Today is our last full day in Iceland. Sadly, our fantastic adventure is coming to a close. We were out the door after Paul’s visit to the pool and hot pots. The outdoor section was open today, so there were new hot tubs to try, including a salt water one.

I’ll start by following up on last night’s food walk.  We walked to Harpa, the main concert hall and public meeting building.  We found our tour guide just moments after the President of Iceland walked through the lobby.  You have to watch closely or you might miss him.  He often travels without an entourage and only occasionally uses his state-provided driver and vehicle (the one with two flags on the hood) in place of his favored personal vehicle.

This walking tour has never cancelled due to bad weather. Walking along between buildings and around street corners, we occasionally had to brace our backs to the winds-driven snow.  The guide talked about the ever-changing weather, sometimes just minutes apart.  Paul said it was like being in a snow globe, not knowing when you were going to be given a good shake.  Our guide, Nokkvi, liked that and said he was going to add it to he reparté.  Although Paul came up with that on the spot, he checked when we got back and it’s not an original idea/metaphor.  As in most cases, when you think you have an fresh idea of your own, you just need to check the web to verify it’s not the first time someone thought of that.

Nokkvi was great and offered lots of amazing comments, historical facts, and interesting tidbits of life in Iceland.  He also explained how the families here can trace their genealogy back to saga time. They have an app based on government-maintained lineages for their long family histories and interest in keeping their family connections alive. Additionally, they still have all their great church documents because they haven’t had any terrible wars or natural disasters to erase them like other countries have.   Their app also has a fun feature that will automatically let them know if someone is a close cousin, very helpful if your are looking out for any tricky dating situations.

In the US, most Americans can trace back to at least grandparents, their great grandparents, and possibly their great great grandparents. In general, we don’t really keep track of our family history the way other countries such as Ireland, Iceland, and others do. Possibly because America’s built up of a nation of people from many other countries who often times start anew and forget their links to the past, or at least losing contact with their links of their home country. Or, maybe because they really didn’t have to worry so much about marrying a close cousin.

The little travel booklet called What’s On in Iceland offered a page on notable events in the history of Iceland. I this particular entry for the year 1000 AD highlights the Icelandic humor I’ve encountered over the years.

“1000 AD Conversion to Christianity, the discovery of America. Parliament decided everyone would be Christian or at lease pretend to be. Leifir “the Lucky” Eirikson got lost and found America, didn’t like it and came home.”

For today’s adventure, we hit the road and headed west toward the town of Arkenes.  Instead of taking the direct route (through the tunnel on Route 1, a.k.a. the ring road) we could see the weather would be turning against us so we turned to take the long way along the harbor road.  We have been this way on our firs trip to Iceland, but this time we took some side roads and took in some new beautiful views.

 

 

 

Clickable for larger view

About three fourths of the way around, the weather changed with incoming gusts of wind. This caused the snow to move off the mountains and cover the valleys, obscuring the landscape and enveloping the homesteads in its wake.  We also pasted the location of our the farmstead featured in our homepage banner image, so we took another photo (though you may not recognize in engulfed in snow).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we got closer to our destination, the snow and sleet started.  We could see the wind was lashing the waves agains the shoreline, so we drove closer for a look and some photos.

 

 

There we discovered a campground in a great location on right on the shore of this bay.  Next time we are here camping, we will have to come to Arkenes. A great location for your first night out on the ring road, not too far out of Reykjavik.  We found a great little spot to grab a bit to eat in town called  Galati.  Got a yummy pizza, probably the best pizza I have ever eaten outside the US.  I highly recommend stopping if ever in the town and looking for a bit to eat.

 

We made our way back to our hotel in blizzard-like conditions and snow covered slippery roadways.  Even the Icelanders slowed down from their usual zipping through the snow. Occasionally, a plow could be seen trying to clear the road. We tried to keep our wiper blades and windows from freezing up, getting out to clear then at one red light.  Safely parked in the city parking garage, we headed up the street and were welcomed with little snow pellets. So we stopped at the pub below our hotel. We both got a hot coco spiked with whisky for out nightcap before heading upstairs to finish up this post.

We head home tomorrow leaving here at 5 :00 pm and, thanks to pickup up some time zones, will  land in DC at about 6:00. I will write  the final post on the plane and post when we arrive home.