Iceland - 4 days ago:


Iceland has a population of around 330,000 . Approximately two-thirds of its inhabitants live in or around Reykjavik. Recent DNA studies have shown that better than 60 percent of the population are of Viking ancestry. I'd like someone to do a study on the DNA machine that was used to produce these results. Give them a hat with horns and an axe and Icelanders would all look pretty much like Vikings to me.

Elenka, our amiga Lynn and I have gone to Europe. On our way there we
did a stopover in Iceland. The apartment we rented in Reykjavik came with
a car so we were able to see 500 kilometres of it during our short visit.

Siggy, the fellow who owns the place where we stayed, explained to us ad nauseam how Iceland had taken in Vietnamese refugees during the Communist takeover in the mid 70s. After the topic had been brought up for the third or fourth time I asked Siggy how many Vietnamese refugees they'd taken in. He looked at me as though recalling the painful event and told me 25 . I'll not get into what he thinks about Iceland accepting Syrian refugees.

Iceland's mountains, ice cold lakes, voluminous, dreamy clouds, and an over abundance of ponies is overly wild and utterly rugged. As we were about to leave, Elenka said that she was very glad we came, but that two days was enough.

I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.


Denmark:


Copenhagen is a seemingly tourist-less city where old buildings blend with new ones and we Canadians blend in with the locals who are all friendly and speak our language. Actually, we don't blend in at all, but I didn't fully realize it until I went into a public washroom and had to stand on my tiptoes to use the urinal. Danes are mostly tall, athletic and better looking than we North Americans . The above sentence is my superficial take on humans and their habitat for which I have absolutely no evidence to support my findings. This disclaimer is meant to include the Vikings of Iceland as well.

Illegal drugs are forbidden in Denmark and so are off-leash dogs. But neither of these rules apply in the area called Christiania. Dogs run free and the scent from the weed that is sold from green-coloured booths that might otherwise be used as hotdog stands fills the air. 

The price of a cup of coffee is $8, a half litre of beer at a bar is $10 or more. If you do happen to have a pile of money to spend on your travels Copenhagen shouldn't be missed. I think it's to become one of my all-time favourites.