Monday, December 20: A Day in Reykjavík
On Monday, I started the day with a run from the apartment through town. It was handy to be able to see Hallgrimskirkja almost the whole time! I turned around on the campus of Háskólinn í Reykjavík (Reykjavík University).
For breakfast, we walked to Café Loki, just a few steps away from the apartment.
We walked around town most of the day; what a joy that the kids are old enough not to be carried! We’d been hoping to see the Northern Lights, but the clouds had barely broken for more than a minute during the three days, so we wrote it off. Next time!
Phoebe and I really wanted to see a couple of museums, so we went to the Reykjavík Art Museum, where they had a whole exhibit of Erró’s work and many other interesting and perplexing exhibits. ( Erró is a postmodern Icelandic artist.)
One of the best parts about being in Iceland at Christmastime was getting to know the tradition of Grýla and the Yule Lads. There are 13 lads—in the 17th century, they ate naughty children, but in the 19th century they were softened to rascally petty pilferers. They appeared throughout the city, projected on walls.
Grýla in a tourist shop. Click for a video of Benjamin dancing in a different shop.
We also went to the Settlement Museum, where the exhibit is “based on scholars’ theories on what the heritage sites in central Reykjavík can tell us about the life and work of the first settlers. The focus of the exhibition is the remains of a hall from the Settlement Age which was excavated in 2001. The hall was inhabited from 930–1000. North of the hall are two pieces of turf, remnants of a wall which was clearly built shortly before 871. This is one of the oldest man-made structures so far found in Iceland. Also on display are objects from the Viking age found in central Reykjavík and the island of Videy” (https://reykjavikcitymuseum.is/the-settlement-exhibition/about). I think we were getting worn out; I didn’t take any photos, although it was really interesting, especially some of the curatorial choices. They had these neat screens that showed ghostly moving silhouettes of what people might have done: carried a body on a bier out of a home, pulled a boat to the edge of the water, etc.
We had a wonderful dinner at Salka Valka, where the customers seemed to be regulars and the food seemed more authentically Icelandic. Dave and I had a delicious fish stew (pictured). (Well, okay, the kids had sourdough pizza.)
Dave went out for his run after dinner. I tried to stay awake reading Independent People, but I was sound asleep by the time he got back. He chose a more picturesque run along the water.