This trip brought to you by the fact that I needed a Trip in the spring and the airfare was on sale. Yeah! Iceland! We will be going up to the westfjords for puffins! Waterfalls! And I will be buying licorice to my heart’s content.
After surviving the trans-Atlantic redeye flight window shade opener (there is always one – why? Why must you hurt the rest of us?), we have at least 3 collective hours of sleep between the four of us, and we are definitely ready to drive. Instead of a manual Dacia Duster, we have an automatic Kia Sportage. This is a delight because now, all of us can drive the car.
Our first stop is a lil bakery near the airport for Real Food. It’s sandwiches time! Iceland excels in the sandwich arts, and cafes are generally not eleventy billion dollars. I am pleased, because I am weirdly hungry, and I need to mainline caffeine so I don’t fall over on my face.
The sandwiches slap and I get some mysterious Icelandic pastries to go – one is licorice, the other looks like it might be a relative of the moon pie.
Later, I discover this pastry is a super super sweet gingerbready-icing thingy which is tasty but holy cow, it’s just sugar.
We have a hot second until we can check in, so we head on over to the Bridge Between Continents, a little stop Rhett & I have never visited before, just south of the airport by 20 minutes.
This may shock you based on the name – but it is a bridge over the rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. Iceland is the only country that is directly on them, and they are diverging – which is partially also why there’s so much volcanic activity in Iceland.
In the crack beneath the bridge, it’s sandy – a black, course volcanic sand. It goes in your shoes and everywhere else, naturally (like your crack). You can walk across the bridge and read about plate tectonics. We stood in the crack and marveled at being in the crack. Our jetlagged noggins are delighted. (Ok, I didn’t get sand in my crack)
It got very windy and rainy and we were chased back to the car. The Blue Lagoon was booked for a few hours – no Blue Lagoon for us today. We are dying from sleepy and likely won’t safely make it to our air bnb if we go to the lagoon.
But I always have time for Bonus! We make a pitstop for groceries and another Bonus bag, because ours died of overuse.
In Reykjavik proper, my first order of business is to selfie with Lief’s statue! We arrive at the precise moment the church is closed, (which, in hindsight, is probably why I have never been up the tower), so we walk around like zombies (as you do, when you get in too late for the ol’ land n nap).
Reykjavik is one of my favorite downtown cities to walk in – it’s colorful, there are a lot of cute shops selling artsy things, and the street art game is strong.
I avoid shopping and we visit Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur – the OG hot dog stand in Reykjavik. Icelandic Hot Dogs are special since they’re made with lamb. This stand serves only hot dogs and drinks – no weenies are vegetarian, but Rhett has a good time with his weenie.
We continue our weenie theme post-nap, with a visit to the Icelandic Phallogical Museum. There are ding dongs and weenies galore – hundreds of preserved penises and facts about animal mating rituals. It is education and absolutely peak weird kitsch. It’s great.
Fun fact, humans are the only animal in the primate category that lack a penis bone! And there is a whole section on human penises, including people who have had their members cast or have donated them to the museum. What a thrill.
I of course compare myself to the Sperm whale penis. It is lorge. Sea monstrous, even.
Food halls are a thing here (yay!) – we split up for dinner and Rhett and I get Scandinavian Indian food in a nearby foodhall. Tomorrow, we’re off to the Westfjords!
