Springing back to Iceland to see it in the green! COMPLETED 6/29 About This Page:

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Cam22

This rain is really putting a kink in your plans. I do love your fowl photos though!

Yeah, it really did a number of us, and more particularly because it wasn't our first visit. If it had been, a lot of indoor places would've worked for us, but having only done them last year and knowing there was nothing new to see in them, it just seemed to be a waste of time to go back to those places.

[chezp]

Monday 1 May – part five: do you want to go and enjoy “funny hour”?

I’d been curious about where Reykjavik residents go to shop, as so far we’d only seen small shopping centres, and none that seemed to be a mall as such. I did a quick Google search, and found a mall, which ironically we had driven past previously, we just hadn’t realised what it was, so we made our way over there. They have one hour, and two hour parking, which I thought was a neat idea.



We headed inside, and honestly I have never seen a shopping mall of this size (we’re talking over 170 shops) so quiet. I didn’t know if it was the fact that it was Labour Day, which is apparently a holiday over here. The mall opening hours appeared to be 1:00pm until 6:00pm from what I could see on their website, so maybe that was it, as we arrived just shortly after opening. It was very peaceful, and I only wish our malls were this quiet…



We spotted many names in here we knew from home, including Next, Pandora, L’Occitane en Provence, Levi’s, Boss – you get the idea. We browsed a couple of bookstores, and some other places that looked interesting, but found nothing that appealed. However, when I spotted a Dunkin’ Donuts sign, I had to take a look… and look what they had!



Tempted as I was by the donut with the Icelandic flag on it, I went with toasted coconut instead. Mark saw the Liverpool FC donut after he’d already selected his Boston crème. We walked along, eating our purchases, and I popped into Body Shop for a browse, but there was nothing different to what I can get at home.

On the way out, we headed into one of the supermarkets they have here – and look at their selection of fruit….



… and cheese!



There was lots else in here:



When we got to the spice selection, Mark said “I bet they don’t have Aromat”, which we use at home, but wouldn’t you know it? They did!



It was a fascinating trip, and I really enjoyed seeing some genuine Icelandic shops, rather than the ones aimed more at tourists in the centre of Reykjavik.

With that, we made our way back to the hotel, still in the pouring rain, for a bit of down time. After a while, we headed back down to the spa. I was dreading having kids down there, considering all we’d heard for a while was the slamming of doors outside on our floor as the kids searched for goodness knows what or who. Thankfully, the God of spas (no, I’m not sure there’s one either, but it sounded good to me… ) was smiling on me, and once again, we had the place to ourselves…

We soaked in the hot tub for a while, which was way warmer than yesterday, despite the sign still saying it was 40°C. I was going to use the steam room, but Mark informed me it wasn’t working. It seemed to be on “stop” rather than “start”, so I tried pressing the “start” button a couple of times, but nothing happened. Darn. We read for a while, and I spent some time in the sauna, before we headed back to the room.

On the way up, Mark asked if I wanted to go and enjoy “funny hour”. Oh do you mean “happy hour”? Apparently he did. I guess he enjoyed that Viking beer last night then… Just before we headed out, we saw some boats out for the first time today, including a whale watching trip. I guess that would be the afternoon one then. Oh well, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been fun for us.



Next: “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be”!

[Tara O'Hara]

The mall looked cool and also a nice way to get out of the rain for a while. It sounds like a nice relaxing afternoon back at the hotel as well.

[cubfancolleen]

I love going in to grocery stores when we're in another country - fun to see similarities and differences.
I was sure Mark would've had that Liverpool donut.

[disney_duke]

It's fun to shop in local grocery stores. We enjoyed the one in Quebec!
Spa time sounded nice and relaxing. Happy hour can be funny hour too...

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

I love going in to grocery stores when we're in another country - fun to see similarities and differences.
I was sure Mark would've had that Liverpool donut.

Oh that would've been his choice, had he been more eagle eyed and spotted it before he'd already purchased...

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

It's fun to shop in local grocery stores. We enjoyed the one in Quebec!

Oh dang it, we didn't do that, but heck, we can put that right next September...

Spa time sounded nice and relaxing. Happy hour can be funny hour too...

Oh yes, I've had a few of those over the years!

[SuperDave]

The mall looks quite nice and especially the specialty markets with the different varieties of cheese etc. that I'd love to explore!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

The mall looks quite nice and especially the specialty markets with the different varieties of cheese etc. that I'd love to explore!

I was fascinated by all those cheeses. Some were familiar, but there were some (indeed from the UK!) that I'd never heard of...

[Cam22]

That was one massive mall, and so strange that it was also very quiet. Glad you were able to enjoy your spa time.

[chezp]

Monday 1 May – part six: “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be”!

We headed upstairs in the hotel, and grabbed a window table with a different view, this time over the Harpa concert hall, and towards the harbour, and yes it was still raining!



Look at how much spray the cars were making outside the hotel! In fairness, we’d done that earlier, completely by accident mind, as we’d soaked a couple of pedestrians!



We were both shocked when we saw this – we hadn’t noticed it last night, and I’m sure it wasn’t there last year either. How cool!



Once we finished our drinks, we headed off to the city centre. I know Mark wasn’t sure that I’d make it with my ankle, but I thought I would, and I was determined to at least give it a go. We set off through Arnarholl park, and I was doing fine with walking…



We made our way through the city streets, and I didn’t stop to take too many photos, as it was tough to do when walking with a crutch. Trust me, there are so many things that are either a) tough to do left handed or b) you need two hands for. On the way back, Mark had to put my hood up as we came out of shops, as I could put it down left handed, but I couldn’t put it back up left handed. Weird, huh?



As we approached the restaurant, we saw a stage, and Mark asked if they were having a concert or a protest rally tonight, but as we neared it, it became clear they were taking it down. We asked in the restaurant later, but they didn’t know much about it, and thought it had been something earlier on for Labour Day.

We headed inside Restaurant Reykjavik, and we needed no encouragement, as we knew what to do, and were quickly up exploring the buffet offerings…




We both got stuck in with a couple of rounds each from the buffet, although this only represents what we had on our first visit…



It was all superb, and the quality of the seafood was as good as I remembered.

I also had some of their mushroom soup, which was excellent.

I have to say the hot items were, for me, a bit of a let-down. The flavours were very strong, and not to my taste, in the seafood in white wine or the seafood gratin, which was a shame.



However, the desserts were better – look at the selection, essentially a pavlova, cheesecake, white chocolate brownie, and rhubarb cake, which was Mark’s favourite…



I went to get some ice cream, and thought the one at the end looked like it could be cherry, so I asked one of the servers. She told me what I’d picked up, thinking it was chocolate, was in fact liquorice. Oh my goodness, no way! She quickly took it off me, and what I thought was cherry was chocolate. Ok….

I have to say a word about the service here. It was excellent. As soon as we finished eating, and I literally mean the second, our plates were immediately whipped away. It helped that there weren’t many people in there. There was a group of four and a couple, and that was it… well, after the tour group left. It was a group of Americans, and some were perfectly lovely as they left, saying how wonderful the meal had been. However, we heard one woman say “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be”! Oh my goodness, how does anyone have the nerve to say that?

By the way, there are no ratings in here, as for once, I completely and utterly forgot to do them... and I don’t think trying to guess four weeks later, as I write this, would be fair to the restaurant.

We headed out, well and truly stuffed and sort of relieved we had a half mile walk back to the hotel, as we needed to walk off some of the huge amount of food we’d just eaten. We browsed a couple of shops along the way, but didn’t find anything we wanted. My ankle was starting to hurt a bit, but as we were so near the main square, I headed that way, as I wanted to see it, and we hadn’t managed to drive past it earlier on today. It was worth it, and once again, it was almost unrecognisable without snow everywhere.



From there, we made our way back to the hotel, and we were shocked to find this…



Neither of us remembers seeing it before, so maybe it’s new, or we just weren’t paying attention before?

I will confess that I struggled up the hill near our hotel, and then with the final bit back there. The last five minutes were really difficult, partially because my ankle was hurting, but also because my chronic fatigue was starting to clip in as well. It was wet and cold, which never helps me.

We made it back, and I was very proud of myself, having managed to walk a mile round trip, albeit with the crutch. It’s certainly a lot more than I could’ve managed a week ago.

When we got back, my ankle did hurt, but it was Ok. We settled down to watch Saving Mr. Banks (such a good film ) and I checked on my emails. I discovered our 2:00pm puffin watching trip had been cancelled, but apparently the 1:00pm went, and we could’ve gone on that… except the email was sent at 1:26pm, so that was impressive.. I suspect maybe they meant 3:00pm?

I also managed to swap our seats on the flight back from row 14 to row 5, so that means a bit less walking for me.

The weather today was wet and windy all day, with temperatures in the low 40s, but feeling a lot colder than that with windchill.
The best thing today was dinner at Restaurant Reykjavik.
The worst thing today was the weather and not being able to do the whale or puffin watching.
The funniest thing today was the battle of the seagull and the goose!
Today we tried going to Kringlan
And the result was it was interesting to visit one of their shopping centres.
The most magical moment today was enjoying Icelandic maracons!

Next: heading out of the city….

[Tara O'Hara]

What a wonderful ending to your day!! Your dinner looks delicious and again the scenery is just stunning!!.

[disney_duke]

Green grass instead of snow. It's such a welcome sight! Glad you were able to make it with your bad ankle, that could not have been easy. :
Quite the spread for dinner and good service too. Sounds good to me!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures of Reykjavik! Sorry about all the rain. Thank goodness it stopped at the end of the day! The buffet looks amazing, and how cool to find a Dunkin Donuts in Iceland which such cool donuts!

[cubfancolleen]

Dinner looked great! All that fresh seafood, mmmmm!