Reykjavík by Day

Here is the first in a series of posts of Reykjavik by day and by night. I'll also post some festive pictures as the city gets ready for Christmas.


I'm off to London this week to renew my visa--it's going to be a cheap trip of couchsurfing and walking the city, but it's my first visit to London so I'm excited. I'll post news of that trip next weekend.

Night Swimming

Our friends Marine and Martin invited us to drive to some natural hotsprings on Sunday. It was a bit of an adventure because none of us actually knew the location of the pool we were trying to find. We drove down toward Vík again, the same beautiful drive south that we've been on before, and scouted out a few areas. Finally arriving at Skógafoss, we knew we'd gone too far.

At twilight, after hiking up to the top of the waterfall in disappointment over our fruitless search for the hotsprings, we drove down one last dirt road, looking for our spot. We had been told that we'd find a "new pool" by the road and that we'd have to hike half an hour toward the mountain to find the "old pool"--the natural hotspring at the base of the mountain. Martin's final instinct proved to be right and we found the entrance to the hike at dusk. Although it probably wasn't a good idea, we were determined to end the day in success and decided to walk in to find the pool. We took flashlights for when it would be fully dark on the way back out.

After about 15 minutes, on flat ground but with a little uphill toward the end, we arrived at an old cement pool beside a river in the mountain valley. It was completely secluded and mostly unkempt--we were thrilled to be there. Iceland doesn't have bears or other dangerous wild animals, and the proportion of axe murderers is relatively low, so we kept our horror-movie fear somewhat at bay. Still, it was scary enough out there that the experience seemed more fun at night, and the entire adventure registered as cinematic.

The water felt warm on the hands, but when we jumped in it turned out to be a lot colder than we'd expected. The fall air is pretty chilly, so we were hoping for a nice hot pool. After finding the source of heat, a skinny pipe delivering water that wasn't hot enough to keep the entire pool comfortable, we took turns cozying up to the one warm corner.

We stayed as long as we could stand it and got dressed again in the dark. Jeramy took two pictures before our camera ran out of batteries. The pool is called Seljavallalaug, up beyond Seljavellir, and the sign is mounted on a building with rustic changerooms. The pool is quite famous in tourism photos of Iceland because of its iconic setting--a bare pool in the middle of nowhere.

The metal staircase leads into the pool--the picture captures some of the aura of the evening. We hiked out in the dark. The stars were amazing--the milky way clearly visible above the mountain peaks.

Laugardaginn 21. nóvember

On Saturday evening, we sat in the balcony of Langholtskirkja to hear Ludwig van Beethoven's Sinfónía nr. 9, í d-moll op. 125. Our friend Christine Schott is a Sópran in Háskólakórinn, and, as we found out when the choir entered, another friend, Björn Kozempel, is a Tenór. The symphony was powerful and captivating, but the singing was the highlight--particularly the four featured voices, a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a bass. Afterward, we went out for a delicious Italian supper downtown. Nice way to end a day spent at the library.

Mount Esja, 914 metres

November 15, 2009

Þingvellir and Land of Njál's Saga

November 10, 2009

The earth splits open here, Þingvellir, geological conveyor belt where we see tectonic faultlines at the surface--Iceland spreads out in each direction from the fissure, land of lavafields, land of volcanoes. You can dive, drysuited, into Þinvallavatn, the largest natural lake in Iceland, and set eyes on newly-forming earth.

Jeramy's professor took us on another class trip--this time to Þinvellir, site of Iceland's earliest parliament, and then to visit some of the landscapes of Njál's Saga. My map might not be entirely accurate--we took back roads and I lost track of our direction a few times... but the black line traces our general route. Jeramy drove the Archaeological Institute's "Red Devil" over the gravel ruts.

For lunch, we stopped at Njála Museum in Hvolsvöllur, where we had soup, bread, and salad in a Viking-style hall. Some of Jeramy's classmates dressed up in the museum's replica medieval clothing and wielded replica weapons. Jeramy took a thousand pictures of images from the saga, of the taxidermic animals, especially the numerous ravens, and, of course, of Viking miniatures going about their daily routines. (We're each cool in our own way.)

We stopped to look over the glacial plains that Njál would have gazed at every day from his home on the hill. The landscape is peaceful but there's an underlying violence lurking. Here are the imagined gravemounds of the sagas' warriors, and geological time is spiriting the earth away. A short distance northwest and a bubbling new earth emerges where the ghosts of Viking chieftans try to smooth out a new country.