This cute bird really matches its surroundings!
Seen at Tjörnin, Reykjavík
I thought from looking at the list of birds found at the lake that these are white wagtails, but that doesn’t seem to match with pictures online. Does anyone know what type of bird this is?
This gallery contains 8 photos.
Hólavallagarður is an old cemetery in Reykjavík, dating from 1838. It must be one of the most heavily forested parts of the city, with birch trees planted between just about every grave. There are photos in the cemetery which show … Continue reading
I discovered a new delicacy at Prikið – a jam burger! This was so gorgeous. The description from their menu:
Jam burger: with shredded cheese, camembert, blue cheese, parmesan, lettuce and jam.
It sounds a little cheese-heavy in the description, but it turned out to be just the right amount of each flavour.
Annoyingly, I didn’t take a photo of it in all its glory – even more so given I took several less exciting photos out of the window instead. However a fellow blogger who also has good taste did – below image from http://www.anthonysecco.com/2011/11/food-and-favors-in-reykjavik/
I’m not surprised that this was so good – after all, this is the land of the “4 cheese pizza with jam on the side” that is another favourite of mine. Cheese and jam are the perfect combination and balance each other out. I don’t know why no one else has figured this out yet. I also don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that if jam was good was pizza, it would also be good with a cheeseburger! I’ll definitely be recreating this one at home.
And in case you’re interested, here is the view from upstairs at Prikið, a highly recommended place to eat.
How to Become Icelandic in 60 Minutes is a one-man comedy show performed by Bjarni 
Haukur Þórsson. It was performed nightly over the summer at Harpa in Reykjavík, and appeared again between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Having read other blog-friend’s reviews, it was on my back-up list of things to do but not a must-see.
As it happens, we did go to see it and I was pleasantly surprised. It must have been nearly sold-out and there was a good representation of nationalities there. I only know this because there were many jokes about the people in the audience’s countries as well as the Icelandic stereotypes. Sometimes the jokes about the French or the Americans got more laughs than the Icelandic ones, presumably because most in the audience will be more familiar with those stereotypes that are closer to home.
Þórsson’s delivery is quick and funny and despite the fact that he must have said these exact words every other night it didn’t feel stale. I was impressed with how funny a show he made a show that was just aimed at the tourist market. I had also seen an interview and some clips of the show from a travel programme that really didn’t do it justice.
I presume that this show will go on in some form again next summer and it must be a good earner. I would recommend going to see it – it’s a short early evening performance that won’t interfere with your whole night out and it’s got some genuinely funny moments and a nice video of Iceland too. If nothing else you can get a kick out listening to a room full of embarrassed tourists being forced to say “Eyjafjalljökull” over and over!
Perhaps the most memorable bit of the show was actually what happened afterwards. It has been, shall we say, a little windy during the day. As we were about to leave Harpa you could see that water was coming over the sea wall quite violently. For some reason I thought this was quite amusing, until I was outside and immediately clinging to a chain link fence and unable to move off it due to the wind gusts. My hat was nearly blown off my head which would have been annoying given Iceland is the only place I ever get to wear a hat!
Our destination was a 5 minute walk away under normal conditions but the combination of the wind and having to walk on ice around several road crossings made it take a good deal longer. Icelandic drivers will almost always stop and let you go even when there is no other traffic for miles around, which isn’t actually helpful when you are struggling to stay up and just want them gone and out of your way. Anyway, I am now very well acquainted with several signs and lamp posts in the area having clung on to them for dear life.
Here is a video of the wind that came to Iceland Airwaves in November to give you an idea of the fun you can have just getting around!
So, imagine you are going to see a brilliant handball match.
You’ve got your timings down so you arrive not too early and not at the last minute, factoring in the all-important pylsur stop en-route.
You live in a country where it doesn’t really snow and definitely not in the big wet patchy pieces of snow it has been snowing all day in Reykjavik. This has been a fun novelty but also resulted in your jeans getting completely soaked every time you set foot outside for 30 seconds. You’ve gone into a lot of shops for this reason and consider buying “snow pants” for the first time in your adult life.
Anyway, your route to the handball takes a lot longer because of all this accumulated snow which is also now slush, but it has been fun watching some cars get stuck. No one else is silly enough to walk but other tourists.
Oh and it’s dark too
Then you have the pleasant surprise of fireworks even though it isn’t New Years Eve! Your detour gets even longer as you go out of your way to see them and negotiate more road crossings. These are the most challenging bit of walking as you have to constantly choose between a puddle of uncertain depth, ice, or snow while you have an audience of cars.
At least you can see a few minutes of fireworks before carrying on to watch more cars get stuck in the snow and checking the map again because you don’t want to cross any more roads than you have to.
Isn’t Reykjavík wonderful?
