Monday, July 30, 2018
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Iceland - Day 8 to 11 - Say my name, same my name
So, this was our final day of our organised tour, and we still did not know anyone's names.... Given we had nicknamed everyone on our tour, we wondered what or nicknames were; the Aussies, the gays, or maybe "those @$#%s that keep changing the seating arrangements on the bus".
We made our way back to Reykjavik via the town of Vik (infamous photo spot of a church and the sea!). We also had a short stop at a scenic canyon, that turned into a long stop, as the tour guide forgot to give a time restriction, and the Japanese ladies (who didn't understand the instructions) lead the charge up a hill and everyone else followed like lemmings. Turns out this canyon is listed as one of the most beautiful and photographed canyons on earth. Damian did his best to take as many photos as possible.
Our second last tourist stop was Reynisfjara, a black beach (sand, not for black people). The seas were quite rough, and apparently tourists get swept away by "sneaker waves". There are lots of signs telling people not to turn their back on the beach and beware of these pesky "sneaker waves" - unfortunately none of Teh Fab Five were swept away, that would have been just desserts for their hogging the breakfast buffet!
Our final stop was, not surprisingly, another waterfall - Skógafoss. We decided not to walk up another hill to get more photos of more waterfalls, and enjoyed spending time just wandering around the foot of the waterfall (with an $8 coffee). True to form, The Fab Five were late back to the bus, and then decided they needed to go to the toilet as well, further delaying our return to Reykjavik and our final farewells. We'd had enough of this group and we ready to go back to traveling by ourselves!
We got back to our hotel, said fake farewells and went to dinner at Reykjavik's 'award winning' Thai restaurant. It was the most expensive Thai meal we'd had to date, at approx $100 for two entrees, two mains and 4 singhas! (little did we know that in less than a week later we would be paying more for far less Thai food in Norway).
We then had two days in Reykjavik by ourselves, staying in an airbnb - whose washing machine got a very good work out. We visited the Icelandic National Museum and Art Gallery. Mick's view was that we spent too much time in the museum (especially the horse saddle exhibit), while Damian's view was that we spent too little time in the museum. Luckily, Iceland's national art gallery was quite small, and has few exhibits, so the visit was very short!
The rest of our time in Reykjavik was spent eating, drinking, visits to local pools for hot tubs and the one and only gay bar for another drag show.
Our final day in Reykjavik was a travel day - we got up and made our way to the airport, Oslo bound.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Iceland - Day 7
"Have you ever seen the rain?"
Today was supposed to be one of the highlights of our Icelandic adventure - a glacial hike, then a cruise on a glacial lagoon (Jökulsárlón) topped off with a visit to a "diamond beach", where ice and icebergs wash up on the shore.
Our morning started at 9 am where we were fitted for our glacial hike. The hiking tour company checks each individual's outfit to ensure they were appropriately dressed. Given it was a bit drizzly, Mick was advised to hire waterproof pants to cover has jeans (waterproof top and boots met the grade). Damian didn't need to hire a thing as he was waterproofed from head to toe! NB we were told to go to bathroom before suiting up as there was no bathroom stops once the hike started.
We had a 45 walk in the rain from the base camp to the base of the glacier. At the beginning of the walk, the young Chinese boy (21 yrs old) was sticking close to us. We took that as a sign that he wanted to have a chat (given we had been on tour together for 5 days) - but we were wrong... Mick asked some questions and discussed that he had just finished uni, studying economics and was about to start working at KPMG as a graduate. This was a goldmine of conversation topics for Mick given he studied economics and had many friends who did the KPMG graduate program; alas the guy had no interest in holding down a conversation. As we were nearing the glacier, Mick's bladder (more likely his mind, as he had two wees before getting all suited up) decided he could not enjoy a 2 hr hike if he couldn't relieve himself again. Finding an opportune spot, he ducked off the path to water the (non existent) plants. As he started to feel relieved, he felt someone really close to him, so close that he was sure it was Damian. Nope! Mick turned around and was confronted with the eldest of The Fab Five, pissing less than a metre away from him!
Once we got to the glacier we were asked to form a circle around our tour guide, Ola, so she could show us, step by step, how to put on our crampons. We were told we had to wait and follow Ola every step of the way. Unfortunately our friendly Japanese tourists didn't understand a word that was being said; but they had done a glacier hike before, and were zipping through the crampon tying. Ola tried to ask them to stop and wait, but they were head down, bum up, putting on their crampons - they had no idea they were being spoken to. Ola then looked to the English speakers of our group to try to get us to get the Japanese ladies' attention. But given no one knew their names, we didn't know how to get their attention. Mick contemplated calling out "Konichiwa" - but thought that would be insensitive. One of The Fab Five called out "Japanese ladies" but that didn't their attention either. Ola gave up the fight and decided to just check their crampons at the end. Before we had even started the glacial hike, Damian started to feel a bit damp and began questioning how waterproof his clothes actually were.
We gingerly walked up and along the glacier, concerned that one misplaced step could see us fall down the glacier, our worst still down a 'moulin' (hole of unknown depth). Although we were getting a bit damp, it was still a fun adventure climbing the glacier. By the time we got to the peak of our hike, the rain started to pick up. Everything was wet. We were at a lookout, which was a great photo stop, unfortunately given the rain and wet fingers, the phone wasnt picking up the finger taps to take the photos. This is when the hike started getting miserable as the rain was relentless and our clothes clearly were not waterproof. We were keen to get off the glacier, but the Gaysians were having too much of a good time taking photos and delayed or departure. As we hiked back down, we were getting wetter and colder. Mick's hired pants were keeping his legs dry, but that was the only thing. Damian was completely soaked (and had no gloves) and was not a happy hiker! He felt like one of those miserable Icelandic ponies that sit with their arses pointed into the rain, he had lost all feeling in his hands and was worried what could happen if he slipped and had to try and stop himself with his hands.
When we got off the glacier we hurried back to base camp in record time in order to get out of our drenched clothes - although we didn't have any clothes to change into, so all we could do we remove the most sodden layers, and wring out the rest to try and get rid of the excess water.
As we were waiting for everyone else to get back, Mick confirmed with Mímir that we would be going back to the hotel to change before going to the glacial lake. This was not on the plan. Noting that everyone was drenched, and knowing how Damian would react to such news, Mick used his influencing skills to change the plans in order to enable people to get dry before heading to lunch and then the lagoon. While waiting (again) for The Fab Five to get back to the bus, Damian asked Mímir if the boat we were about to catch had a roof - the answer was no! At that point Damian had made up his mind that we were not going to sit in the rain any longer, he just needed to give Mick some time to come to the same conclusion. We decided we would rather have a nap and then sit in the hotel bar, rather than get our only dry, warm clothes wet.
When Mick told Mímir that we would not be joining them on the wet glacial lagoon cruise, he was completely shocked and tried to get us to change our minds. We didn't, and are glad that we held firm. We (very) briefly spoke to English couple after their return, they said it was cold, wet (pouring rain, more than on the glacier) and miserable (and they are from the UK!). There was next to no visibility and they didn't bother getting their cameras out to take photos!
We were disappointed that we didn't get to see the lagoon or the diamond beach, but we went to bed warm and dry, knowing we made the right decision
Iceland - Day 6
Today, just for something different, we visited a waterfall. Waterfalls are a resource Iceland has in great supply. Today's waterfall had a small difference, you can walk behind this one.
Seljalandsfoss, as it is called, falls from a high lake plateau over a shallow cave, allowing people to walk all the way around the waterfall. Which is what we did. Even though we had waterproof jackets and pants we will got a little wet as we walked the slippery path.
Once we had done this we continued on our way to Thor's Wood, a green cliff valley with a dry river bed. On the way we stopped at a little grotto that required us to cross a stream to enter. Problem was that the bridge to cross said stream was only 2 planks of wood laid over rocks in the water. Amazingly the 2 old Japanese ladies were over this bridge in seconds, leaping like young gazelle bounding across a steam in Africa. We were next and made it across although not as gracefully as they did. Arms were out stretched and there were a few wobbles as we gingerly made our way across the boards. After a while we were all across, even the old Indian couple, although they got their mesh trainers soaking wet, which meant they did not participate in any of the other activities later on in the day, or the next.
Past the stream was a squeeze into a cave, with an open shaft that let the light in. From here we could see the stream we had crossed pouring out of the darkness of the mountain, from some underground lake. We made our way back into the sunlight and were soon back across the stream and in the bus continuing on to Thor's Wood.
Thorsmerk is the Icelandic name for Thor's Wood, a large region of what likely used to be a wooded mountain and valley system. Today there are no woods, but plants and moss cover everything but the dry river bed that was our path. Mick and I, along with the 2 Japanese women, lead the walk up the river bed, surrounded on either side by the tall green walls of the narrow canyon. At some point we decided to head back to the bus, and then had to wait for the Fab Five to come back. We then drove a few kilometres to our lunch stop at the camp for a hiking enthusiast group. There were a few toilets and some tables to eat lunch at. We also did a walk up the closest 'hill' which involved numerous steps, and sore knees, but also some great views of the valley.
This was our practice run as after lunch we had a longer hour long hike up a mountain. Thankfully there were next to no steps on this longer hike, and though it was hard going in places, it seemed relatively easy. The 2 old Japanese ladies did amazingly well, at times it appeared we were more out of breath than they were. We were hiking between two volcanoes - one we could see, Katla, peaked in snow - the other was Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano responsible for grounding aircraft across Europe in recent years. This volcano was so big that we couldn't see the top of it as it was covered in low lying cloud.
From the summit of peak we climbed you could see the valley below for miles, and in the distance more mountains off to the north-west.
We then headed further east by bus to our next hotel in Skaftafell, which would be our base for two nights. The following day we were due to climb a glacier and do a glacier lake cruise.
The hotel in Skaftafell was luxurious in terms of space compared with Reykjavik, as we had 3 beds in our room to choose from.
Medical update: Mick's neck, shoulders and back were still causing significant pain. The regular doses of neurofen and dencorub were barely working. The pain seemed to subside after a few beers, but at $16 a pop, this was expensive medication. We tried to book into a physiotherapist for when we got back to Reykjavik, but it seemed that one of the two therapy clinics was closed for holidays (?!?) and the second was booked out till August. Next challenge was to find a physiotherapist in Oslo (in 6 days time).
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Iceland - Day 5
Don't go chasing waterfalls....
After another breakfast of not talking to our fellow travel companions and getting the sloppy seconds at breakfast (those Fab Five were too quick), we were off to see some waterfalls. Keeping to the Mick developed seat rotation rules, we took the seats that the old Japanese ladies had been occupying, allowing them to sit next to each other for the first time in the trip. It turns out that they appreciated this, as evidenced by the gift of some rice cookies - this was the warmest interaction of the whole tour!
Today we saw waterfall after waterfall: Faxi; the ginormous Gullfoss; and some others we don't know the names of. After each photo stop we were left waiting for the Fab Five to get back on the bus. Mímir did not feel the need to provide time limits for these stops, so we had to wait until the Chinese tourists had taken all the photos they wanted to take, regardless of who was left waiting.
We also traveled to Thingvellir which is a culturally significant place in Icelandic history. Apart from being the place where the Eurasia and North American tectonic plates part (and you can see this by the large fissure in the land), this is where the Icelandic system of government operated from. It is also the place where capital punishments were handed out, namely drownings. Our tour guide Mímir had a habit of dropping us off in one location and picking us up in another location. In Thingvellir he did the same, which created a lot of confusion, even for us English speakers who should have been able to understand his instructions. Amazingly everyone was able to find the bus again and we made the long journey home to Hella.
That evening we watched Croatia beat England in the world cup at the local restaurant. Who would have thought we'd be watching so many football games this holiday?
Iceland - Day 4
We awoke and dressed to have breakfast at 8am, before going on the bus at 9am (the designated start time Mick suggested as Mírmir didn't think he had to tell us a start time!) for a drive to the lava fields at Landmannalaugar. Mick also awoke with excrutiating neck, shoulder and neck pain. It seemed having pain free feet was too good to be true.
Breakfast was the standard fair of toast, cereal and fruit. The entire tour bus was there, all sitting separately from each other, and it was clear that the majority were a particularly selfish kind of traveller. The Chinese particularly engendered this as they went through the buffet taking as much as they could, not leaving any milk for the rest of the group, and hogging the toaster, the operation of which seemed to be a complete mystery to them. The 2 Japanese ladies, one of which was about 50, the other pushing 80, asked Mick where we were from. Mick replied that we were from Australia, but she didn't comprehend and thought we came from Estonia, until Damian tried to correct the mistake. Eventually they understood us, and they even sat next to us at breakfast, silently eating. This was one of the warmest interactions we were to have with any of the tour group for the entirety of our time together. It was clear from the Australia/Estonia mix up that we were not going to be having many conversations with these two. We also had a very short chat with the English couple, where all we learnt was that they live close to Heathrow airport; not even their names!
We made sure that we got to the bus early to ensure we didn't get back seats again. The Chinese Fab Five (which includes the Gaysians and another family of 3) either couldn't understand English, or they couldn't give a fuck about their fellow passengers and reserved the same seats as the day before. We took the seats that the English couple had sat in, relegating them to the back seats, where they stayed for the rest of the trip. They also didn't speak to us for another 3 days....
Our first stop was to a recreated Viking house and chapel. The recreation was based off ruins found close at stöng. We also stopped to take photos of our first of many waterfalls of this trip.
The ride to Landmannalaugar for our lava field hike was very bumpy. We were driving over lava rocks in make shift roads/tracks and going through small streams. The roads are restricted to 4 wheel drives given the terrain. The bumpy and jarring ride was quite long, exactly what Mick didn't need for his sore neck and body
We had 3 hours to complete our hike and have a swim in a natural hot spring. Mímir's instructions for the different hikes available were not particularly clear. We had to go ask him for instructions a second time. The Fab Five should have done this as well, as they got lost, were late to the bus, and we had to help Mímir to find them. They ended up making us over 45 mins late. During the hike we saw some amazing scenery. The Rainbow Mountain consists of red, orange and green and blue colours. There was also a Blue Mountain, described as having hues of blue and green - but it just looked grey to us. Mick went into the natural spring and was disappointed on two fronts. Firstly, given that the warm parts were taken by other tourists, Mick was simply sitting in a cold pond. Secondly, and most disappointingly was that the other tourists were all from the same tour group, and they were young and talking to each other (in English) - Mick was well jealous!
On the way home, our bus started beeping, which Mímir choose to ignore. The bus then decided it had given enough warning, and would not let Mímir accelerate. There were moments where we thought we'd be spending the night on the lava fields in the cramped bus. Mímir called someone, spoke in Icelandic, played with the gear stick and we were off again. Once we got onto a proper road, the beeping (and non-acceleration) started again once we picked up speed. Mímir called his life-line again, and we were back on the road - but he couldn't stop the beeping, so for 90 minutes we heard a constant beep. It turns out that the only way to get the bus moving was to be in 4 wheel drive mode; going 90km per hour in 4 wheel drive mode was causing the beeping.
After getting back to Hella, we decided too check out the local pool/geothermal hot tubs to relax our rattled bodies.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Iceland - Day 3
We started the day with a coffee at a place close to our miniscule hotel room. When we arrived back we met our tour group, who were hurriedly claiming seats on the mini van. The group consisted of 8 Chinese, 2 Japanese, 2 English, and 2 Indian tourists. Mick and I lost out as we were the last to arrive, and had to sit right at the back of the bus. No one in the group seemed to have introduced themselves, and everyone was sticking to their groups. We met our tour 'guide' Mímir, a tall grisled blonde Icelander, who didn't seem to care if we were the right people who were supposed to be on the tour or not, as long as he had the total number we could have been Martians, by all accounts. While he didn't care if we got on the wrong tour, we did, so Mick insisted that he check for our names. One of the reasons for joining a tour was so that we could make some new temporary friends, otherwise we'd go on a 5 week holiday and only speak to each other.
Everyone left their luggage at the hotel (to pick up later) and we were off to explore the Reykjanes Peninsula, a geothermally active region west of Reykjavik. Much to Mick's disgust our first stop was a grisly, and extremely malodorous fish head drying facility. Apparently Mímir thought that the best first impression for a visitor to this region was row upon row of wooden racks where thousands of fish heads were drying in the sun - to later be exported to Africa as the main ingredient of stock. The smell was truly ungodly, even as we approached in the closed bus. Once the door was open the full force of the offensive smell truly assaulted the nostrils. There was no escaping it, the best we could do was breathe through our noses (which had already been covered up by scarves), as the alternative was far worse. I took a few photos, and while Mick jumped back on the bus for some relief, I moved upwind and found a little field of lupins (the beautiful national weed introduced from Alaska), which was a much more pleasant vista. Soon we were back on the bus, blessedly driving away, hoping that the miasma had not permeated our clothing.
We continued to drive through the peninsula stopping off at various volcanic hot springs that smelt only marginally better than the fish heads. These geothermal outlets spew stinking steam from deep within the earth's crust, sometimes it comes out as vast steam pillars, sometimes it bubbles up through water or mud, but it always colours the surrounding land a sulphurous hue, forming yellow pits in the grey or green landscape.
After we had seen a few springs we drove to a fairly plain little village where we stopped for lunch. The venue for lunch was a 'brygghus' which we determined must translate to 'place of bitter disappointment' as the only thing on the menu for lunch other than cake was soup - either a foul smelling lobster concoction, or a watery vegetable number of indistinguishable ingredients. We opted for a lunch of dry chocolate cake.
Following our nutritious lunch, we drove past a beautiful waterfall, and had a few other 'photo stops' on our way to a 'must see' attraction in Reykjavik - the Blue Lagoon. It's a geothermal lagoon, a by-product of a nearby electrical plant that uses superheated water for energy production. The mineral rich water is then pumped into a lagoon, where tourists wade around in the milky water. The Blue Lagoon is an interesting inclusion for the first day of a tour as it involves having a communal naked shower prior to entry with your new temporary friends, only hours after meeting - interesting way to bond! However, as our blog unfolds you will see that there would be no new temporary friendships, bonding, or any sort of interaction at all.
There was a bit of a mix up with our Blue Lagoon booking, which saw us delayed. Mímir said this was not a big deal, and that it didn't matter what time we arrived at our cabins in Hella - however I had a very different point of view, as we were already starving, having had next to no lunch. We also had to buy lunch for the next days hike, which Mímir had previously noted. I made my feelings known that the lack of information and disorganisation was not well received. It was also the first time that Mick's aversion to seafood was noted. Mímir was less than apologetic, and the whole encounter was awkward. In the first 6 hrs it was clear that this was not going to be the kind of structured and organised tour we were used to.
In any case, after our very public shower we headed off to soak in the Blue Lagoon. The weather was cold and drizzly but it didn't matter as the water was warm and the steam meant that you couldn't see much more than 15 metres ahead. We waded around and found the bar, where we got a drink before heading over to the mud mask kiosk, where you can slather your face in silica rich white mud. Further wandering found a waterfall where we washed off the mud mask. The waterfall was quite forceful and provided a kind of massage as the water pelted down. We also visited the steam 'cave' which was way too hot for me, but Mick seemed to enjoy having the soles of his feet scalded by steam. We visited a normal sauna, and then a conventional steam room where we found our 'guide' Mímir, possibly trying to relax after our earlier altercation. Needless to say we didn't stay too long before heading out to the lagoon again for another drink, and some 'pure Icelandic' water from a little fountain found under one of the many wooden bridges that criss-cross overhead.
When our allotted time was up we left to shower again and hope back on the bus to go back to Reykjavik to get a new bus (there we a mix up with the buses). We were on a smaller bus now, meaning there were no spare seats and we were crammed into the back seat again, with the two biggest of the Chinese travellers (we called these two "the Gaysians" as we still didn't know anybody's name). This made for a very squishy ride onward to Hella, where we were to stay the next 3 nights in cabins while we explored the surrounding region. Knowing that Mímir was not the most organised and planned guide, Mick went and informed him that people should rotate the bus seats, as there was no way we are going to be the cool kids at the back of the bus ever again. Like a good little guide, Mímir did announce that people should rotate seats.
After we had dropped our bags we went to buy lunch for the following day only to find that the supermarket had closed 15 minutes earlier than our arrival - another consequence of our 'inconsequential' delayed schedule. We settled for some prepared sandwiches from the service station, before heading to the local restaurant for a fancy lamb dinner that was not too bad at all (although we were so hungry that we could have eaten a horse, we decided not to have the house speciality of horse steaks). We turned in getting some rest from our busy day, ready to it all again at 8am the next day.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Skaftafellsjökull
This is the view from our hotel of the glacier we hiked on, Skaftafellsjökull. The actual hike was poor visibility due to rain which soaked us both down to the skin (even though we had waterproof clothing). It was quite miserable - so no photos from the hike.
Oh, and more photos of lupins...
Friday, July 13, 2018
Iceland - Day 2
Checking into our new hotel, we were horrified to find out that there are smaller hotel rooms than what we had in Stockholm. This room was a tiny 10 square metres... We refuse too call this the smallest hotel room ever as we are afraid we will jinx ourselves and get an even smaller room in the coming days. The room was so small that we couldn't open our bags on the floor and had to put them on the bed to get out our clothes. The only "seat" was a stool, which was stored on top of the shelf, to create more space!
We set out to explore the town some more, and went to the "settlement museum" which gives the history of teh founding of Reykjavik. The museum includes the relics of a "long house" and other archeological finds. What was different about this museum is that it was upfront about things that it was guessing or making assumptions about, for example, "we think this piece of metal was used for... and it may have come from Asia or maybe even Europe".
After a quick lunch we walked back to the hotel to get our swimmers as we were going to an Icelandic bath house/pool. We then walked back to almost the same place we had lunch at for the pool. We knew that the following day we'd be going to the Blue Lagoon, and much is written about bathhouse etiquette (ie communal naked showing where locals will chastise you if you don't wash appropriately), we thought we'd do a dry run!
The local bathhouse was amazing, there were three hot tubs with temperatures ranging from 37 to 42 degrees, a steam room, sauna, a freezing cold plunge pool, and indoor and outdoor lap pools. Mick's back was playing up again, and found the baths and their jets to be very therapeutic The indoor pool had a 3m driving board. Damo confirmed that Mick extremely scared when jumping off (channeling the Mr Bean 'High Dive' episode). Once or fingers looked like prunes we decided to leave the warm bath waters and head out for dinner (after walking back to the hotel to drop off our wet gear.
For dinner we walked back into the city for a rather forgettable meal (it literally took us 5 minutes trying to remember where we ate this night - "Staff" which is part of the OK hotel) before heading to Reykjavik's only gay bar. The bar, Kiki, was hosting a drag karaoke night, given it was a Sunday night, we thought this could be either a very good night or a very shit one. Our hostess Gogo Star educated us on drag karaoke - if you can't sing, you just mime like a drag queen... The first guy up lipped-scynced his song and he was so terrible that all of his mates left the bar to go out for a smoke! The drag queen was very funny and the drinks were half price, so obviously it was deemed a great night. We then walked back home along our well worn path between the city and our hotel
Iceland - Day 1
We checked out of our miniscule Swedish hotel and made our way by metro to the central station to catch the express train to the airport. The ride was pleasant and quick, taking only 20 minutes to get to Arlanda airport.
Soon we were up in the air on our way to Reykjavik. The flight took about 3 hours and finished with the toughest landing yet, the IcelandAir pilot clearly thinking that it was necessary to give a signal that we had arrived, by slamming the plane into the ground from about 3 metres in the air. Everyone on the plane looked around in disbelief as it was such a smooth journey the whole way.
Once we had disembarked we made our way to the FlyBus, to get into Reykjavik. The bus took around 40 minutes, and passed through dramatic lava fields on the way. We had to stop and change for a smaller bus to take us to our part of the 'city'. The bus driver was a grumpy Englishman on his last shift. He dropped us somewhat near our Airbnb flat, but we had to walk a few blocks to get there.
As it was still light and not too cold, we dropped our bags and walked into town. We walked from our northern quarter of town through a nice suburb, and past an old Gothic church to get to the main part of town. Once we got there we looked around and got our bearings before walking up one of the main streets. There were lots of shops and the street was quite touristy, and it wasn't long till we realised that the road lead up to the iconic Reykjavik church called Halgrímskirkja. Mick was starving so he stopped to get a slice of pizza and Damian was eager to take phots of the church, so the plan was (in Mick's mind) for Damo to walk to the corner, take some photos and then meet back outside the pizza place. Damian thought the plan was quite different, and walked all the way to the church and stayed there for 20 minutes. After the first 5 minutes of waiting, Mick decided Damian had forfeited any pizza that may have been offered; by the 10 minute mark Mick started getting annoyed and didn't know what to do, as he could see the corner that photos were meant to be taken from. After 20 min Mick signed into a free wi-fi and sent Damian a SOS message.
Damian quickly returned to find Mick, and then they walked back up to the church. Damian said he didn't spend much time there taking photos (which Mick denies as he was watching the clock!), however Damo did direct Mick to the perfect photo spot, a difficult to find vantage point, away from all the tourists - so clearly he had enough to time to discover that!
The church itself has a beautiful but brutal architecture, inspired by the volcanic basalt columns of the Icelandic coast. The inside was equally austere, but this was offset by an organist who was playing such a bizarre, almost Dracula-esque piece of music that we expected bats to start flying through the windows.
We went outside to decide where to go for dinner. This was when we noticed the temperature had dropped dramatically, and we were now freezing! We luckily had fairly warm coats, but even so we decided to try a local place just around the corner, so we didn't have to go far. The place (called Vitabar) was small, but the food was great and fairly cheap and the barmaid was very friendly (this could be due to the three beers we saw her drink during our dinner). We had a simple steak meal - but the steak was so good, and the pepper sauce so tasty, that Damian thought it might even be in his top ten steaks ever! Croatia v Russia was on the TV and the whole bar, including the staff were wrapped with the coverage.
Once our steaks and the match were over we made the cold walk home, which seemed much longer than on the way in. We packed up our bags for an early checkout in the morning to go to the hotel to meet our tour group, and settled in for the cold night.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Stockholm
Stockholm Day 1 - We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto
Most of today was a transit day as we flew to Stockholm with Sara. After getting onto the metro it was clear that Sweden has a very different immigration policy compared to Denmark (i.e. Stockholm looked like a multicultural city while Copenhagen was quite a "white" city). It was also quickly evident that tattoo trends across the two cities was very different. Copenhagen residents favoured seemingly random, prison style tattoos on their arms compared to the full arm sleeves of Stockholm.
After checking into (what we thought) was the world's smallest hotel room, we explored the streets of Södermalm, the southern district of the city, before catching up with Sara for an authentic Sweedish dinner at The Pelikan. The hotel room was so small that the doubled bed was wedged into the corner of the room next to the console, with only one access point being Damo's side. We luckily had two chairs and a small bit of floor space that allowed us to open one suitcase at a time. Although we went for a traditional Swedish meal, Damo had the duck (non-Swedish) and Mick had steak and potatoes (only Swedish part was the raw egg yolk to drizzle into the steak, which he obviously didn't do!).
Oh, and it wouldn't be a Mick and Damo holiday if there wasn't an emergency pharmacy visit.... All the walking in Copenhagen resulted in Mick having a bung knee and injured feet (not just sore, muscle injuries). A knee brace was bought to fix one problem and our amateur medical diagnosis of the injured feet was that Mick's running shoes didn't provide sufficient support for 20km+ days. To rectify this, Mick was to wear his hiking boots. Subsequently, Mick was rocking the European tourist look with his beige shorts, knee brace and hiking boots.
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Stockholm Day 2 - Long days, late nights
In the morning Damo woke not feeling the best, possibly claustrophobia from the miniscule room. In any case we decided to get some fresh air by taking a walk down by the waterside behind the hotel. We found that along the waters edge there was a municipal swimming pool, and a whole cluster of tiny houses with cottage gardens. We found out later that these were part of a gardening 'colony' where city slickers go to garden and get back in touch with nature. The whole area was charming and reminded us a little bit of Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen with the overgrown plots. We enjoyed walking along the river in the sunshine for about an hour before heading back to our shoebox hotel room.
When we got back we packed and got ready to go and explore the old town of Stockholm. This island wedged between the northern CBD and Södermalm holds the medieval town known as 'Gamla Stan', and is full of crooked streets, little cobbled squares, and plenty of over priced tourist traps. We wondered around and decided we need to eat - so we sat at a cafe and had a small paninni roll each, and one small soft drink, the grand total of which was... $40! We quickly moved on in case we decided to have a coffee or Nutella bomb which would require the sale of an internal organ on the black market. Later that day, we took respite in a pub and paid close to $20 per pint of beer (obviously Mick did not leave a tip on that bill).
We found ourselves on a very busy tourist thoroughfare where hundreds of people were milling in either direction or looking in shop windows. To get out of the throng we walked up a small steep street and came out at a charming square, famous on postcards with three or four colourful multi storey buildings of Dutch architecture facing a fountain and the Nobel academy. Many, many photos were then taken.
After about an hour of wandering the streets we chanced upon the King's Palace, which we decided was worth a look, however much of the building inside and out was covered in scaffolding so we decided to not pay the whopping entry fee, and just viewed the free inner courtyard and chapel.
For dinner Sara took us to a place that she went to on a date a few months back; Skinnavariksberget (a massive rock that overlooks the city). We had a Lebanese picnic, from Stockholm's most prized falafel restaurant, Falafel Barren. Although the rock was crowded with young Swedes, it was a memorable (although not romantic on this occasion) moment and gave a new outlook on this great city.
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Stockholm Day 3 - These boots were made for walking
Walking in hiking boots did provide Mick with the foot support needed, however he was getting tired of the German tourist look. So a trip into the city was made, and Mick had his Bette Midler / Big Business moment changing out of his boots in the street for his new addidas sport shoes. Damian also didn't want to miss out and bought a new pair of shoes as well. With his new shoes (and knee brace firmly in place) Mick was willing to entertain Damian's and Sara's idea of doing a further walk along the River bank. After strolling along the river we came across a floating barge bar and decided a rest and rehydration was needed before we walked to dinner in Södermalm. We decided to risk an Asian restaurant, for some reason European cities struggle with Asian cuisine - unfortunately this restaurant (Magnolia) helped re-enforce that opinion, as it was not to the standard we'd hoped for.
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Stockholm Day 4 - Beaches in mind
Mick was in charge of the itinerary today and decided that we'd seen enough of the city and needed to go to a beach - after reading up on Stockholm swimming spots, we decided to go visit a beach on Lidingö island which was technically only 45 minutes away if you timed the metro and buses properly - which we didn't. Lidingö is such a popular place that it only gets one bus an hour, and we just missed the bus. Sara was stressing as she didn't have any breakfast, so we walked for 10 minutes to find the local cafe - which we couldn't find. We did find a grocery store and bought some store baked pastries and coke (we needed caffeine and didn't want to pay $5 for a machine based cappuccino). With our groceries in hand we walked back to the bus stop to see that there was a cafe at the bus stop that made proper coffees! Oh well, we did have time to kill.
To get to the beach we had to walk 15 minutes along a road through woodland. It was a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the city. The beach was nothing like an Australian beach, but it did have water from the ocean and small rocks trying to pass themselves off as sand. As expected, the water was freezing. Damo didn't go in at all, Sara lasted 30 seconds, and Mick spent 45 seconds (over three entries into the water). Although swimming was next to non-existent, it was a great day by the water.
Our final dinner with Sara was at Nytorget6 - a European inspired restaurant. This restaurant had great reviews on yelp, and for a good reason. The atmosphere was great, we were seated downstairs in what looked like an old cabaret theatre, and the food was great. Mick finally had a local dish - meatballs! They were delicious and expensive, and probably the last time Mick ever orders meatballs from a restaurant (it's not a proper meal that you order from a restaurant!). After one final drink we said our farewells to Sara, and headed back to our tiny shoe box hotel to pacK for Iceland.
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