Day Three: Iceland part 2

It was a bit of an ordeal to get my bike box and bags back to my hostel, but I checked in with no problems and I currently have my own room, which is awesome.  Oh, and the room has a shower in it!!

After decompressing a little bit, I decided to go out and explore Reykjavik.  Definitely good times.  The city is very cute, and what I sort of always imagined a Scandanavian city to be like.  I can't really explain it.  It was quite and peaceful, but stuff was still going on.  Small houses with fun colours, even on the roof.

My first stop was to book a tour.  I went for the "Black & Blue" tour, which is snorkeling in Silfra and caving in lava tubes.  I definitely can't wait for that.  Both were on my To Do list, so doing them both in one day is awesome.  Next stop, Hallgrímskirkja.

Hallgrímskirkja is a pretty large church situated on top of a hill over Reykjavik.  It is modeled after columnar basalt and is quite striking.  I am a bad tourist though, I didn't spend much time finding out about the history, I was just there for the visuals.  The outside is stunning but, to my surprise, so was the inside.

Hallgrímskirkja from the outside and the inside

Directly across from Hallgrímskirkja is Cafe Loki, where I decided to sample traditional Icelandic dishes (also on the To Do list).  I didn't know much about traditional food, but I knew that I wanted to try hakarl, which is putrefied shark meat.  They put the raw shark in the ground for 2-3 months and let it rot. Hakarl is a result of that process.   Mmmm.  If you look on YouTube, you can see people eating it, and their reactions.

Anyway... so I tried it.  It wasn't really that bad, and was a unique experience.  Very ammonia-y.  The rest of the Icelandic food was great too.  Dried fish with butter,  smoked lamb on flatbread, fishmash and potatoes on rye, smoked trout on rye, and a bowl of skyr (yogurt).  Mmmm

My Icelandic brunch

I had one more errand to run.  Because my tour was scheduled for tomorrow, I needed to go to the rental car agency (phone wasn't working) and switch drop the day off of the car.  After a long bus ride and some confusion with the address I finally made it.  I was so annoyed at one point that I almost just left and was going to eat the cost of the extra day.  Thankfully I didn't.

Apparently car rentals have been slow, so instead of reworking the rental agreement, the guy helping me just gave me the car early.  So I went from having the car for 3 days to 4.5.  Nice. 

With a car, all of a sudden I felt like I needed to do something with it.  So I decided I would drive the "1.5" hours to the Arnarstapi.  I could write a very long blog about the drive, because it was actually 3ish hours.  But I would bore everyone.  Let's just say, it was worth the drive, and the pictures don't do it justice.

Arnarstapi is a place where a lava flow cliff has been eroded by the sea, and birds are nesting in it.  It is similar to places in Oregon, but more volcanic, and a better back drop.

Pictures of Arnarstapi

Proof I was really there :)

While I was taking pictures at Arnarstapi (there are more), the weather got a little worse.  It had been snowing at a higher elevation, but it was dropping lower, so I decided to start the drive home.  Which was a good idea.  I had to go over one hill that was up near the snow cap, and it was snowing pretty hard.  But didn't seem to be sticking to the road which was nice.

It's pronounced: Sn-eye-felts-yo-cool-th  :)

Once I got down off the mountain, it was actually very nice.  I was able to stop and take a few pictures of some areas I saw on the way.  One especially cool place was Bjarnarfoss, a waterfall that comes off the top of a plateau and falls about 200 feet onto an outcrop, currently frozen over, and then trickles down.  The picture below really doesn't do it justice because I couldn't get closer.  But man I loved it.  Oh, and that white smudge is actually the clouds, you can see them clinging to the tops of the mountains almost all the time.  Beautiful Iceland.

Bjarnarfoss  (foss means waterfall, FYI)

What I didn't mention about the drive is that just outside of Reykjavik, you have to drive though this INTENSE tunnel.  It was built, essentally, do go directly underneath a fjord, and apparently saves drivers a 45km drive around the fjord. A little research showed that the tunnel is not even the longest in Iceland, but it sure seemed crazy.  It's 6.9km and goes more than 165m below sea level.  Crazy.  I also think I might have gotten a ticket... I was going a little fast and saw a light flash.  :) 

UPDATE:  I *did* get a speeding ticket!!  It cost me 10 euros.

The scenery just before the tunnel

Enterance to the tunnel... ominous

Otherwise, the trip back was uneventful.  Just beautiful scenery.  I was definitely very tired though, had been a very long commute after all.  Off to bed earlyish to be well rested for Silfra and caving.