Iceland: Day 6

We woke up shortly before we felt like it. We had enough time, but not an excess, to get showered and make the remaining eggs and bacon for breakfast before we had to return our rental car. We drove out to the point on Seltajarnarnes peninsula park, just to check out the views based on a tip we’d received. Since this spot was surrounded by open water on 3 sides, the winds were incredible. We didn’t stay long. We couldn’t afford much time there anyways. We fueled up and got to the rental car spot with 20 minutes to spare. After, we set out on foot back towards “our side” of the harbor.

We stepped into a tiny burger joint on the way for a coffee, but I didn’t get the memo, so I ordered a burger. What, I was hungry! Mandy got a tea. We spent some time getting the blog caught up, and some pictures transferred between devices. This is a lot of work to post in nearly “real time”. We’re actually about a couple days ahead for this trip. After lunch, we weren’t sure what to do. It was museum day for the lights festival in Reykjavik, which means most or all of the museums in the city are open with free admission and special exhibits at night. We had some time to kill before any of the festivities were to begin.

We picked a direction to walk, and continued until something caught our eye. When nothing did, we decided to find a local brewery. We navigated to one a few blocks away. When we arrived, we learned that it wasn’t a brewery, it was just a bar serving local craft beers, nor was it open. The bartender let us use the warm space to find our next stop. We headed to Bryggjan Brugghus (“Bree-kahn brew-huus”), on the waterfront. We sampled most of their offerings, and everything we tried was quite good. We chatted with a bunch of obvious-Americans, including the bartender, who was from very close to home in Rhode Island. Eventually, we’d worked up an appetite, so we went to Bazilika Pizza-Cafe-Restaurant. We decided to get a dinner plate and a sandwich, which they got mixed up in the kitchen, but we enjoyed all the same. I got chicken and Mandy got falafel. After dinner we went back to the first bar we started at since we knew they were now open and enjoyed a beer each.

Museums were starting to open up for (for free!) around 7pm, so we headed to the Volcano House first and watched two documentaries. The first one was actual footage from the volcanic eruption in 1973. The second was specifically recorded for the Volcano House and contained footage from the 2010 eruption that caused air traffic to be stopped all over Europe. Our second stop was a photography museum. Here was a photography exhibit that was really good. Afterwards, we went to the art museum, which had multiple installations on display. Some were good, some were just weird and uninteresting. The colors exhibit had all sorts of works from multiple artists, and was probably our favorite. It was neat to see all the different interpretations of colors, and where the line is exactly, between what is and what is not a painting.

​Next, we returned to the library, as a special exhibit was set to begin shortly. Svavar Knutur was scheduled to perform live with just his guitar (and ukulele) and his voice. I walked down the aisle at our wedding to one of his songs. We didn’t really know anything that he was saying or singing, but it was fascinating nonetheless. Most people spoke English to us for the whole trip, so we hadn’t had a good opportunity to hear Icelandic spoken very much. Just a few words here and there. It’s a very interesting language to listen to! It’s not as harsh as I expected. After his performance, we were both in need of taking off our boots and sitting down for a while. We returned to our Airbnb, and relaxed for a little bit before falling asleep.