Iceland, the short version

I haven't had much time to write anything so it is already our last night here in Iceland. It has been an amazing week. So here's the quick and dirty version. One piece of advice for anyone thinking of going to Iceland (even in July!): pack a hat, gloves and warm layers! It is cold and damp!

Day 1:

Arrival in Reykjavik. Our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, where we lazed around in the hot springs for a bit. Then we headed into town, wandered around and settled in at our guesthouse. Reykjavik is a small city and not super interesting, but easy to walk around. There are lot's of felted handicrafts available for sale everywhere.

Day 2:

We caught the early morning bus to Landmannalaugar. Despite the rain, wind and low temperatures (so glad I packed my hat), we did a little hike to see the rhyolite mountains and lava formations in the area. It was pretty cool, although not as colourful as in the postcards because of the weather.

From Landmannalaugar, we headed to Skaftafell via Eldgja, a volcanic canyon. It was quite the bus ride... really, it was more like a rickety, old carnival rollercoaster. We crossed dozens of rivers, hung off the edges of cliffs and wished we hadn't chosen the only seats without seatbelts. (We passed a Jeep or SUV of some type stuck in a river, which we crossed.)

Day 3:

View from the breakfast table in Skaftafell.

In Skaftafell, part of Vatnajökull National Park, we did a short walk from our guesthouse to Svartifoss, a waterfall frequently featured on postcards. From there, we headed across a plateau to Sjónarnípa, a veiwpoint that looks out over Skaftafellsjökull, which is part of Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Europe. From our guesthouse, we had a view of the sand flats in front of another part of the glacier which flooded in the 90's after a volcanic eruption under the glacier.


In the afternoon, we caught a bus to Vik, a town on the south coast known for black sand beaches and birds. We took it easy and got some groceries (it was 3 times as expensive in Reykjavik!!).



Day 4:
After a night in a guesthouse that smelled like horses, we headed along the coast to Seljalandsfoss, another waterfall, where we had to switch buses. After a much calmer AWD ride than our last one (but with just as many river crossings), we reached Þórsmörk. The area is known for hiking, so that's what we did. After buying the worst (i.e., least accurate) hiking map I've ever seen, we went for a walk that took us to the top of a small mountain. We had great views of the surrounding valleys and glaciers, specifically Eyjafjallajökull (yes, the location of the 2010 eruption) and Mýrdalsjökull. Apparently, Husadalur, where we stayed, is home to a small herd(?) of Icelandic horses. (There was a riding tour of some sort going on while we were there.)

At the top of the mountain we accidentally climbed.

New friends.

Day 5:
We did a little more exploring of the Þórsmörk area before heading back to Reykjavik for the evening. Good thing  we bought some food at a small grocery store at a pit stop because the grocery store was closed by the time we got back to the city. It really wasn't that late!


Day 6:
Another early morning bus trip and we found ourselves on our way to the Golden Circle (Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss). Þingvellir, the original home of Icelandic parliament (established in 930), is on the edge of the Eurasian and American plates. Geysir is a geothermic area, home to Geysir, the geyser that all other geysers are named after. Geysir no longer erupts regularly, but Strokkur, only a few steps away, erupts about every 7 minutes. This area reminded me a lot of the geothermal areas in New Zealand. Gullfoss, a waterfall, was cool, but not mind blowing. There were no fences along many of the edges, so you could have touched the water in some places, if you really felt the need...

Surprise! It's a geyser!

At Gullfoss.

Day 7:
We started off our last day in Iceland by visiting the National Museum in Reykjavik. A tour bus arrived shortly after we did, which we both found intrusive since the museum is quite small. A lot of the information in the museum focused on the influence of Christianity in Iceland, which was interesting, but we both agreed we would have liked to have known more about the vikings! We also kept hearing about how Icelanders generally have many superstitious beliefs and many believe in "hidden people" (sort of like elves), trolls and the like. I would have liked to have seen more in the museum about how those beliefs fit in with Christianity, which was widely adopted in the year 1000.


We spent the afternoon wandering around the city and finished off the day with Icelandic salmon for a second night in a row. It was that good. And one of the only things we could buy in small quantities.

In the morning, we're off to Sweden to check out Stockholm, Uppsala and Norrköping, to see the sights and visit some of our friends. All in all, Iceland was amazing and I can't wait to visit again. There is so much to see and the landscapes are just magnificent. My recommendation is that you go, too!

** Note: I didn't actually post this in a timely manner, but it was all written on our last night in Iceland. I just never got around to adding photos and posting it until now...**

Leaving on a jet plane

I found a draft "Travel Wishlist" I started last year. Near the top of that list was Iceland. And guess where I'm flying to tomorrow?! I'm so excited. After a week in Iceland, a week in Sweden is next on the itinerary, followed by 2 weeks in Estonia. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself... I still have to finish packing!

Getting in a little culture before leaving

Tuesday morning we packed up, checked out, and headed to Museum Mile.

"Our" subway stop

Over the course of the day, between the two museums we visited, I saw works by almost every well-known artist from the couple of centuries. Miro, Rodin, Chagall, Klimt, Kadinsky, Picasso, Degas, Georgia O’Keefe, Cezanne, Matisse, Tanguy, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Seurat… I could go on… Seeing all these famous pieces up close, seeing the cracking paint and brush strokes, was absolutely amazing. Next time I have to make it to MoMA and all those other museums we missed.

Hendrik in front of the Guggenheim.

We got to the Guggenheim for opening. It is such a cool building! Love Frank Lloyd Wright! Unfortunately, it was one of the loudest museums I have ever visited. It was so bad I put on my iPod to drown out the crowd. Ignoring the noise, it was a great experience overall. There was a really interesting photo exhibition and the permanent collection is also spectacular. It’s a relatively small museum and it took us about 2 hours to get through, although if we had more time I could definitely have been there longer.

We grabbed lunch from some food carts. I decided to try a New York pretzel. Bad idea. Probably one of the worst things I have ever eaten. It was dry and salty. So, so salty. Unfortunately, it was also the only vegetarian option.

My pretzel after I had already shaken off some of the salt. You can still see it.

Jazz band in Central Park behind the Met.

After eating, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wow. It’s huge. Absolutely massive. A gallery I wanted to see was closed, but there was still so much to see, even skipping almost all of the ancient and medieval galleries. The gallery that was closed had some Dadaist works and other pieces I wanted to see. Next time…

Interesting map of modern Europe in the Met. Only missing a few countries...

One exhibit that stood out for me at the Met was Leon Levinstein’s Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players. It was a collection of photographs of New Yorkers from 1950 to 1980. But not clean, upper-crust New Yorkers. The pictures captured normal (somewhat quirky) people doing everyday things.

In the Van Gogh gallery. There were so many people every where! At least the Met was quiet(ish).

There was a bamboo installation on the roof of the Met. They're working on building a huge wave. You could go up into the structure, but you had to book ahead of time.

Bamboo on the roof.

The roof had a great view of Central Park and the city, too.

One disappointing thing at the Met was getting herded out 15 minutes before closing time. I was worried about finding Hendrik because I wasn't sure if we could get to our meeting place. Luckily we did and I didn't lose my cousin right before leaving!

The steps of the Met at closing time.

The ride back was uneventful. I wasn't sure if the border guard would believe I was only bringing back $2 worth of goods, but it went smoothly. (I only bought 2 postcards in New York.) I guess I'll just have to go back!

Public Spaces – From relaxing to hectic

After parting with Peter in the Meatpacking District, Hendrik and I walked along the Highline park for a little bit. It’s an old railway track that has been turned into a really interesting raised park/walkway. I had read about it a while ago as a potential model for what could be done with the Gardiner in Toronto. It was very cool!

Highline Park

 From there we headed to Central Park. Hendrik and I both like wandering around and exploring, so that’s what we did. Lots of neat things to see, so I’m just going to post some pictures.

Central Park

Alice in Wonderland statue.

On a rocky hill with a nice view of the city.

Massive globe in Columbus Circle.

 From Central Park, we headed to Times Square, passing through Columbus Circle first. Here are the requisite nighttime Times Square shots.

Times Square tourist shots!

Monday was definitely a long day. But there is just so much to see in New York!

Hope you brought your walking shoes

Early morning above NYC.

Me partially blocking the view from the Empire State Building.

We woke up early on Monday morning to get to the Empire State Building before the notorious line ups. We were lucky… It took about 10 minutes to get from the entrance to the top without any line. I can’t imagine how long it would take in the middle of the day. We had a good overview of the city from the top and it wasn’t too crowded. A NYPD helicopter did a low sweep of the viewing deck which was pretty neat. I also noticed there were far fewer cars on the street than I would have thought, despite being there during morning rush hour. Lots of taxis and buses though.

Excitement at the Empire State Building.

After that, we had breakfast at a mediocre diner before meeting up with Christina’s friend Peter. Peter is extremely knowledgeable about New York and might just be the leading expert on the history of the New York subway system. Needless to say, he gave us a very informative tour.

We started off at the World Trade Center site. He took us through St. Paul’s Chapel across the street from the site. It is the oldest building in continuous use in New York and a place that people took refuge in in the aftermath of 9/11. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but being there and seeing all the cards and police badges and other memorabilia was very moving. You can see the impact of 9/11 all over the city. One prime example is the New York Stock Exchange, where we went next. You can’t get a car near the building and you need to pass through a metal detector before entering the building. Interestingly, there is a building across the street from the NYSE that has pockmarks in the walls from an attempted drive-up bombing a long time ago (I believe Peter said it was a carriage, not even a car).

St. Paul's Chapel, across the street from the World Trade Center site.

 From Wall St., we went to the South St. Seaport, which is unfortunately like so many other historical tourist districts. It reminded me of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. But there’s a deck with a nice view and it was a good place for a short break.

Our next stop was the Lower East Side, where we’d spent a bit of time the night before. We walked through SoHo and the NYU campus. I’ve looked at grad programs at NYU a bit, but housing is obscenely expensive. Peter told us a bit about the history of the tenement housing that is common in the area. It’s interesting how areas that used to be crowded, low-income, working immigrant neighbourhoods are now super expensive and trendy. Also, full of high-end stores that try to look exclusive, but that we have in Toronto. Okay, maybe I’m just saying that because I did no shopping whatsoever in New York and I’m trying to console myself.

Entertainer in Washington Square.

 We stopped by Washington Square Park near NYU, a great place for people watching. The square was full of all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. It’s always nice to see well-used, well-loved public spaces. We continued on through to Greenwich Village, where we stopped at Magnolia Bakery for delicious cupcakes. And then on to the historical White Horse Tavern, once frequented by people like Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Jane Jacobs and Jack Kerouac.

Washington Square Park.

 We then walked to the Meatpacking District where we ended our lovely tour.

Note: These posts are from August, but I gave up posting for a bit because I was playing around with Wordpress. I decided to stay on Blogger for now because importing to Wordpress changes a lot of my formatting.

Show Me This, Show Me That

The next morning, we headed back to the city, where we walked from Grand Central to our hotel in Chelsea at 8th and 23rd. On the way, we passed the scaffold-draped New York Public Library and Bryant Park. There were a bunch of people playing bocce ball, or something similar, in the park. Along Broadway, the was an outdoor fashion exhibit of some kind. It was neat because a lot of streets around Broadway and Times Square were pedestrian only, or had a pedestrian walkway/bike path in the middle of the road.


When we reached Leo House, where we were staying, we quickly dropped off our bags and headed out again. We got some really tasty Indian food for lunch, which we ate near Times Square.

Above: Leo House, home base for a few nights in Chelsea.
Below: A school we walked past. The playground is on the roof...

From there, we were just a block away from the Music Box Theatre, where Christina had arranged tickets for Lend Me a Tenor, a Broadway show, which was not a musical despite its name. I didn't know what to expect, but it was quite funny. It was also neat to see actors who we recognized on stage (and up close, we had great seats). The actors included Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace), Tony Shalhoub (Monk) and Justin Bartha (The Hangover).

After the show, we headed off for a very different experience in a very different part of town. We took the subway to the East Village, where we had a nice walk before catching the Improviser Festival at The Stone. The Stone is a "performance space dedicated to the experimental and avant-garde." What this means is we were two of about four audience members for what was a really interesting, intimate and not too pretentious set. The instruments ranged from guitar to pink post-it notes to a weird glove connected to a computer.

Above: We saw some men fishing near this sign when we were walking around the East Village.
Below: At The Stone.

We got dinner at Katz's Deli, not realizing it was sort of a landmark, until we walked into the packed restaurant. Then we noticed the walls covered in photos of celebrities and presidents, and found out it was it was featured in films such as Donnie Brasco and When Sally Met Harry. I tried a potato and spinach knish, pretty much the only vegetarian thing on the menu. I didn't know what it was until I ate it, but it wasn't bad, essentially a stuffed bun. Vaguely like an Estonian pirukas.

Above: Hendrik trying a chili dog for the first time.
Below: My spinach knish (the "k" is not silent) which Blogger decided to rotate on me.

Note: I might be moving my blog to WordPress in the very near future because I waste a lot of time fighting with Blogger when trying to post/format pictures, despite having a rudimentary knowledge of html coding...

Arrival and Escape

On the boat cruise. Everybody was really excited about the Statue of Liberty. We took our tourist shots, too. We were tourists after all.

After arriving, we went for a Circle Line boat cruise around Manhattan Island. It was interesting and nice to relax after the long bus ride. Hendrik and I both commented afterward that Manhattan is much greener than we were expecting. There is a fair bit of parkland, and not just Central Park. I should mention here that most of the pictures to go with these posts were taken by Hendrik. There's no point carrying around 2 cameras and taking pictures of the same things, so I just let him use mine.

Above: Domino Sugar factory, soon to be luxury lofts.
Below: Where the World Trade Center used to be.

One thing that this day highlighted was the importance of packing light. We were originally going to stay at a hotel on Saturday night, but Christina's relatives, Laura and Andy, graciously invited us to dinner and then to stay the night. Because our plans changed, we ended up carrying our bags around all day. (In case you were wondering, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York does not have lockers. But you can leave your bags at the Greyhound baggage counter for $8/bag.)

There are a lot of bridges (and tunnels) connecting Manhattan to the rest of New York and New Jersey. Note that I'm carrying my backpack.

To get to Andy and Laura's lovely home in Greenwich, CT, we had to take a commuter train from Grand Central Terminal. The walk there from the pier took us past the edge of Times Square, which was insanely busy, but I'll write about that later. Grand Central was neat, but it was a little hard to find our platform (partially because of the apathetic ticket booth attendant). The train ride was uneventful. The train itself was a little... depressing. Definitely not as nice as GO trains in the GTA.

Human traffic around Times Square.

Laura picked us up from the train station, then drove us through town and down to the water. It was so nice to just relax at their house that night. Hendrik and I went for a swim before bed, listening to the tree frogs and other night sounds. They were different than what we have at home, but somehow familiar. It was really nice to Andy and Laura again and I look forward to the next time.

Looking out at the water in Greenwich, a stark contrast to the city.