Around Reykjavik

A couple weeks after India, B and I headed to Iceland.  I've been describing it as the "Trip of a Lifetime" and I stand by that.  For starters, we met up with our dear friends M + J and their daughter.  So we had a crew there--how lucky is that??  We shared a great apartment in the center of Reykjavik and walked all over the little city.  And then we rented a car and took to exploring.

What to say?  Iceland is a singular place.  There are no native trees and when you drive outside of Reykjavik, this is eerily apparent.  Also, the terrain is moon-like.  Or at least, otherworldly.  We were amazed by the grass-covered mounds covering lots of the southern island.  That was some lumpy earth.  The lack of animals (besides the birds in Reykjavik) is also startling.  There is nothing scurrying or scampering around the vast landscape (although word is the arctic fox is kicking it somewhere).  Weird.  The land, however, is quite alive.  The earth is bubbling and smoking and gasping.  And the smell.  The same smell creeps out of the tap with the hot water, so that even taking a shower feels a little like camping.

Here are some shots from around Reykjavik.  I'll get on to the nature side of things in a bit.

A town square not far from our apartment.  (Well, nothing was really far from our apartment.)  There were TONS of American tourists there, which was odd.  Didn't expect to hear so many American accents in Iceland of all places!

Creepster baby window.

We were all pretty in love with this chocolate milk packaging.

I found this crazy St. Louis hat (!!!) at a super vintage store called Spuutnik.  We did some window-peeping at a few other vintage shops, but because it was Easter weekend, many of them were closed or had unreliable hours.  But it looked like good stuff!

Check out this kooky peg-legged building.

This place serves a doughnut burger.  Didn't try it, but I can vouch for the bacon-cheese fries.

Oddly enough, Iceland is quite a religious country (Evangelical Lutheran, reprazent!).  And this is the Reykjavik Cathedral.

You can go up to the top.  Check out these views!

We were all in love with the neon green house in the middle right of this photo.  But peep those mountains in the background!

More good stuff.  I love that you can see the shadow of the cathedral in this one.

Here's another nutty window display.  Love the scale on these two.  Guess you would need a barbed stick to manage a cat that size!

Stature near our place.

Our lovely travel companions and dear friends.  How lucky am I to have these two here in Sweden???