{"id":523,"date":"2007-11-17T00:52:53","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T23:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caliban.org\/wp\/2007\/11\/17\/dodging-the-rain\/"},"modified":"2007-11-17T00:52:53","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T23:52:53","slug":"dodging-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/2007\/11\/dodging-the-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodging The Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rúntur<\/a> is firmly underway as I write this and beautiful Icelandic girls (and presumably handsome Icelandic men, although I don’t notice them as much) are roaming the streets.<\/p>\n\n

We made it out of the hotel<\/a> today just in time for sunrise at 09:59. It was hardly noticeable, however, as the sky was so overcast that the city remained shrouded in dim light until well after 11 o’clock.<\/p>\n\n

After a brief stroll around the harbour, we went for breakfast at Grái Kötturinn on Hverfisgata. This is a charming old place, packed with old paperbacks and serving some tasty bread and bagel breakfasts along with more American-influenced egg and bacon offerings.<\/p>\n\n

The rain that started the day had subsided by the time we emerged and strolled up Ingólfsstræti towards Laugavegur. As soon as we turned onto Laugavegur, Sarah spotted a nice men’s belt in a shop window and, since I was in dire need of one, I popped inside to purchase it.<\/p>\n\n

We then turned right onto Skólavörðust\u00edgur and stopped to browse in a gallery with some work by present day Icelandic artists. Some of it is very good and we’re considered making a purchase to have sent back home.<\/p>\n\n

Onward up Skólavörðust\u00edgur, the sky began to clear and reveal its hidden blue hue. Halgrimskirkja. loomed up ahead fortuitously, as now was the ideal moment to ascend its tower and take in the panoramic views of the city. Even Esja, across the water, was quite visible, its stop still shrouded in a veil of mist.<\/p>\n\n

Back down below, we ambled back down Skólavörðust\u00edgur to an organic supermarket, where Sarah bought a few provisions.<\/p>\n\n

From there, we needed sustenance, so a sojourn at Mokka was in order. This is a regular haunt of ours when in Reykjavík, but now it has the added bonus of being entirely smoke-free. That goes for all cafés, by the way, even ones previously too smokey for us to venture inside, as the new no-smoking legislation went into effect<\/a> in Iceland on 1st June 2007.<\/p>\n\n

Mokka serves up delicious coffee, hot chocolate and cakes. They also do a good line in toasties, which we took full advantage of.<\/p>\n\n

With sufficient fuel in the furnace to take on the afternoon, we walked back to Laugavegur for a visit to 66° North<\/a>, where we purchased several pairs of mittens and gloves.<\/p>\n\n

Afterwards, the others went to a museum, while I went back up Skólavörðust\u00edgur for the ever indispensable visit to the 12 Tónar<\/a> record shop. 12 Tónar doesn’t actually sell vinyl records, just CDs, but I feel silly calling it a CD shop; I suppose that betrays my age and generation.<\/p>\n\n

12 Tónar is how all record shops should be. You get to pull out a stack of CDs and then listen to them one by one on a personal CD player with headphones, whilst lolling on a comfortable couch, drinking espresso brewed for you by one of the staff. Talk about the added value of a physical shop over just buying on-line.<\/p>\n\n

The visit turned out to be more fruitful than usual, too. I scored a copy of the limited edition Sigur Rós DVD\/CD pack, Hlemmur<\/em><\/a>, plus Eivør Pálsdóttir’s latest album, Human Child<\/em>. Her records are still a bit tricky to find outside of Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but check out her Myspace page<\/a> for an introduction to her music.<\/p>\n\n

Other CDs I picked up were albums by Jakobinarina, Emiliana Torrini, Hafdis Huld and Mammút, all of which I got to listen to before I bought them. Thanks again to 12 Tónar for running a record shop the old-fashioned way. Not only that, but most of these artists also release their CDs on the 12 Tónar record label, so they’re also providing an outlet for music that otherwise wouldn’t reach a very wide audience (and some of it still<\/strong> doesn’t, of course).<\/p>\n\n

By this time, the others were back at the hotel, enjoying a rest, so I returned for a few minutes, but then had to leave again in a taxi to go to the local Hertz office and pick up our hire car. I had to upgrade to a Toyota Voyager diesel, just to get enough boot space to be able to fit the large volume of suitcases the four adults are carrying. Don’t forget that all of Sarah’s folks’ Amsterdam luggage is with us, too, so it’s a fair old pile of bags.<\/p>\n\n

I got lost on the dark, rainy Reykjavíkian roads on the way home, but luckily didn’t stray too far. Eventually I saw signs for Miðbær and knew I was heading back into the centre. I eventually parked the car on Tryggvagata, right across the road from the hotel.<\/p>\n\n

Dinner this evening was at Tveir Fiskar<\/a>. As with yesterday evening’s choice of Þrir Frakkar<\/a>, we knew from experience that we could expect a high standard of cuisine, and that was certainly served to us. An absolutely delicious meal was enjoyed by all.<\/p>\n\n

Tomorrow, we’ll leave before sunrise and head out towards Þingvellir<\/a> national park, then later to Geysir<\/a> and Gullfoss<\/a>; the Golden Circle tour, in other words. We’ll overnight in Hvolsvöllur<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

My new Nokia E90 phone proved to be more than just a pretty face today. When I needed to call Hertz and to delay our restaurant reservation by half an hour, both calls were made using the phone’s SIP client to route them via VoIP through my ISP, XS4ALL<\/a>, back in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n

The upshot of this is that I got to use my Dutch mobile phone in Iceland to make international calls to Iceland at just over two cents per minute. That’s less than our hotel would have charged me to make the calls via the phone in the room. Fantastic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rúntur is firmly underway as I write this and beautiful Icelandic girls (and presumably handsome Icelandic men, although I don’t notice them as much) are roaming the streets. We made it out of the hotel today just in time … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caliban.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}