Iceland Day 2

Apologies for the slow entry of blogs. It turns out that the sun doesn't really set here, so by the time we realize we should head back to the hotel, it's actually much later than we realize, and we end up going to sleep. Monday, I had to start at the conference. After walking with us partway to the conference, Tim spent the day around the city in Reykjavik. He had a nice walk through the city and saw some churches, the harbor, city hall, some galleries, and a couple of sculpture gardens.  He stopped in a local cafe for some rye bread soup that was reportedly delicious.  He apparently skipped the famous putrified shark on the same menu.

In the afternoon, we met up at the Perlan, which is an interesting building that sits atop a lovely hill near the university. The building itself was constructed as a complex of six former water towers with a nice glass dome connecting them and enclosing the area between them. Inside one of the water towers (instead of water) is the Saga museum, which contains life-sized dioramas (complete with extremely life-like characters) depicting scenes from the Icelandic sagas, stories about the early days of settlement in Iceland. The history is filled with interesting details. The area was first settled in the late 800s, by Nordic people. Though recent genetic testing indicates that while about 80% of the early male settlers were Nordic, more than 50% of the early women were Celtic; the reason is thought to be a result of the Viking men stopping over in Ireland on the way to Iceland to kidnap (and in some cases buy) women slaves. While up until the 1940s, Iceland was officially under the Danish crown, it has largely been self-governed. We'll tell you more about the very early years in the next post. In the last couple of hundred years under Danish rule, Iceland was treated like many other colonies, that is, very strictly. Specifically the Danes placed set strict limits on trade in Iceland; at one point, the island was divided into quadrants that were not even permitted to trade with each other. Illegal trade was so rampant, as the story goes, that after one particular storm at sea the wreckage of 25 difernt British ships was found along the coast of Iceland. Anyway, while being a little over-priced, the saga museum was interesting, and we've been able to impart some knowledge to Tony and Catalin (whether they're interested or not). After visiting the museum, we went back down the hill to the university for the conference reception. After that, we walked back into the center of Reykjavik (about a 45 minute walk). We went to dinner at a restaurant called Einer Ben. Tim had lamb, while I had Halibut; dinner was good, but dessert was delicious. This is the second time we've had chocolate cake, and both times it was made at least partially with spelt flour, and it was delicious.

Here's the EveryTrail version:

Reykjavik Sightseeing at EveryTrail