In Which I Sample Local Cuisine

Here we are at our most adventurous! After waking up from our nap SOME of us were still a tad grumpy... and I still wasn't even sure what a grocery store might look like in Iceland. But I recognized this! And it was a hit with the kids. Left me feeling pretty sheepish, though.

So you may or may not have heard that Iceland's volcano is erupting again. Not the unpronounceable one from last year. This one is called Grimsvatn, Grim Water in Icelandic. So our plane was the last one down before they closed the airport. I am studiously not thinking about what it might be like to spend my summer in Iceland instead of Sweden.

Once we had eaten some food we drove around the city for a bit. Reykjavik is a very small capital city! One side to the other in maybe ten minutes. And we did track down a grocery store. So we picked up a random sampling of things we'd never seen before and brought them back to the hostel.

We made some Danish porridge which was a little strange, kind of a cross between tapioca and pasta. A little reminiscent of fish eggs, actually. Even the Danish guy at the hostel didn't recognize it. But they sell blueberry soup already made in cartons, which we added to the porridge. That was really good. And a really yummy, creamy Gouda cheese on hardtack, and that good, good European bread that is nothing like the marshmallow bread we have at home. We also grabbed some jam that we couldn't identify. We even asked a Brit in the store if he knew what it was, but he didn't recognize the word. Something exotic, we figured! When we got to the hostel Maggi informed us that it was "blended berries". So much for exotic, ha ha.

4 AM in Iceland

We all slept well that night. There is a little playground outside the hostel where the kids played while I made dinner, so they were plenty tired out. It actually got dark that night because of the ash. I woke up once at 4AM and peeked out the window. The sun was up by then but the sky was a funny orange color. But by the time we woke up for the day at ONE O'CLOCK (!!) the north wind had picked up and the sky was clear again. It was very chilly with the wind blowing straight out of Greenland. It even snowed a bit that night.

I was a little fried that we had slept so late, but when I counted out how many hours I'd slept (6 out of the last 72) I decided that we probably needed it.

We spent most of our afternoon at the city pool, which was heated geothermally. But even then the wind was so cold that our ears were aching, so we mostly stayed in one of the "hot pots", a smaller area surrounded by tall rocks to keep out the wind. But the kids had fun and the boys went down the waterslide. Even Rosalie went down once or twice.

Then we found a tiny little fishing shack restaurant where we ordered barbequed whale, lobster soup, and fish soup with squid. All very good and all very expensive.

Back at Egilsborg they had fixed the windows, so it was looking a bit more presentable. I did some laundry and the kids went to bed. I feel like I have a handle on the traffic and the city map and the food. We're settling in, hopefully not for the summer! The airport is supposed to reopen tomorrow, if the wind keeps blowing the right direction.