Reykjavik

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Our red-eye flight (yeah) left Toronto at 9 pm and arrived at 6:20 am local time (2:20 am Toronto time).  Note to self:  do NOT pick to sit in the row in front of the emergency exit row.  The seats do not recline!  So between non-reclining, a baby who cried the ENTIRE flight (no joke), and the guy who had a loud conversation several times in the aisle beside our seats, we kind of gave up on sleep.  Except of course when we finally did get to sleep, the pilot woke us up to tell us we were landing.  Oh well.  When we got off the plane, we were rather taken aback to have to walk through the drizzle onto a waiting bus.  And again off the bus.  Immediately entering the airport, we had to go through actual security because "non-EU countries do not adhere to EU security standards."  Which meant giving up the water bottle they gave us on the plane.  Hello?!?!

A driver whose name we could not pronounce picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel.  He was quite chatty along the way.  He made a funny when he showed us the only bank in Iceland that survived the financial collapse:  the blood bank  Ha ha.  We got to the hotel much too early to check in, of course, so the only thing to be done, of course, was to leave our luggage at the hotel and force ourselves to explore Reykjavik, since we only have one day here.

There are no skyscrapers or massive towers in Reykjavik. The buildings are a modest size and because of the lack of trees, they have corrugated iron siding that is painted in bright colours.  It was odd to us to see cars parked on both sides of the road facing both directions.

We had planned to start at the Perlan (The Pearl) but changed our minds when our driver mentioned that the museum had moved.  Good, that meant we didn't have to figure out the bus system.  We ended up walking everywhere we wanted to go today.  

We wanted to start off at the The Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral but got sidetracked by the Loki Cafe (yes, as in Thor).  Then to the Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral, which is Reykjavik's main landmark, and is an icon of Reykjavik. It is the largest church in Iceland and Iceland's tallest building. It took 40 years to build and was completed in 1986. It was named after a hymn writer. The exterior is stylized to resemble both organ pipes and the volcanic basalt column formations found in Iceland. The tower is 73 meters tall, there is a good view but it is chilly up there. The interior is plain, but there is an original Bible printed in 1584 on display.  We heard just a bit of the organ practice, there are over 5000 pipes in this organ, wow!

In front of the Hallgrimskirkja there is a statue of Leifur Eiriksson (Lief the Lucky), the Icelander who discovered America in 1000 AD, 500 years before Columbus. He just didn't bother to tell anyone about it. Leif's father was Eric the Red, who discovered Greenland.

After zigzagging through some streets, we found our next destination, Domkirkjan, which is the Lutheran Cathedral. But it was closed.  I wonder if that has anything to do with its rather unfortunate history:  it was finished in 1796 but within 20 years it was condemned and closed for repairs. After being reopened, the creaky roof joints have led to the church's “haunted” status. Not exactly conducive to high church attendance.

Nearby we found the Settlement Exhibition, which displays a longhouse that belonged to the Vikings @ 900 AD. It was discovered in the middle of Reykjavik during some excavations in 2001. The 915 square foot home has been preserved and is now on display as the oldest archaeological finding in Reykjavik. You can learn about the life of the people who lived during that time.

We wanted to go to the Volcano House next for their film, but arrived 10 minutes late, so we continued to the harbour and walked around.  Someone there handed us a free cup of soup (oops, turned out to be very fishy) and he told us there was a parade today at 1:00 starting at the Harpa.  So we changed our plans again and made our way there (after checking out a gigantic flea market on the way, lots of fish).   No sign of a parade, and we finally figured out it was happening tomorrow.  Well, since we were there, we explored Harpa, which is a very cool building.  Harpa is a venue for concerts and musical events, conferences, conventions, etc. The exterior design is based on geometric principles in two and three dimensions. The southern facade resembles the basalt column formations found in Iceland, and creates kaleidoscopic reflections of the city and landscape. The development was intended to include a 400-room hotel, luxury apartments, retail units, restaurants, a car park, and the new headquarters of Icelandic bank Landsbanki. This was abandoned when the financial crisis hit the country. The government decided to finish the project as a concert hall.

After Harpa we walked along the waterfront until we came to the Old Harbour, not to be confused with the regular harbour OR the other harbour where cruise ships dock. When we went to check out the Maritime Museum, we were told it was free today (bonus!) because of the Festival of the Sea weekend.  This included a tour of the museum AND a tour of the rather large coast guard ship.  They could have saved the passengers of the Titanic with this thing.

After much looking (and skirting right around it) we finally found the Saga Museum. They don't have signs up because they have just moved there.  This is  where historical figures and moments are recreated through wax figures and sound effects. The tour took 45 minutes with individual audio guides.  The wax figures were incredibly life-like, and Snorri even freaked us out because they made him MOVE, like he was breathing!

We tried the Volcano House again, and this time we were half an hour early.  No problem, they have a cafe and GLUTEN-FREE chocolate cake!  Seeing as how Frankie had not eaten in 6 hours, it was a glorious thing!  We made it into the 4:00 show, which was 2 films all about (you guessed it), volcanoes! 

Iceland has 130 volcanic mountains, of which 18 have erupted since the settlement of Iceland, circa 900 AD. Volcanoes happen a lot in Iceland because Iceland is right on top of the mid-Atlantic ridge,  (where the American and the Eurasian tectonic plates meet).  The plates are moving apart at 2.5 cm per year, which causes all the volcanic excitement.  Iceland accounts for a whopping one third of all magma events worldwide throughout history.  On average, there is a volcanic eruption every 5 years.  The new Icelandic island of Surtsey was created by an underwater volcanic eruption as recently as 1963.

Apparently earthquakes happen a lot in Iceland as well. There are several small earthquakes a day. Large ones happen every few years or decades. Icelandic houses are built strong enough to withstand even large earthquakes. The last time there was loss of life from an earthquake was in 1912 when a small child was hit by an object.

We viewed two films:

1)  The 1973 eruption on the Westman Islands. This film contains stunning footage from the 1973 eruption on Heimaey, the largest of the the Westman Islands, which began without warning and without an active volcano in 1973. The entire population of over 5,000 people was evacuated by boat to the mainland where they remained until the eruption stopped, seven months later.  The lava just swallowed the houses whole, even those made with concrete.  And if the lava didn't get your house, the ash did by dropping hot cinders and causing fires.  They eventually subdued the lava with cold sea water.

2)  Eyjafjallajökull and Fimmvörðuháls eruptions. These were the volcanoes that erupted in 2010, which caused millions of people to be stranded worldwide as thousands of flights were cancelled.  It wasn't just the smoke that obscured the skies, but ash that got into the engines as well.

After nearly falling asleep several times during the films, we decided to finally head back to the hotel.  We walked along the waterfront path, and Anton gawked at a sculpture that resembles a boat made from forks.

Dominos in Iceland does NOT have gluten-free crust :( so after checking in, we made our way back into town to find a restaurant.  Very expensive menus!  They were careful to bring the "catch of the day" gluten free, except Frankie thought the rolled up stuff looked like pasta even though it turned out to be crab.  Oh oh.  Frankie's dish had shellfish all over it.  The last time she had shellfish, she was 12 and woke up with hives the next day.  She has never tried it since.  We will see what tomorrow brings!

So tired!  Going to bed around 9 pm.  We made it!

History of Iceland

Friday, May 30, 2014

We are leaving tonight for Iceland! Here is a brief history of Iceland for any history buffs out there:

Irish monks were probably the first to settle in Iceland in the 8^th century, but they were driven out by the Vikings.

A Norwegian by the name of Floki Vilgeroason tried to settle in Iceland @ 860, but a harsh winter decimated his domestic animals and he went back to Norway. But he did give Iceland its name.

Legend says the island was first permanently inhabited in 874 AD by a Norwegian named Ingolfr Arnarson. When he spotted Iceland from his boat, he supposedly dedicated his wooden posts to his gods and threw them overboard, vowing to settle wherever they washed up. He found his posts and founded Reykjavik, which means Smokey Bay (the smoke he saw came from natural geysers and geothermal springs). He was followed by many other Vikings.

Icelandic land was free to own to anyone who wanted it. Men could claim as much land as they could light fires around in one day. Women could claim as much land as they could lead a heifer around in one day. The people fished and raised sheep.

There were chiefs called Godar who ruled the people, but circa 930 AD an assembly called the Althing was created. This makes it the oldest parliament in the world.

When the Norwegians converted to Catholic Christianity in the 11^th century, the Norwegian kings sent missionaries to Iceland to convert them. Some converted and some did not, which posed the risk of civil war until a man named Thorgeir proposed that Christianity become the legal religion but people could still worship their pagan gods in private if they wished. However, people were required to pay tithes to the church which became wealthy and powerful. The church built monasteries and eventually extinguished paganism.

During the 12^th century, Iceland fell on hard times due to soil erosion, which was brought on by overgrazing of sheep and the cutting down of all the trees. They had to rely on Norwegian merchants. There was also feuding between clans, which got so bad that the only way peace could be reached was to submit to the Norwegian king. In 1262 the Althing (Icelandic parliament) approved an agreement in which the king of Norway maintained peace and order in Iceland in return for woolen pelts. The country became wealthy from cod fishing.

In 1397 Norway united with Denmark, so Iceland was now ruled by the Danish. Denmark was swept by Protestantism, and in 1539 the king of Denmark ordered church land in Iceland confiscated. The bishops of Iceland resisted and the last Catholic bishop Jón Arason was executed with his sons. The country gradually converted to Protestantism. The Bible was translated to Icelandic in 1584.

The king of Denmark made a trade agreement which stated that Iceland could only trade with certain merchants. The Danish merchants paid low prices for goods and demanded high prices for their supplies. The economy of Iceland suffered. The monopoly of the merchants did not end until 1787.

The Danish king declared himself an absolute monarchy in 1661 and removed the power of the Althing (parliament).

From 1707-1709 smallpox decimated the population of Iceland to only 38,000 (this is after the population had already been wiped out in the early 1400s by the Black Death). This was followed by severe volcanic eruptions in 1783.  In 1800 the Althing closed but was reopened in 1843.

Ties between Iceland and Denmark weakened in the 1800s and 1900s. In 1854 Icelandic trade became open to all nations. Iceland was granted home rule in 1904. Iceland was declared a sovereign state in 1918, making it independent, but it still shared a monarchy with Denmark.

Iceland imposed prohibition in 1915.  In 1921 it repealed prohibition for wine, but hard beer remained illegal until 1989.  The logic was that since beer was cheaper, it would more easily lead to depravity.

During WWII Denmark was occupied by Germany but Iceland was used as a military base by the British and then by the Americans in 1941 (the Americans did not leave Iceland until 2006).

In 1944, Iceland broke all ties with Denmark and its monarchy, and a republic was declared.