You’ve problem heard of the global issue of street children, right?
Well, Iceland has them, too. However, these are not helpless, wee bairns left to fend for themselves in the harsh sub-Arctic climate by their parents; rather, they are quite deliberately left outside the city’s many cafés and shops whilst their parents eat, drink and shop around inside.
You see, here it’s still 1900. Not in the sense that one has to go without any mod cons here: quite the contrary. No, I mean that Iceland apparently has no nutters, no disenfranchised, dispossessed fruitcakes with a need to vent their spleen on the society that (admittedly) created them.
Icelanders enjoy such a high standard of living, that there is seemlingly (perhaps even factually) no serious crime here; and there is certainly no crime involving the kidnapping of children. A host of Icelanders have confirmed this to us.
As a consequence, parents feel quite at ease as they park their prams outside the city’s various establishments, mostly invisible from view inside, and then enter to go about their errand or recreation. Perhaps they still leave their front doors unlocked here, too. What about car doors? I haven’t tried one.
Anyway, “When in Rome…”, as they say, so we’ve also taken to the habit of parking our little girl outside each of the places that we visit. The rucksack and the camera are removed from the pram’s base, because somone might steal them, but a human child? No commercial value, I guess. Try searching eBay for “Icelandic baby”: you won’t find any real ones.
It’s a shame it’s not safe to do this anywhere else in the western world, but that’s the fact of the matter. It just goes to show how civilised this country is, whereas most others are either stuck at barbarism or have already passed civilisation and descended squarely into decadence.
Given the lack of crime, the lack of an army (which means that Iceland has made few enemies abroad), the lack of problems stemming from rampant non-western immigration, and the lack of pollution, one is left pondering the mystery of why one hasn’t yet sold up shop and moved here post haste.
I’m sure there’s a downside, too, but it’s not readily apparent. Time to start reading in detail about Icelandic society, I think.
Eloïse still has diarrhoea, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting her spirits. As a precaution, though, we spent another lazy day in Reykjavík.
Tomorrow, though, we’re off on the South Shore Adventure excursion. We could’ve hired a car and done it solo, but this seems easier this time around, all things considered. Otherwise, we’d have to deal with picking the car up, bringing it back, getting the baby seat installed, etc.
So, it’s an early start tomorrow and a long day ahead, as we take in the Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss waterfalls, the Reynisdrangar and Dyrhólaey rock formations, and the village of Vík. We’ve been to all of these places before, but are eager to see them again in the midst of the untamed Icelandic winter.
Speaking of winter, it snowed for a good part of the day today. How appropriate for a country with ice in the name. The city took on a new dimension, which only added to its charm. It’s not difficult to tell that I have a great fondness for Reykjavík, is it? If you’ve been here, though, you’ll understand that that fondness is not misplaced and why.
Dinner tonight was at the superlative Tveir Fiskar. It’s a famous Icelandic restaurant, down by the harbour, and the food was quite frankly a gastronomic orgasm. Seriously, I think I’ve just eaten the finest meal I have ever had in Europe. In fact, only Mama’s Fish House on Maui even comes close, but that meal was too long ago to judge objectively against this evening’s. It’s just possible, however, that I’ve just eaten the best meal of my life.
The night sky is ablaze with fireworks as I write this. It’s been a week since the New Year was welcomed in, but not everyone seems to have exhausted their supply of fireworks on that occasion. Having seen photos of the celebrations of New Years gone by, I can only continue to hope that we will one day make it out here in time for New Year, which seems to go off in inimitable style.
Time to get some rest ahead of tomorrow’s early start.