Day 5

Day 5 was Jeff's adventure day.  There is a place near Reykjavik where you can go scuba diving in between the North American and the European continental plates and actually touch both sides at the same time.  The water there is glacial melt and has some of the best visibility in the world for diving.  It is also ridiculously cold so I was happy to sit this one out.

While Jeff was having his adventure, Wren and I took a walking tour of Reykjavik.  Normally I don't take tours with a guide in a city but I thought I'd give this one a try.  I read a bit of the blog prior to coming to Iceland that the tour guide writes.  I found the blog helpful, informative and funny.  It is http://www.iheartreykjavik.net/.

The walking tour was great.  I learned a lot about Iceland and the city of Reykjavik.  The thing that cracked me up the most was when she was talking about dating in Iceland.  Pretty much everyone in the country is related to Ingólfr Arnarson who is given credit for the first settler in Iceland.  Because of the low number of people who live in Iceland, there is a problem that you might be dating a close cousin and not know it.  To solve this problem, there is a website where you can see how closely related to someone you are dating before it becomes serious.  She said that she was immensely relieved when she found out that her now husband and her were separated by 9 generations.  She checked him out after their first date.

The tour started at a huge church that was about 2 blocks from where Jeff and I were staying.  It was a great landmark for our stay in Reykjavik and made it really difficult to get lost.

 

The church had a massive pipe organ that was made of over 5000 pipes.  It was really beautiful to look at.  There apparently is a stunning view from the bell tower but the wait was very long and I somehow never got around to it.  The architect for this church designed over 1000 buildings around Reykjavik.  

Across from the church was a museum with the works of a famous Icelandic sculptor.  He was also very prolific in his work and had sculptures all over the city.  Some were more serious and some were whimsical.  I like the one with the big rock as the top half of a business man.

 There are also many murals around the city.  Some were done for commission and some were done with permission but in back yards and in strange corners there was a ton of artwork.  Below are a couple of examples.

 The houses of Reykjavik are often bright colors.  I'm not sure if that is to cheer things up during their long winters but since I have a rather brightly colored house myself, I loved it!  There was a lot of corrugated aluminum and steel siding.  The steel was from a long time ago when they traded sheep to the UK for the building materials and the aluminum is more recent as they have a huge aluminum factory just outside of the city.  There are very little trees in Iceland.  About 25% of the country used to be covered in forests but they were all chopped down for building materials or fuel.  It is now about 1% of the country that is forested but they are making efforts to replant.  It is difficult due to the harsh winters and rocky soil so very few buildings are made out of wood.

Probably not the best photo of houses but it is from the apartment that we were staying in and Wren is cute, so too bad.  :-)  You can see that there is a yellow house and the one next to it has a turquoise roof.

 98% of the energy in Iceland is geothermal.  It is used for heating and hot water.  The hot water in Reykjavik comes directly from a geothermal pool and so it has a sulfur-y smell.  It is weird when you shower or do dishes and smell rotten eggs.  The smell doesn't stick to you so you don't smell yucky after a shower but it was strange.  They recommend that you fill you kettle with cold water and then heat it rather than drinking the hot out of the tap.  Jeff and I stuck with this plan so our tea didn't smell funky.

I really enjoyed my walking tour.  Once Jeff got back we went to a famous hot dog stand that has been written about by foodies all over the world.  It was a pretty awesome dog!

We finished up the day with a little souvenir shopping.  It was a lovely day.  I'll get Jeff to put in a post (maybe) about his diving.  He still owes me a couple posts he promised to write about Japan, so don't hold your breath.  I love my husband very very much but getting him to write a blog post for me is no simple task, I'm having difficulties getting to it myself!  :-)