Iceland: The Last, England: The First

Hello readers,

Oh boy has it been a few busy days. As I stated in my last entry (or at least, I think I stated) at the time of posting, our final day in Iceland had not yet come to an end.

22 September 2015

It began like the others: cloudy, rainy, and with a bit of that Icelandic chill. Our tour for the day, the volcano hike, wasn’t scheduled until two that afternoon so we took the morning to sleep in a little later than usual, tackle Hallgrímskirkja’s tower during the day, wander the streets, and of course, hit the Phallological Museum.

All of those were done with ease. While the church is easy to spot, finding the museum is more difficult. This time, after spending a long time looking for it last year, I knew just where to look. The same thing went for the pyslur (Icelandic hot dogs) stand I remembered, and so we even treated ourselves to one of those even though it wasn’t quite noon yet.

We returned to the hostel to rest up and dry up before our tour. I received a rather disheartening email, that stated our volcano hike tour had been cancelled due to the weather. Although disappointed because it certainly had been one of the tours we were most excited for, Cerisa and I looked at each other and said, “We’ll do it next time.

We spent the rest of the day catching up on our journals and blogs, laughing about the night before with the boys. Every time one of us said one of their names, they’d poke their head through the door and say hello. And thus, plans for going out later that night were made.

Our roommate of a few days, Micah, joined us at some point, and then we decided to all go out to dinner. We laughed through the rain to downtown Reykjavík to a bar and restaurant known as the, yes, Icelandic Bar. This was our destination because they were known to serve a bunch of Icelandic delicacies and traditional food. It was here that her friend Scott (a friendly Canadian) accompanied us.

Micah had told us horror stories about the infamous fermented shark dish at this restaurant…it is as it sounds. Six pieces of shark that had been left to ferment in a jar, served with a shot of brennivin (aka the “black death”). Micah told us of gagging, puking, and being only able to down one piece… I saw this as a challenge and must-eat, so with a When-In-Rome attitude, Cerisa and I stuck a toothpick into that shark and chewed on it. While my dear friend spit hers out, I actually found it just tasted like fish and wasn’t as awful as they had exclaimed. In fact, I actually ate two pieces and would probably have eaten more had my tablemates not told the server to remove the delicacy from the table. For my main course, I decided to have a reindeer burger. Gamey and tasting much like venison, I wasn’t too impressed (as I don’t like venison) but it was anything but bad. It was quite delicious and cooked well, with a nice helping of crispy waffle fries on the side.

After dinner, the four of us (Scott, Micah, Cerisa, and myself) met up with the Dans (the Englishmen from the night before) and headed to a bar called Skuli just off the city center downtown. Cerisa and I  (and Micah, too, as we had found out) had a shuttle to catch just before 3am for our flight (which Micah was on, hence the shuttle pickup for her as well), so we decided to just stay up all night instead of catching a wink of sleep. We hung out at Skuli for a couple hours, picking up two other friends of Micah’s from the City of Brotherly love before heading to the next bar, an American retro-themed bar called the Lebowski bar, where we met Patryk and a new girl he brought along from the Netherlands named Susannah. We sat in the back of the Lebowski bar until we decided it was time to hit one more bar. Not much to be said about this bar, other than the fact that it was the last one we visited, and another person from our hostel joined us. Last call was earlier than I imagined, and we were kicked out of the bar at 1am or so, so after being kicked out we all linked arms and walked.

As we walked arm in arm, the devastatingly charming Dans started singing some song at the top of their lungs, which attracted some drunk Irishmen (redundant again). One of them came up behind Cerisa, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on her shoulder. She was okay with it, intoxicated herself, and laughing along with him, until he literally picked her up and started trying to carry her away. She managed to keep the Irishman at bay until we reached the hostel. The point where I stepped in was where he repeatedly tried to get her upstairs into his room.

“She can’t go with you,” I said, “we have a plane to catch.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” he slurred.

Taking her arm I smugly replied, “Well, if you only take a minute, you’re not worth her time.” And with that I pulled her away.

It remains one of the wittiest things I have ever said to this day.

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Our night with our new friends ended with us seated around a table in the hostel lounge, laughing loudly and belligerently, with the Dan we dubbed “Quiet Dan” laying down on the table drinking cheap Amaretto from a flask, which wasn’t doing a whole lot for his consciousness. The hour or so we had before the shuttle pickup flew by, and when the time came for us to depart, it was met with sad hugs for friendships passing in the night. In my exhaustion, I also twisted my ankle lugging my luggage down the stairs but I was so tired at the time I didn’t care.

The shuttle ride to the airport was dark and without sleep. Micah for some strange reason, despite her being on our flight, was not allowed on our shuttle so we didn’t see her until we were at the gate…but that may have been because I passed out at a table in the airport food court until it was close to the time of departure. Supposedly, the food court had been kicking people out unless they had purchased something, but they left me undisturbed. Thanks, strangers!

I can’t recall the flight to England, but that may have been because I put my headphones in so I could hopefully catch more shut eye while listening to my new Kaleo CD (Kaleo is an Icelandic artist I had stumbled across a few weeks earlier and whose music was only available in Iceland, so lucky for me I was going to Iceland, and knew where to look in Reykjavik for just such a thing!) And I did. I woke up just before the captain announced our descent into Gatwick.

We waited for Micah as we disembarked the airplane, and I turned on my phone (which I had set up so I could text and use data while in the UK), telling my parents of my safe arrival in England and to vaguely text my friend Tom the number of days until our visit with him (which was 9 at the time, if I recall).  Together, the three of us bought train tickets to Victoria station, near to me and Cerisa’s hostel. Micah was going to see if she could stay in our hostel. Due to the influx of visitors in London because of the Rugby World Cup, the hostel sadly did not have a spare bed for her that night.

After climbing five flights of stairs to our room (and me, again in my exhaustion, tripped and fell at the top and hit my knee), we took a short nap before we went out to find dinner.

Our venture to find dinner post-nap was mostly that…a venture. We wandered (or more accurately, I limped due to my ankle) around London near our hotel until we found a place just across the Thames. The venue was nice; it was right on the water, had a beautiful view of some of the famous sights downriver, and wasn’t terribly expensive. I got to try grilled halloumi, a cheese I had never had before. It was quite delicious. On our way back to the hostel, naturally in my clumsiness and exhaustion and dim lighting I tripped on an uneven slab of stone and smashed my knee, my bad knee, pretty viciously. I knew as soon as I stood up that I had done some damage. I wasn’t bleeding, but my knee was suddenly very swollen and I was concerned about it filling with fluid like the last time I had hit it.

Laughing it off, we set off to find me an ice pack. Luckily, there was a small convenient store just down the street from the hostel. They didn’t have an ice pack, but they did have a bag of ice, and so I sat in the hostel room with a bag of ice draped over my swollen and purple knee, and my swollen ankle.

I suppose I’ll make a new entry for my full days in London. Stay tuned!

Until next time,

Elissa

L-R: [Blurry] Susannah, Patryk, Quiet Dan, Cerisa, Myself, Scott, Micah, Loud Dan, and no idea–she just randomly joined the photo