We got our bags up to our room
on the third floor of the hotel, then we walked for a while. We looked at an old church at another farm near the hotel; we walked its cemetery and saw gravestones for people born as far back as the 1840s. I also saw a pair of gravestones side-by-side for women born several months apart in the same year, who died several months apart the same year thirty-four years later. I recognized that the side-by-side placement was telling me something, but I didn't know what.
We went back to our room then, put our feet up, read some, and Tom might have napped a bit before suppertime, which here in Iceland doesn't start until 7:00 p.m. The hotel has its formal restaurant serving nouveau cuisine and our waiters looked as if they should have been flashing their blonde good looks in Copenhagen or Olso, Stockholm or Helsinki, not in this far outpost of the galaxy. The service was exquisite, as was the food.
Mary ordered the baked salt cod with dried tomatoes and olives. I had the reindeer steak with cranberry jam. The food looked pretty on the plate and tasted even better than it looked. Of course this kind of food comes at a price, so this was our splurge meal for the trip. When we finally translated the cost of the meal, we realized we'd laid out $125 for our dinner, including the beer. Which isn't much in some parts of the world, but where I come from, that's a lot. It was hard to believe that when you stepped out the door of the hotel you were standing in a farmyard.
Tomorrow we'd drive and drive and, if things went as Tom hoped, we'd throw a stone as far as the Arctic Circle. If things didn't go as planned, we'd enjoy the drive anyway.
***
April 21, 2005
Have I forgotten to mention that we have had sunshine. Both yesterday and today were unexpectedly bright, warm, and without the hard winds we've come to expect. In the far distance we can see snow on the mountains, the air is that clear. This is another side of Iceland entirely.
Today's excursion was to the north coast of the country, to the northernmost post of the island at Hraunhafnartangi, which - according to our Guide - "touches the Arctic Circle."
Along the way we passed through Husavik, a tidy little port to which we'd return for supper. We stopped at an overlook along the ocean and saw puffins on the water below us, eiders, and seagulls. I even a seal in the water far below us.
Indeed, as we'd feared, the road to the Dettifoss falls is closed from the north at this time of year, as it is from the south. So we won't see the Dettifoss this trip.
To be continued....
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