The flight went very well, here I am writing this the next day and I can hardly remember pleading for it to be over, so, excellent.
From the airport I took an easy-peasy bus to the main church and from there walked the one block to Freyja Guesthouse arriving around 10:30am. It’s lovely, I have a pleasant and modest room, nice windows, and a comfy bed, plus a good bathroom and kitchen and lounge shared with two other rooms. I’m happy!
Back to the church, called ((Hallgrímskirkja (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈhatl̥ˌkrimsˌcʰɪr̥ca])). This is how google thinks you will to learn to pronounce Icelandic words. Don’t be fooled by the English looking letters or the missing Icelandic markings in this particular word. Pronouncing Icelandic place names – it’s going to be a project!
Their stand-out organ.
You can barely see this statue in the first picture, over on the far left. It’s Leif Erikson (970-1020) and wow, Alexander Calder made it. But no, not MY Alexander Calder. There are three Alexander Calders, all sculptors (my guy, his father, and his father’s father(!). I digress…the statue predates the church and was a gift from the US in 1930 at the “Althing Millennial Festival, commemorating the 1000th anniversary of the convening of Iceland’s parliament at Þingvellir in 930 AD.” No doubt more to come on this.
I walked around town for a couple hours, it’s adorable. I’m not sure if adorable is what they were going for but on first flush that’s where I’m landing. Adorable.
Peeking through you can see some mountains. I think it would be glorious when you can actually see the mountains.
There are several streets in this central downtown area that are pedestrianized and even when there are cars, there are not so many cars but there are still no parking places.
When people are in line for food, Get In That Line. The most delicious hotdog? wellll. One of the most interesting hotdogs? for sure! They had these super-crunchy onions, at first I thought it was bacon!
Here are a few murals from around my ‘hood. I’m quite sure there are more.
I caught a couple hours nap this afternoon because I had 8pm tickets at the Harpa Concert Hall to see Eva Ollikainen (everyone calls her Eva) conduct the Iceland Symphony Orchestra playing the Shostakovich Symphony no. 5. I had orchestra center seats and I wondered why they were so inexpensive. Maybe because the concert was a perfect 1 hour in length? It was an Impressive performance.
Harpa Concert Hall. I had seen a picture of this place and I wanted to see a show inside!
A bit of the inside. There are a few venues, I wanted to go to the main theater and it was fabulous, four tall tiers of balconies, comfortable seats, nice sight lines. And these walls of windows. Good job!
You can see these amazing walls/facade from the outside too. If you’re interested here’s a write-up from the architect. There are pictures and a tab for the text. It’s Very cool.
