Thoughts on Iceland

Thursday, October 03, 2013
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Back home and these are the lingering different things about Iceland that surprised or impressed us.

Guard-rails: very few and only where a 'sheer drop to hell' curve exists that also would prove fatal.

Herring: delicious and firm, not mushy at all ever - both the marinated in white vinegar with onions and the sweet matjes herring.

Geyser bread: this bread is made by placing a bucket of a specific recipe dough in a hole in the ground in a hot spring (geothermal) area for 24 hours to bake, then allowed to rest and dry for 6 hours so it cools from its 90 degree heat down to edible state.

Bathtubs: these seem to not exist in the hotels and guesthouses that we stay in, but the locals are forever swimming in local pools everywhere or soaking in hot-spring baths. Almost every community has a local pool or pools with hot tubs and water slides.

Duvets: all hotels and guest houses have lovely duvets on the beds. They are all single duvets, even on larger beds, so Minna cannot pull the covers away from Howard.

Sheets, toilet paper and facial tissue: all rough like 600 grade sandpaper, for these rough and rustic peoples.

Friendly people: everyone is friendly and start with saying 'hello' before any communication. They almost all speak English, and the one who didn't was so happyto give us full directions in Icelandic.

Thin and fit: all the people are thin and fit - it must be the fish, or the constant swimming.

Ring road: from Skaftafell to Vik, in the south, is flat, boring and mostly black. The glaciers do provide some visual relief. Some stretches for miles have only black gravel and hardly a blade of grass.

Speed limit on ring road (route 1-Iceland's major highway really goes around the whole island): only 90 kph and sleepy! but there is very little vehicular traffic. Some sheep, on the road, but not much else.

Hot water: everywhere hot water is used from the hot springs or piped from them even in the cities. If the awful smell is intolerable, one can heat the cold water using electricity. In most of the hotels and restaurants we could detect no smell. In Myvatn the aroma permeated the whole hotel room.

Room comfort: Everywhere we went it was comfortably warm and not drafty. The custom seems to be that if it too warm, they open the doors rather than adjust the thermostat.

Sheep: sheep sheep sheep everywhere on the road, meadows, hillsides, craggy cliffs, and dinner plates as loins or chops or braised shanks. They look a lot better on plates than in real life.

Road signs: excellent so that a map is hardly required. All signs show route numbers and distances for destinations. Illuminated boards show the temperature and wind speeds and indicate if the road is impassable.

Scenery: spectacular at every turn. Just when you think you saw it all, something new alters your ranking of 'the most beautiful sight in Iceland.

I wonder where we will go next.
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