Icelandic Art???

I am deep in study mode for our final exam this week, but I wanted to take a break to talk about Icelandic Art (let's be real - this is my second major study break after a trip for FroYo). I've already put up a few pictures of Icelandic art...which can often be mistaken for Mother Nature just doing her thang. There are some other pieces of Icelandic art strewn about the city that are just bizarre. I'm taking 'art' very liberally.  For example, to start:

This is a happy little friend from one of my favourite bars in the city, named 'Boston'.  I have absolutely no idea what this animal is supposed to be. But he's cute.

THIS. ARCHITECTURE.  This is the most recognizable landmark in Iceland: The Hallsgrímskirkja.  It sits on the top of a hill in the center of town and you can see it from miles around.  It is a really convenient meeting point for that reason. The best part is the enormous organ inside:

Then there are the 'is this art?' pieces of which I've already posted a few. Below is 'Black Cone', which is supposed to represent civil disobedience.  Okay.

And it looks like this guy is having a hard day at work:

Below is a piece of art found in the Alþingi hus, where the Icelandic Parliament meets. 

It's super creepy - if you put your ear up to it, a voice whispers to you in Icelandic.

Our guide told us that it once said something a little rude to one of the bishops of Iceland.

This piece from the culture museum is made up of tiny little stones.  When it's put into storage, it's just a bunch of rocks.  I don't know how they're stuck to the wall.

This is from the same room in the culture house: it's from the 'Down' perspective room.  There were a bunch of boxes like this, scattered around the top floor gallery with tiny models of Icelandic bird's eye views.

THIS is the view from the main performing space at Harpa.  The space is called 'Eldborg', which means 'Fire City', and the whole space makes you feel like you're in the middle of a volcano.  There was also a space that looked like it was surrounded by the Northern Lights, but it was mainly a coincidence of design - the wooden slats and colorful cloth behind them were put in place for acoustic purposes.

Here's a view of the lobby of Harpa.  I didn't see anything performed, but a bunch of friends and I got a guided tour of the space.  It was absolutely extraordinary.

And there you have it - a small taste of the odd selection of art and architecture in this kooky small country. I have NO idea if I'll post again before my trip home this weekend - I'm trying to make the most of the rest of my time.  For example, yesterday, I went to Laugardalslaug, which is one of the many geothermal pools here in Reykjavik (I don't think I've mentioned how important the pools are to Icelandic culture - instead of hanging out in bars, Icelanders sit and chat in hot tubs.  It's a great national pastime).  This pool was different - it had a HUGE waterslide and a live band!  The musicians looked like they were in high school - they were adorable, and impressively professional.  And the waterslide had crazy disco lights on the inside halfway down.  Soooo, life is good in Iceland.

The Art of the Icelandic Man Bun

Urban Dictionary describes the Man Bun thusly:

'(n): A questionably sexy hairstyle in which a man with hair of the medium to long (and usually greasy) variety secures said hair into a firmly rounded bun; also used to describe one half of the male buttock region.'

It is shocking how many man buns there are in Reykjavik.  They are absolutely everywhere. I have never seen so many tightly wound bundles of testosterone-filled locks.  I started to take pictures of them for Asia, who is a great connoisseur of the man bun, but after I was inundated with fabulous man buns at a concert at the Kex hostel this past weekend, I feel the need to share them.  Note that this is only a tiny sampling of what Reykjavik has to offer.

Also note that these are mostly poor quality, because I didn't want to draw attention to how creepy I was being.

Above is a picture of our downstairs neighbour, who we have actually started referring to simply as 'manbun'.  I don't think privacy is really a thing...he once walked into our kitchen when I was the only one awake at 12:30am to borrow some cooking oil.  It was moderately terrifying.  But man, can he sport a man bun.

This is a tricky one to see, especially since it's in silhouette: It's our guide from the Settlement Museum.  His long-ish red hair was tied into a high Viking-esque topknot with a matching fiery beard.  It was deeply impressive.

Okay, I'm kind of cheating with this one.  Above is a picture of Eli, who is one of the students in our course.  He's got Faroese blood...but he's basically American and so doesn't quite count as an Icelandic man bun.  But when we all go out to the bars, he takes his hair down and everyone calls him 'Rocker Eli' because he looks like a 70s rockstar.  I like to spell it 'Rokkur Ílæ' because we're in Iceland.

This man was such a veteran of the casual man bun that I needed to put him twice.

This is a 2-for-1.  It's what I like to call the 'man bun bookends'.  A family surrounded by man buns.

THIS MAN WINS.  I had to triple check that it was actually a man.  His splendid mane of Carrot-Top-esque hair was tied into a high, blooming, overflowing man bun.

This man, yes, has his hair down.  But you'll just have to believe me that I saw this bartender on the street a day later with a perfect man bun.  I include him because he looks like a Viking who has just crawled out of the primordial ooze.

Okay, enough objectifying half the population of Iceland.  Next, I will talk about Icelandic art!!!

ZOE WUZ HERE

I'm extraordinarily lucky to have friends who will just pop over to Iceland to visit me (okay....to be honest, she's always wanted to go to Iceland, and I was just an excuse).  THIS CREATURE:

Here she is with her footsies in "Swell," the artsy footbath mentioned in a previous post.  I tortured the poor jetlagged lass by making her walk for an hour and a half to the lighthouse and back.  Her response? "This should be my morning run tomorrow."  Lunatic.

On Friday we went to Hafnarfjordur, where there is something called "The Elf Garden".  It is where the "huldufolk" (elves) gather.  We saw so many of them, but they didn't show up in our photos!

Here Zoe is being tickled to death by some of them:

And this is me, following a bunch of them like will-o-the-wisps.  I wanted to know me faaaaaate.

Chasing after elves exhausted us, so we collapsed in a sunny meadow filled with wild flowers.

After exploring the cute seaside town a bit, we returned to central Reykjavik and went to the geothermal beach.  We also went to the top of the big dome in eastern Reykjavik.  IDEAL photo location.  I'll post them on Facebook soon!

The next day we went to the Culture House, which was EXCELLENT.  It was set up thematically so that one section was looking DOWN on the land of Iceland, UP to religion/spirituality, INWARDS towards Icelandic culture, etc.  I found this crucial chart of Viking hairdos in the "MIRROR" section.

Later in the afternoon, we headed to the Reykjavik botanical gardens, very near to Orthanc, from my second post.  There were beautiful flowers like this:

And fantastic specimens like this:

We ate lunch in their greenhouse cafe:

JAM-PACKED DAY.  We then went to Blaa Lonið, the "Blue Lagoon", one of the wonders of the world.  You can vaguely see the colour of the water behind us in this dorky selfie.

We spent two full hours in the warm water, covering ourselves in silica, squeezing past fat tourists into the steam room, and turning into prunes.  It was delightfully warm, unlike the next day, which was BITTERLY COLD.

We went pony riding! With the company "Eldhestar," which means Volcano Horses.  We spent three hours riding around mountains and meadows.  The only issue was the wind - our guide told us afterwards that they usually only experience winds like that in winter... which was why we were chilled to the bone.  It was worth it, though!  And Zoe had the wise idea to put on the offered bright orange rain gear as extra protection against the wind.  So though we looked like puffy convicts, we were a bit warmer.

Zoe got a plain brown horse.  I, on the other hand, was given this delicate flower.

This horse did NOT want to go as fast as the others.  I think his thought was "I'm too prettttyyy to go faaaaaast."  Everytime we went into a "tölt" which is the unique gait of the Icelandic horse, he happily started doing the funny little quick trot, but MUCH slower than everyone else.  It was still oodles of fun, though.  We saw Ingolfsfjall, the mountain named for Iceland's founder.

Note the hair of our guide's horse in the bottom left corner!

SO MANY PONIES

After going home, eating traditional fish stew, and hopping in a "heitur pottur" to warm up, we went to go see the movie "Rams".  GO SEE IT.  It is highly, highly recommended.  It's about two brothers who come together after not speaking for 40 years in order to save their sheep....but it's way more interesting than that sounds.

You may wonder why this post reads more like a little kid's diary, and that's because I had to write it all in Icelandic first (We had to write about our weekend for class).  Sadly I don't know any interesting vocabulary, but at least I made up for it with lots of fun things to talk about!

Tune in next time for an exploration of Icelandic manbuns! (the ones of their heads)

Pros and Cons

I am now past a week in, and it is time for some pros and cons about life in Iceland.

CON:  Everything smells like eggs and farts.
Okay, that's an extreme exaggeration.  Anytime hot water is involved, it smells like eggs and farts.  Mostly eggs (which I guess is the preferred balance), which is why I haven't had a single egg while I've been here.  The smell is because...

PRO: Iceland heats all its houses and water via natural hot springs!  Well done, Iceland!

CON:  So far the food that I have tried is...not great.  For example, during our Saturday excursion, we stopped for sandwiches...which were swimming in weird pickly mayonnaise sauces.  Not pleasant. There are exceptions, however, such as...

PRO: SKYR.  Skyr is amazing.  It's yoghurt, but better than yoghurt.  It's technically a cheese, I think.  It's also like Lembas bread - I have a little espresso cup-full and I'm stuffed.  The honey is also really nice here.  To be fair, I haven't tried too many things.  I'm really excited to try pylsur, the lamb-based hotdogs.  I also haven't gone to a restaurant, yet, because...

CON:  Things are expensive in Iceland!!! I thought, coming from New York, that things would be less expensive.  Nope.  They are about the same price.  Looking at the menus for local restaurants, many of them don't offer main courses under $25 or so.  It's crazy.  But hopefully I'll try a few restaurants when ZOE COMES THIS WEEKEND!

PRO: At least, despite the price, the currency makes you feel like a king.  100 Icelandic krona is the equivalent of about $0.75, so I regularly walk around with 10,000 krona in my pocket.

CON:  The internet in my flat is atrocious.  It doesn't reach my room, so I have to either work at the kitchen table or in Alicia's room, which she very graciously allows me to do (Study party!).  Even then, it doesn't work very well.  I can't really watch videos, and it cuts in and out.

PRO: I have awesome roommates to amuse me!  And there is internet at the school.

PRO:  Unlike in snooty cities like Paris, people in Reykjavik seem perfectly happy to let you struggle through their language without interrupting in English, despite the fact that they all speak English.  It's very supportive.

PRO: Um, it's gorgeous here.

I think I shall continuously edit this post as the month goes on.  But this gives you a taste of daily life!

Adventures with Jón Simón

On Saturday (said 'á laugardögum' in Icelandic, which means 'the day we lounge in the pool'...actually) we took a 10 hour trip around the main attractions surrounding Reykjavik.  Jón Simón was our tour guide.  As I did with Ulfar, I shall tell our story using the assistance of his quotes.  WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS NSFW OR SMALL CHILDREN.  DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY FOUL LANGUAGE.  None of it is my own, but Jón Simón grew up in the East End and curses like a sailor, and so his quotes are all rather salty.

Jón Simón started by listing all the places we would be visiting.  Icelandic still tends to be a string of sounds to me, so I had to wait to see signs to know exactly what he was talking about.  He did, however, say, 'And our last stop, my personal favorite, will be back to Reykjavik.'

We started our trip by heading to þingvellir, the place where the Alþingi (the Parliamentary meeting of chieftains in early Icelandic history) took place.  I've started to realize that Icelanders are really lazy about naming things.  I mean, who names their grand triannual meeting the 'Allthingy'? Also, all their beautiful sounding place names just mean things like 'So and so's valley' and 'So and so's glacier' and the like.  It's a good thing the Icelandic language is so musical, so foreigners won't realize.

We stopped by the side of þingvallavatn, the lake named for the Alþingi. There are tons of crazy freestanding rock towers, probably constructed by elves.  I also contributed a few tiny ones.

We then continued on to the actual location of Alþingi, marked by the white flagpole, shown in the photo above (we got right up next to it).  On the way there, Jón Simón told us what he thought of Úlfar: 'Glorious, glorious man.  You've seen his lips.  Hot like a geyser about to blow.  Pout like a purse of money.  Voice like a cat's meow.  Meeeooooow.'

This is thought to be the entrance to the world of elves.  There were signs telling us not to step through the magical doorway.

Magic elf rock balancing.  Another important very thing about þingvellir: It is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet.  This is why there's so much volcanic activity in Iceland: It is right at the point where those two continental plates are pulling apart.

This is the Drowning Pool.  It is where women accused of adultery (and very sadly, some young girls made pregnant by important men in Iceland) used to be drowned.  Knowing the history behind it, I feel like it doesn't have the right to be this beautiful.

Somewhere along our walk, a large group got separated from the rest and Jón Simón turned around and muttered, 'My babies...where are they?' Then we threw kronur in the lucky elf pools.

We went for a long, rocky drive through Iceland's interior.  The road was essentially not a road - the routes through Iceland's interior seem to be made of basalt gravel.  I was impressed with the bus for making it over all those rocks.  On the way, Jón Simón told us about a nearby museum.  'I was asked not to come back because I accidentally knocked a piece of priceless art off the walls.  They may not recognize me now...But who wouldn't remember this face, looking like this?'

We stopped at a huge mound of stones that is translated as 'bone woman' in English.  It was completely unmarked, and I've been told that it isn't even marked on Google Maps.  Jón Simón told us that people write poems and stick them in the rocks.  Darren, my Irish friend in the program, pulled what looked like napkins from the rock and said that Jón Simón was just tricking us and that they were just dirty hankies.  I like to think that maybe the rain just washed the writing away...

There's SNOW! After Alicia threw snow confetti on me, I playfully knocked her into a pile of it, narrowly missing Isaac.  Isaac said, 'Do you really want to start a snowball fight with a Canadian and a Minnesotan?' I know when to back down.

On the way out of this crazy icy interior, Jón Simón got on the bus intercom and said, 'We're about to pass a jogger.  What the fuck is wrong with people? 'Oh, I'm just going to go for a jog through the fucking interior of Iceland!''

After escaping from the land of ice, we went to Hraunfossar, an impossibly beautiful set of waterfalls, that include Barnafoss (remember to use that awful unvoiced 'n' in the middle).  Barnafoss is said to be the site where two children died after being left at home by their mother, who went off to church.  Iceland is full of cheery stories.  The moral of this one seems to be don't go to church.

This is my favourite flora that I've seen in Iceland.  They grow everywhere, on rocks, in moss, on walls.

At this point in our trip, someone made a mean joke.  Jón Simón winced.  My friend Tim said, 'Yikes, that is a really mean joke - Even Jón Simón thought it went too far!' To which Jón Simón responded, 'What do you mean 'even Jón Simón', you little Fuckwit?'

After getting our fill of waterfalls, we got back on the bus to head off to Reykholt, where Snorri Sturluson lived.  A cluster of Brits, including Tim and Harriet, stood outside the bus, playing a polite game of 'after you'. Jón Simón urged them to, 'Get on the cunting bus'.

THERE WERE PONIES AT REYKHOLT!!! For those who don't know, Snorri Sturluson is the poet of the Poetic Edda, one of the most famous books of Icelandic sagas.  His special bathing pool is still on the grounds.  Jón Simón told us, 'It's illegal to sit in the pool.  Fingers, toes, fine, but nothing else.  Of course I've sat in the pool.  I went late one night with some mates and had too much Brennivín.  I tried to walk all the way back to Reykjavik with only a sock.'  Brennivín is a special Icelandic liquor. 

I was inspired by the location to write my poem about Jón Simón's experience:

In Iceland, our friend Jón Simón

Got drunk in a bath made of stone

After much Brennivín

Wearing nought but his skin

He walked all the way back home, alone.

Our next step on our journey was at the natural hot springs.  For some reason, you could also buy tomatoes there.  Jón Simón warned us, 'The other side of the fence is very hot  Don't stick anything in.'

Our last stop was Borg á Mýrum, the old home of the poet warrior Egill Skallagrímsson.  I climbed a hill and stared out over the plains.  I felt like I could have walked along the ridges forever.

For anyone who's a fan of all my people-less photos, I'll probably be posting them all on Facebook at some point.

There are strange chained rock markers like this all over the place.

On the way back to Reykjavik, we took the tunnel under the fjord.  Before the tunnel was built, it would have taken people about 4 hours to go all around the fjord.  Jón Simón got on the intercom and said, 'At the deepest point we'll be 160 meters under the sea.  No one told me that.  I think we'll have to drive the entire length of the fjord, unless someone holds my hand.  The driver just refused.'

So many elves!  So many quotes!  So many rocks! So much ice! So much water!