So who knew that June 17 is Icelandic Independence Day? We arrived to find Reykjavik a ghost town. There was little traffic on the streets, very few stores were open, we had no clue what was going on. Our hotel didn't have an ATM, but they told us we'd find one at a nearby shopping mall. We walked quite a ways to the mall, but found it shut tight. We kept walking until we got to the Hilton -- people there were much more helpful than the single, stressed-out, overworked desk clerk at our hotel. We found out about Independence Day and how to take part, and they also helped us make reservations for our excursions. After a long walk in mist and light rain, we arrived in the city center, where there were indeed people -- lots of kids with red balloons, many waving flags. There were parades, bands, and all sort of activity.
We visited Hallgrímskirkja, the church of unique architecture which dominates Reykjavik's skyline, and there was a free Independence Day organ concert going on, so we rested our weary legs after so much walking, and listened for awhile. A fancy sandwich and decadent dessert at a bakery along the main shopping street also helped to revive us. But after a bit more of parades and festivities, we decided it would be best to go back and check into our hotel (we had arrived too early for our room to be ready). We took a short nap, then packed our swimsuits for our trip to the Blue Lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon is a man-made pool carved out of the volcanic rock, and fed from the same hot springs from which Iceland gets most of its heat and electricity. It's a turbid blue because of all the minerals and some blue algae, and it's huge. Saunas, waterfalls, and pots of silica mud for self-administered facials surround the pool. And of course, there's a swim-up bar (which we avoided due to the prices -- though we later discovered that beer and wine are just as expensive everywhere. The giant hot tub was great, but the people watching was even better -- young and old, European, Asian, and American -- it was a crash course in intercultural communication. Watching people of all cultures struggle with the high-tech lockers in the dressing room was also fascinating. Upon admission, one is given a plastic bracelet with an RFID chip. Closing the locker and putting the bracelet up to the scanner closes the electronic lock. They scan the bracelet at the bar or snack bar, as well as for massages and other fancy stuff (renting towels, bathrobes, etc.). Then the bill is settled after a last scan is done at the exit. Great marketing.
After a good night's sleep we had breakfast in the hotel dining room. An elderly American woman, apparently alone, and rather feeble getting around on her cane, was loudly chatting people up. Her opening line was, "You speak English?" From there it was a little scattered. She asked one couple if this place was part of Canada (she didn't seem certain where she was), and asked some others about conventions being held here (this is not a convention hotel). It gave appearances of early-onset dementia, and we really hoped she wasn't there by herself. But we didn't hang around to find out. We had tickets for the Golden Circle Tour -- a full day excursion to see the sites that must be seen in the Icelandic countryside. We soon found there was an ugly American on that bus, too, but I'll not go into that.
The Golden Circle took us northeast of Reykjavik to a settlement that centered around Iceland's first cathedral. Skálholt is barely a wide spot in the road now, but was the center of activity when the island was Christianized around 1000 AD. There is a nice, medium-sized white church there now, with a school and guest house nearby. There are also the ruins of an old sod church that served for several centuries into the 1800s. And there is an archaeological site where foundations of an even older church and school have been unearthed. Next was Gullfoss (Golden Falls), the Niagra Falls of Iceland. The day was so perfectly clear that, in the sunshine, we could see the giant glacier Langjökull some 60 miles off in the distance! Then, Haukadalur Valley, the home of The Great Geysir (the first geyser ever described in a printed source and the earliest geyser known to Europeans). Geysir is extinct now, but we saw others spouting and boiling. Finally, we visited the national shrine at Thingvellir, where the Icelandic Parliament was founded in the year 930 and where it continued to meet until moving to Reykjavik in 1845. The Viking chieftains who gathered there in 930 to elect the first "lawspeaker" didn't know it, but the site was formed because it is the rift valley at the exact location where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet -- thus the root cause of the volcanic activity that makes Iceland what it is. So it's truly the foundational site of Iceland. [Mark at the overlook]
We got off the tour bus at the city center and had a nice (but expensive) dinner (everything is expensive here due to the 25% VAT, but there are no other taxes or tips to add to the bill). Then, because we'd been sitting on a bus all day, we decided to walk back to the hotel -- a good three miles or more. But there's a great system of walking and biking trails here, so on the way we passed through some neat residential neighborhoods, beautiful parks, and stopped at Perlan ("the pearl") which is a huge ball for storing hot volcanic water located on a hill overlooking the city. An observation deck is open for free and there's even an elevator (and a very expensive restaurant at the top, of which we did not partake). We also took time to walk through a local supermarket -- not much different from home, with one exception: Instead of rows and rows of coolers for meat and dairy products, there was an entire refrigerated room! The door slides open to let shoppers in, fill their carts, then slides open to let them hit the frozen food aisle on the way to check out. I guess when electricity is nearly free due to volcanic steam, it doesn't cost much to maintain a room-sized fridge.
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