Iceland days 7-10
After checking out of the hotel I went and checked into my hostel which was pretty nice. Right in the centre of town with a comfortable bed and plenty of room. Bit of a shock to be back in a hostel after the 4/5 star hotels I've been staying in but it's only a couple of nights.
Went for walk around town, saw a children's orchestra giving a free concert at the local arts centre and then went to check out the Icelandic Phallological Museum! That's the Penis Museum.
The guy who started it basically got a few whale penises as gag gifts from fisherman friends of his and decided to start a museum. I saw a documentary called "The Final Member" about this museum a few years ago because I thought it might be amusing but it was actually quite interesting. It was about his quest to get the first human penis in his museum and the 2 guys he was negotiating with to get it. I'd recommend the doco for something a bit different.
However the museum was located in the north of Iceland at the time so I didn't think I would be able to see it. But! When I arrived I found out they relocated it to Reykjavic a few years ago which meant I could go visit!
It's a pretty small museum (size doesn't matter remember?) but it was interesting enough for half an hour or so. It's mostly for a giggle. The collection is a bunch of penises from the animals that live in Iceland or its surrounding waters and they are either in jars of formaldehyde or taxidermied. Some of them are fairly impressive, some of them are a bit odd and others just look like a penis. There's also a section on penis mythology, some poetry and short stories and various artworks. One of the most amusing ones was a series of casts of penises from the Icelandic handball team which are displayed together.
The highlight though was probably the gift shop. There is all sorts of cock-related merchandise for purchase. I was going to get a shirt but didn't like any of the designs so I ended up getting a plush toy of their mascot ... Phallossus.
Checked out the cathedral at the top of the hill next which was nice and had a really beautiful pipe organ. Outside the museum I slipped on some ice in the most spectacular way. Both feet went forward and I was up in the air and landed square on my back. I ended up landing with the right side of my lower back right on my water bottle which felt better at the time but gave me a hell of a sore back for the next few days. Apparently my fall was very amusing because a couple of teenagers saw it happen and burst out laughing while a few other tourists came rushing over to check if I was OK. Not my finest moment.
After that I was all wet from the ice and snow on the ground and damned sore so I took off back to the hostel and chilled out for the afternoon. I went out that night and met up with some local Ingress players for a few drinks which was nice. We ended up out til about 1am. Reykjavic has quite a night life. Coming back at 2am and heaps of people were only just starting to come into the city. Clubs are open til 6am here so they preload at home then come out late. If you're into nightlife this is a good place for you.
Got back to the hostel about the same time as another girl and we were the only 2 people in the room ... Everyone else was still out! I thought getting back in at 1.30am I'd be one of the last back in not one of the first! I guess in this town there are a bunch of northern lights tours that go quite late so it's probably not that surprising.
I put my shoe out in the hall and went to sleep.
Iceland has some interesting Christmas traditions. Possibly the most famous one these days is their tradition of giving a book on Christmas Eve and everyone gathering to read their books together. I like that one.
One of their other is the 13 Santa Clauses they call the Yule Lads. Each night leading up to Christmas a different Yule Lad comes out to play. They do naughty things like slamming doors or licking spoons or peeping through windows. They can be categorised apparently into the lickers, the sniffers and the perverts. And the last one is a witch that apparently boils naughty children in her cauldron and eats them. Children aren't threatened with a lack of presents here ... they are threatened with being boiled and eaten. My kind of place.
The hostel also does a thing where if you leave your shoe outside you get a surprise in the morning. Now if this was Australia I'd be afraid that Julian Oneill would come by and poo in the shoe but in Iceland they put a chocolate and a nice little note there instead. Another nice tradition.
The following day I had booked my last tour type activity in Iceland. I was going to go through a lava cave and snorkel in the Silfra fissure!
Turns out the girl from my dorm room was on the same tour which was cool. So we headed down to the stop and waited for our pickup which took quite a long time. On our way and it was me with 7 girls. What can I say ... I've got game.
First up was the lava cave which was interesting. Quite different to the ice caves I've done so far in the trip. Just lots of black volcanic rock, dripping water and icicles. We climbed through the cave and in a couple of places I had to crawl or roll to get through but it was a fun experience. I was definitely the most unfit of the group! When we did the lights out thing it was different here than the ice caves. In here you could only hear water dripping while in the ice cave you could hear the ice crackling. Still total darkness in both though. Got a few photos but given how dark it was and the fact we were using headlamps they didn't come out great.
After that we headed off to the Thingvellir national park for our snorkelling expedition. Snorkelling in Iceland in winter ... what kind of dickhead does that?! It was actually pretty cool. The water was about 2-3 degrees Celsius but you don't even feel it with the equipment they have you use. You wear your thermal underwear then a sort of thermal onesie over the top followed by a drysuit over the top of that which stops the water getting in. Any water that does get in is absorbed by the thermal onesie. So you're really quite warm. The only bits exposed to the water are your hands and your cheeks and mouth.
Anyway - the Silfra fissure is one of the points opened up by the ongoing separation of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. So by swimming in here you're swimming in glacier melt between two tectonic plates which is pretty awesome. If I'd had my diving license I could go down to a point where I can have one hand on each plate. Next time!
This is also one of the best diving and snorkelling spots in the world when it comes to underwater visibility. On a clear day you can have visibility up to about 120 metres apparently which would be amazing. Unfortunately the day was a bit cloudy so I couldn't see quite that far but it the visibility was still great. The view was basically just rocks and fissures which was interesting in itself but there was some algae and other various floaties in there as well. I bought the photo pack from the guy running the tour and I think there are a few decent ones in there.
Went out for dinner that night with an Australian guy I met in the hostel. We went to a nice tapas place that did an Icelandic traditional food menu. I had puffin (served as a tartar - not my favourite dish), whale, a couple of types of fish, horse and lamb. Really tasty meal and I thought it was well worth the price tag.
The next day was my last day in Iceland.
I booked a session at the blue lagoon on the way to the airport. Stupidly I missed the bus by a couple of minutes (it's a 30 minute pickup window ... I didn't read the fine print) so I had to wait for the next one meaning I only ended up with about 30 minutes in the water. Annoying but my own damn fault. Nice facility but really overpriced and not something I'd recommend if you aren't into the whole spa thing. The water wasn't even hot. More like luke-warm. There are better ones you can go to for a far better price in Reykjavic that give you a much more authentic local experience.
So today I fly off to the USA for Christmas with Luke and Mel in Seattle before heading home sometime around new year.
Iceland has been absolutely spectacular and I'll definitely be coming back but in the summer next time. It's not a cheap place to visit but the scenery is amazing, the people are friendly and it's so easy to visit with everyone speaking English everywhere.
And they have tentacle porn at the airport.
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