Travelogue #14: Foodporn Reykjavik

An assortment of things we ate in Reykjavik. 

Can’t quite remember what this place was called, but it was on Tryggvagata, right in front of the Reykjavik Art Museum, and was bizarrely filled with American Hollywood memorabilia. 

The food was on a similarly tacky side - burritos and a good piece of cod ruined by the unnecessary gesture of adding sweet chilli sauce. But it was our first meal off the plane, so we devoured it all with gusto. 

Icelandic Fish and Chips. 

Not quite the artery clogging affair it typically is, but rather a semi self-serviced organic bistro.

The fish is fresh and coated in a barley batter. The herbed potatoes were hardly ‘chips’. The skyronnaise sauces came in all sorts of flavours. And the lobster soup? Well, it was LOBSTER, in a SOUP, on a cold, rainy day. What could possibly go wrong? Outstanding. 

The winner of the meal was the dessert - a traditional Icelandic serving of skyr with cream and berries. The best part was that there was absolutely no sugar added, so despite being a dessert, it was actually only sour, and absolutely delicious. 

Mentioning Skyr - why has it not been exported worldwide and sold for mass consumption?

For those who don’t know, skyr is a type of Icelandic dairy product that is like a very thick yogurt, but technically a soft cheese. Comes in all sorts of flavours and is sold everywhere in Iceland.

And did I mention it is totally delicious and so thick you can stand a spoon in it? 

Oh yeah. 

Gulfoss Kaffi

A touristy cafe located right next to Gullfoss that is somewhat famous for their lamb soup. And a very, very good lamb soup it was. 

One thing that was always fun to do in a new country is to visit a supermarket. I mean, how could you resist naming your milk brand Muu? Or buying chocolate milk called Koko Mjolk? 

MOAR SKYR.

Laundromat Cafe - part of the Danish chain that allows you to eat and drink, read and play board games while you did your laundry. I’ll admit, we kinda only went in because of this sign and the impending rain. The food turned out to be decent, but the milkshakes were phenomenal. 

And so ended our last night, somewhat tamely, in Iceland. Back from our Golden Circle trip, we were totally exhausted and headed to bed after dinner in order to get up at 3am the next morning for our flight.

In the next 24 hours, I would travel across 3 countries on 6 modes of transport, and somehow end up homeless in the middle of the night, within 2 hours of arriving in Belgium.

But at that moment, not knowing my immediate fate, I was simply happy to be spending my last Kronurs on some Icelandic chocolate bars for the plane ride. I was looking forward to finishing this leg of the trip and starting my life as an exchange student. To unpack, to stop living out of a suitcase and settle into a more regular rhythm of life in Leuven. 

xx doots

Travelogue #13: I've looked at clouds from both sides now.

I said in my previous post that Reykjavik was objectively an unattractive city, but that’s not entirely true. The truth is that Reykjavik is only unattractive in the context of Iceland - an exceedingly attractive country. I never thought there could be this much beauty in desolation, but in Iceland - a country where the soil is too “new” to even grow trees - beauty abounds in the ruggedness of its grassy, mossy landscape and the completeness of its isolation from the rest of the world. 

Being the highly original human beings that we were, we decided to take the Golden Circle tour - the most popular tourist route that loops through some of the key sights in Southern Iceland. The weather was intense and changed drastically every 10 minutes in a way that made Melbourne weather seem sane. This provided for very interesting light conditions to shoot photos, but also gave us some spectacular clouds (and an excuse for Joni Mitchell).

The first stop on our tour was Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Station, one of the largest in Iceland. All of Iceland’s electricity comes from its natural Geothermal energy, and hot tap water in Reykjavik is literally pumped from the ground as it is, without any further heating.

Yes, it’s very clever and absolutely sustainable, but the minerals in natural geothermal water does make a hot shower smell like cooked eggs. 

Geothermal pipe lines.

Taking the high road.

Moss and me, near the power plant. 

Sun piercing through clouds on the horizon.

After Nesjavellir, we travelled to the Þingvellir National Park, the site of the first Icelandic Parliament in 930. Every summer, when the Icelandic Parliament met, people would travel from all over Iceland to Þingvellir to attend, and merchants would sell their goods among the crowds. 

The rocky cliffs at Þingvellir made it an ideal spot because the sound would bounce off the cliffs and be amplified. 

Þingvellir from above.

Þingvellir was also famous for another reason - it’s where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are literally ripping apart.

Many tour guides will tell you that you can stand with one foot on Europe and one foot on America here. But let’s get real - they’re friggin tectonic plates. It’s not possible to stand with one foot on one and one on the other unless your legs were kilometres long. But you can see the rift quite physically in some places. 

After Þingvellir, we headed to the famous Gullfoss, or the “Golden Waterfall”, as the name literally translates to. And yes, when the sun shines through, it is quite literally gold coloured. The water is strangely murky because it is glacial melt. 

No visit to Iceland would be complete without seeing a geysir or two. But actually, Geysir - the original geysir which gave the phenomena its name - is mostly inactive because of a blockage. Luckily, another geysir named Stokkur nearby erupts, on average, every 15 minutes. 

Thin, hot crust. Good for pizzas, not ideal for … yer know … THE EARTH.

Inactive geysir, or what I call - the earth’s giant butt hole. 

Geysir erupting.

After the geysirs, we headed to Skálholt, a historic village that saw the establishment of Iceland’s first school, as well as its somewhat violent conversion from Catholicism to Lutheranism during the Reformation. These days, Skálholt is quite a picturesque spot, featuring an idyllic church surrounded by grassy plains, lakes and mountains. 

Focus fail. 

All throughout the tour, we saw the most beautiful Icelandic horses just by the side of the road.

Our last stop of the day was at Kerið, a volcanic crater that apparently serves also as a concert venue. In summer, they set up a floating stage in the middle of the lake and use the shape of the crater as a natural amphitheatre. 

Landscape in the setting sun on our way back to Reykjavik.

And with that, we returned to Reykjavik for one final night. But already, I was beginning to miss the totality of Iceland’s beauty and its shifting, illusory clouds. 

xx doots

Travelogue #12: Reykjavik

When we walked out of Keflavik Airport, we were almost literally blown over by the freezing, biting wind. And with this wind came the chilling realisation that I was in Iceland, the furthest I’ve ever been, and can ever possibly be, from home. 

Objectively speaking, Reykjavik isn’t a particularly attractive, or historic city. But when you visit, you are quickly reminded of the fact that it is the people that gives a place its character.

Packed with a young, eccentric population with quirky taste, Icelanders filled their capital with well-designed stores, interesting cafes, idealistic, Yoko Ono-esque graffiti and public art, and pastel coloured houses to brighten the dreary weather of their country.

We found ourselves braving the freezing, windy Iceland weather just to wander aimlessly through the streets, delighted by colours and peace-loving messages written over buildings, in parking lots, on rubbish bins; or window-shopping our way through the hip and impossibly expensive shops in Reykjavik, drinking copious volumes of coffee in cafes filled with fashionable, be-spectacled young people quietly chatting to each other or tapping away at their MacBooks alone. 

We met a tour guide, a French man, who came to Reykjavik 5 times before deciding to settle here for life. After a few days of chilling (or rather - freezing) in Reykjavik, I was beginning to see the human warmth he saw in this isolated, but endlessly delightful place on earth that kept drawing him back, time after time. 

xx