Iceland, you’ll want to go!

This is now June 15 — we’ve been back two weeks. I’ve finally managed to download and do rough edits for both the Iceland and the Floriade pics. I’ll put in a some of the Iceland pics here. Let me know if you want more.

Our three days in Iceland were too short, particularly after TWO red-eyes and a whole day in JFK — we finally went to the TWAhotel and got a day tripper room for about 4 hours. Expensive, but at least we got to lie down for awhile and take showers. We haven’t been able to talk ourselves into getting an overnight room on the trip back; it will be over $500, a very silly price for a night, but it IS right next to the Jet Blue terminal. This vacation is so expensive, by the end $500 might not have the shock value it does now. But let’s talk about Iceland: All of you, pay attention: start planning NOW — it is fantastic. You will love it. Yes, it’s expensive, but worth it. Just looking at it is happymaking — it’s gorgeous! We didn’t do anything we had planned to do, like doing the circle tour or the Blue Lagoon (Laird didn’t bring his bathing suit), but we walked around in the city center and did the hop-on/hop-off bus, so we went to the Perlan — guess I would describe it as a geology/natural history museum — learn about Iceland’s making, volcanos and earthquakes, flora and fauna, habitation, northern lights, etc. — went to the whale museum, very informative, but kinda a dud. What we did best was find the Old Iceland restaurant, where we had one dinner and one lunch of some of the best food ever! OMG, Louise, Alexandra, Sandy, Pam, all you other gin drinkers, we have to get Wild Gin by Og Natura — it is THE BEST! Really, it is. I had it in a gin and tonic and then had a cocktail of Brennivin, Iceland’s aquavit, mixed with crowberry liqueur, fresh lemon juice and a splash of rhubarb liqueur cocktail, another OMG — and bjork, a birch tree liqueur (who could even imagine drinking a tree could be soooo gooood?!?) And the food! We had two three-course specials: appetizers of cured salmon, pickled cucumber, dill mayo, rye bread crumbles and smoked trout roe and an extra appetizer of scallops done some spectacular way; then, lamb ribeye and slow-cooked shoulder of lamb, baked parsnips, fried potatoes, beetroots, parsnip puree and demiglace (Laird); and filet of cod, herbs and garlic mashed potatoes, carrots, parsnips and champagne sauce (me). Then brownie (not chocolate), which was roasted oats, toffee, roasted nuts, vanilla ice cream and strawberries. Laird had an after-dinner Iceland coffee, which was birkir and coffee with sugar whipped cream. Really, my eyes crossed at the first sip of gin, and Laird joined in on the first bite of salmon and they didn’t undo until we got back to our apartment. The meal cost over 27,000 kroner, which is somewhere over $200 — maybe higher than the Compound, but probably equivalent to Geronimo’s? What makes it all so astounding is the absolute clean taste everything has — for lunch, we had traditional lamb soup, with rye bread and gorgeous butter — our first encounter with how everyday things taste so different there, so clean, with everything coming from unpolluted soil and water. (We’ll try to put pictures up later; there are computer issues, of course.) Next day, we meandered down towards the harbor and stopped at a cafe for brunch of wild mushroom soup and sourdough bread — again with the remarkable butter. We maundered some more to the hop-on/hop-off and went the whole route, so got a nice idea of Reykjavik. The old houses are lovely, but the apartment buildings are butt-ugly. Most houses have a siding on them that seems like a composite material (of what, no idea) and that siding comes in a multitude of colors; also lots of gingerbread, but not painted like San Francisco. The way they cram houses together is reminiscent of Santa Fe eastside, I assume combination of family property division and living on an island. There are about 366,000 people in Iceland, about 1/3 live in Reykjavik proper; 2/3 live in Reykjavik-suburban Reykjavik. Lots of the island is pretty inhospitable to civilization — great for hiking or adventuring, but not so much for town-building. The most recent national park comprises 14% of the total land area of the country.

Our next great food taste was rye bread ice cream, which is, beyond all expectation, quite delicious. We also went back to Old Iceland for lunch on our last day, but neither of us can remember what we had, just that it was wonderful and we felt so smart to have discovered the place. L ordered something modest for entree to have room for Mama’s rhubarb cake.

On Sunday, we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the airport. I still don’t know if there are any airlines other than Icelandair that flies there because that one has such an overwhelming presence. I can’t remember how long our layover is, but I hope we have time to go to the duty-free shop so I can buy some gin and brennivin to bring home — and maybe something with crowberries. Apparently, every single one of the 29 Icelandair destinations takes off from 7:00 am to 8:00 am. The checkin line was about 200 people long and took about 30 minutes from entry to checkin. Had a flatbread sandwich of egg and bacon. Sounds weird, but was quite good. We can’t even criticize our catch breakfast. Iceland food is magnificent.

Next story, the Floriade, which we did today.