock formation of Hjórleifshöfði. From there to our night stopover at Skaftafell is an almost unpunctuated stretch of sand and lava, only interrupted by the tiny town of Kirkubæjarklaustur, the town of the Most Confusing Esso Station Exit. The weather was traditionally south-coast crappy though, so maybe I missed something.
Skaftafell is a national park that's tucked up against the base of one of the tongues of Vatnajökull, Iceland's biggest glacier. It's the base camp for all kinds of ice exploration, as well as less adventuresome hikes. We did the short trip out to Svartifoss, a popular waterfall that cascades over perfectly hexagonal lava tubes (yes, I took photos but they were nothing special, so google-image-search if you want to see what it looked like) There's a parking lot a short walk from the falls that was of course loaded with busses, and the path was crowded with foreigners. It was easy to tell who wasn't from around here as we walked along bare-armed past clusters of people in full foul-weather gear.
Back on the road we continued through the black sands to the next Great Icelandic Sight, Jökulsárlón. This is one of those places that I wish I could see again and again just how I saw it the first time- not knowing when it was going to appear, and knowing nothing about the scale, lulled by the black dunes of glacial sand deposit. It's such an instantly dazzling view, all these ice chunks glowing turquoise from within, drifting on the placid water below the glacier, and then to the other side, the sea raging in its unfettered south-coast persona. Astounding, even though it was crawling with people, and definitely worth the trip to both lagoon side and ocean side. I could have stood for hours on the beach, listening to the crackling of the ice as the surf crashed against it, crawling between the chunks, striped with glacial sand in some places and carved into surreal sculpture-forms, their surfaces breathing cool glacier-air, their edges dripping fresh water into the sea foam.
We had to continue further though, and an accident on the beach had forced an unexpected layover in the next town of Höfn í Hornafirði (note to the wise: going barefoot on an ice-strewn beach might lead to unexpected foot injuries). The day was achingly lovely though, so those of us who were not getting foot stitches at the local health clinic enjoyed the incredibly tiny pool there. It's pretty workaday, and laps are probably out of the question with all the kids enjoying the pool paraphernalia, but the beach-ball chairs were very comfortable and the variety of jacuzzi temperatures was pleasant.
Back on the road, we continued through the beginning of the really majestic East Fjords scenery. This is some hot stuff folks- a bigger scale than the West Fjords, and in the July evening sun the hillsides glowed below the glowering mountaintop clouds. Quite possibly my new favorite landscape here, with the continued accents of tremendous waterfalls, sheep-covered hillsides, little ponds surrounded by fifa, and a fjord named after, and containing, hundreds of swans.
After a thrilling dirt-road mountain pass crossing in the fog, we descended into the valley where Egilsstaðir sprawls, the capitol of East Iceland. Sadly, this was quite a let-down as the first Big Civilization of the day. It's a peculiarly red-neck town (lots of noisy cars, burly guys, and rat-tail hairdos spotted at the Esso station) with an astounding lack of zoning and planning. We dined at a pizza place that was almost unfindable, located on the second floor of an office building, next to what was either a junkyard, a paint shop, or a tire lot. Pick one, and you get the idea of how charm-free the location was, in spite of the lovely sunset sky that arced overhead.
Fortunately, our final destination for the evening was NOT here, so we once again got on the road and headed over one final mountain pass, where I learned about the legendary East Iceland fog. It hung in the valley and made it almost impossible to see the town of Seyðisfjörður, home to a lot of great old houses and about 700 people. More on that in next post!
Ship sighting: Seyðisfjörður is the Icelandic port of the Smyril Line, the company that runs the car ferry that goes from Iceland to the Faroes, and then to the Shetland Islands and Norway. There's almost no evidence in this town that it's receiving all these Dutch and German cars on a regular basis, except that the concentration of foreign license plates seemed to get higher the further east we went (yes, there are people from other countries but the most noticeable volume comes from those two lands). The ferry dock was deserted on a Saturday afternoon, and the only foreign ship influence was a small Swedish sailboat with two bicycles parked on the dock nearby (you can see its mast in the lower right-hand corner of this photo, near the fishing boat). Nothing like the Steamship Authority docks on a summer Saturday!
Skaftafell is a national park that's tucked up against the base of one of the tongues of Vatnajökull, Iceland's biggest glacier. It's the base camp for all kinds of ice exploration, as well as less adventuresome hikes. We did the short trip out to Svartifoss, a popular waterfall that cascades over perfectly hexagonal lava tubes (yes, I took photos but they were nothing special, so google-image-search if you want to see what it looked like) There's a parking lot a short walk from the falls that was of course loaded with busses, and the path was crowded with foreigners. It was easy to tell who wasn't from around here as we walked along bare-armed past clusters of people in full foul-weather gear.
Back on the road we continued through the black sands to the next Great Icelandic Sight, Jökulsárlón. This is one of those places that I wish I could see again and again just how I saw it the first time- not knowing when it was going to appear, and knowing nothing about the scale, lulled by the black dunes of glacial sand deposit. It's such an instantly dazzling view, all these ice chunks glowing turquoise from within, drifting on the placid water below the glacier, and then to the other side, the sea raging in its unfettered south-coast persona. Astounding, even though it was crawling with people, and definitely worth the trip to both lagoon side and ocean side. I could have stood for hours on the beach, listening to the crackling of the ice as the surf crashed against it, crawling between the chunks, striped with glacial sand in some places and carved into surreal sculpture-forms, their surfaces breathing cool glacier-air, their edges dripping fresh water into the sea foam.
We had to continue further though, and an accident on the beach had forced an unexpected layover in the next town of Höfn í Hornafirði (note to the wise: going barefoot on an ice-strewn beach might lead to unexpected foot injuries). The day was achingly lovely though, so those of us who were not getting foot stitches at the local health clinic enjoyed the incredibly tiny pool there. It's pretty workaday, and laps are probably out of the question with all the kids enjoying the pool paraphernalia, but the beach-ball chairs were very comfortable and the variety of jacuzzi temperatures was pleasant.
Back on the road, we continued through the beginning of the really majestic East Fjords scenery. This is some hot stuff folks- a bigger scale than the West Fjords, and in the July evening sun the hillsides glowed below the glowering mountaintop clouds. Quite possibly my new favorite landscape here, with the continued accents of tremendous waterfalls, sheep-covered hillsides, little ponds surrounded by fifa, and a fjord named after, and containing, hundreds of swans.
After a thrilling dirt-road mountain pass crossing in the fog, we descended into the valley where Egilsstaðir sprawls, the capitol of East Iceland. Sadly, this was quite a let-down as the first Big Civilization of the day. It's a peculiarly red-neck town (lots of noisy cars, burly guys, and rat-tail hairdos spotted at the Esso station) with an astounding lack of zoning and planning. We dined at a pizza place that was almost unfindable, located on the second floor of an office building, next to what was either a junkyard, a paint shop, or a tire lot. Pick one, and you get the idea of how charm-free the location was, in spite of the lovely sunset sky that arced overhead.
Fortunately, our final destination for the evening was NOT here, so we once again got on the road and headed over one final mountain pass, where I learned about the legendary East Iceland fog. It hung in the valley and made it almost impossible to see the town of Seyðisfjörður, home to a lot of great old houses and about 700 people. More on that in next post!
Ship sighting: Seyðisfjörður is the Icelandic port of the Smyril Line, the company that runs the car ferry that goes from Iceland to the Faroes, and then to the Shetland Islands and Norway. There's almost no evidence in this town that it's receiving all these Dutch and German cars on a regular basis, except that the concentration of foreign license plates seemed to get higher the further east we went (yes, there are people from other countries but the most noticeable volume comes from those two lands). The ferry dock was deserted on a Saturday afternoon, and the only foreign ship influence was a small Swedish sailboat with two bicycles parked on the dock nearby (you can see its mast in the lower right-hand corner of this photo, near the fishing boat). Nothing like the Steamship Authority docks on a summer Saturday!
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