OK so this trip is too short for a blog

Friday 7pm in Toronto:

I am waiting in the lounge for the departure of my flight to Reykjavik, after a relatively quiet trip to 'Toronna' - I have been stuffing myself with pasta, coffee and pop in the lounge here, not sure why this one never has sandwiches which are much preferred by me. There is an old newscaster guy from CTV sitting opposite from me here, he seems a bit annoying as people come up to talk about his new book… I can recall the face but cannot make out the name.

As I kill time, I have been on the intraplanetnet - and I see that the weather is changing in Iceland as we speak. On thursday it was going to be 12 above sunny and calm in Reykjavik, Friday it was to 6 and 45km winds with maybe some rain, today they are saying 1 above, maybe a few flurries and 20km/h winds. I am hoping it changes again of course, for the better, although Iceland is so far ahead in time, it is almost Saturday there now!

So my balmy escape from the ravages of a Saskanistan winter may not be quite so generous in the balm, but I will see new things. I am trying to find out what I want to do to fill in my time over there, so i have sent off a few emails. One thing I did find that I did not see before departing was diving to some underwater volcanic sea mounts - obviously warm because of the volcanic water, it might have been good.

So we'll see what materializes for drives around the north and west of the island, it will be too far to go to the extreme east in one day. Iceland is tiny, but Reykjavik is 45 mins in a jet from Akureryri, with is a few hours of driving, it would much further to reach the east coast.

I am not really looking for the famed hot springs, they have many, the Blue Lagoon being the most famous, frankly the blend of ethnic tourists sitting in warm pools making a sort of human-minestrone is not my idea of a good time. As you know I don't really care for crowds of people, I don't want to be anywhere near them as rule, never mind sitting in large pools of homo sapien broth. Anyway, enough of my thoughts on humanity, I am still looking to fill a few hours in Iceland with something…

I have to run over to Terminal 3 now, the terminal that has everything except the Star Alliance lounges - i am sure it is just like Tijuana because it's full of the likes of Pakistan international and British Airways - and of course who I am off with, Icelandair.

Already checked in with a window seat, the luggage was checked through thanks to AC, all i have to do is pick up my boarding card… then five and three quarter hours in the sky to Iceland. Time for my second sleep of the day!

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Saturday, April 13:

Not much sleep to be had on 6 hours flight (flug) to Iceland, the guy sitting next to me was an ass, kept his light on through the night, we arrived at 330am Toronto time in Reykjavik, quick bus ride to the hotel past the cracked and steaming lava landscape - then off for breakfast. I decided to get 2 hours sleep since it was now 9am here and slept in till 1... Hurry, hurry the sun is shining, off to see the town! Good luck that dark doesn't come until nearly 10pm!

 From right by my hotel, I climb the hill to see the view and the "Pearl"

 The roof of this building is pearlescent and there's a restaurant inside, the big tanks are full of hot water, because hot water is really cheap here almost 100% of homes and buildings get water heated from the volcanic underbelly of iceland... how environmentally friendly!

 Across Reykjavik you can see a small city (360,000 in the entire nation) and very nordic looking buildings in very polar looking surroundings. The mountains point in one dirction here on the west of the island, in the east they point the other way... why? The North American and Eurasian tectonic plates split right under iceland, google map it and you can see the divide split the country in two. You can see it from the air. The country gains an inch in width every year as the plates push ever east and west.. how bizarro!

 The average winter temp is 0 celsius! I am here on one of the clodest days in a long, long time :( The bay never freezes over, the really white hill just left of centre is a glacier. Reykjavik means 'smokey bay'.

 It's very clean.

 Below is Rekjavik's domestic airport and my hotel which looks like a 1966 high school is the green windowed thing in front. The hotel is far nicer inside.

 Islenskrar, the language of Iceland is truer to the Vikings than any other Scandinavian tongue, Islands is pronounced as "Is" sounding exactly like "Ice". Islands sounds the same as Icelands in English. They have funny symbols like the letter P with the curved part sunk down to the middle of the letter, it is a 'TH" sound.

 The sculpture below is presumably a man poking his eyes out because he has listened to Bjork.

 Inside the pearl is pleasant enough.

 Around it lots of steamy vents for all that volcanic heat.

 Near the bay are some artworks to the Vikings - this the most famous, the sun boat.

 okay pics out of order again thank you Blogger, this is a hot water tank.

 In the distance yucky snow! The vilest white powder know to mankind.

 In old town, there are many buildings with Danish-esque flavour, the Danes ruled Iceland for a while.

 But new buildings are coming up and some don't care for the change to their pretty little town.

 Icelanders are blunt and not judgemental at all:

 Only a few tall buildings on the skyline here.

 Most is low, or tiny!

 The language is completely unpronounceable and everyone here speaks very good English which is just as well.

 There is ice on this lake, as of course, the mildest winter in Reykjavik history is being foiled by a cold spell that commenced precisely 24 hours before my arrival.

 Below is a huge map of Iceland for everyone to ponder over. Oh look they all say "this is where we are."

 And outside, yes there is ice. The high today is 1 celsius, they were forecasting 12, but I suck the heat (as well as the laughter and general wish to carry on living) out of any room.

 This is a monument that they made for my arrival.

 More odd houses.

 This looks like a Russian church.

 With graffiti.

The Danish embassy is like a castle.

 More Viking memorabilia - this is the founder of Iceland Leif Ericcson. Presumably before he opened the cell phone factory and bought Mediaroom.

 Another modern building by the port.

The graffiti below is a bit disturbing.

 The cathedral dates from the 70s I remember seeing this on a TV documentary.

 Scandinavian languages my Danish aunt would tell me are easy to work into English, 'cad' she would always say is 'cold' as an example. She is partially correct, below is a technical school. You can work the general meaning out can't you?

 Okay it's a shame Blogger put this picture here, out of sequence as ever, it is a piece of shark on a cocktail stick, just remember that :) And yes I already started nibbling on it.

 No place in Reykjavik is too far from the water.

 Okay so here is dinner... Authentic Icelandic Food!

 Another out of sequence pic, you can see Reykjavik in relation to Akureyri, which I go to tomorrow. Akureyri sits at the end of a very long fjord. 60 km or so.

 This corner store is colourful. It looks Christmassy. If that is not a word it is now.

 Okay, last but not least this dinner plate cost me 25 bucks. So Icelanders (Islanders) came here and the young landmass is only a few thousand years old, it had no large mammals to eat, very little in the way of trees. The weather was milder than the same latitude in Europe or North America however, only because of the Gulfstream, but hey, they had to eat. Fish is all they had for protein until someone imported Norwegian cows. Sheep too. The country was very isolated.. so they learned to make do and waste nothing. They ate the local puffins, still do, they boiled sheep heads, still do, they ate dry fish and smoke it, still do...

On the plate above what looks like salmon is smoked trout. What looks like egg salad is mashed fish and potato on rye bread. The meat is smoked lamb. The white bits in the middle are dried fish, which you spread butter on before eating "because it tastes better" they said. Well, yeah!

Behind the dried fish is the shark, look back up this page at the cube on the cocktail stick picture... this is fermented shark or Hakarl as the locals call it, a delicacy. Such a delicacy Gordon Ramsay vomited on eating it and Bourdain said it was the worst thing he ever ate, even worse than a Yak's anus he ate in IndoChina. It does look very innocent I might add, but it smells quite evil.

So if you imagine these starving Vikings, they saw Greenland sharks in the arctic water, big, big animals (the only big animals here other than whales and the odd polar bear floating on an iceberg from Greenland once every 10 years), which made you sick when you ate them because the sharks had anti freeze in them. The sharks swam in below freezing salt water, but their bodies could still freeze so they evolved to not freeze by having an anti freeze chemical produced in their flesh. Anti freeze is toxic to humans however, so they buried the sharks on the shore for  three months to get some of the poison out. They then dig up the shark cut it into chunks then hang it in the garden shed to age some more. The resulting fromage is Hakarl. Which gives off a very strong smell of ammonia, so strong in fact your eyes water and your brain stops for a moment as it tries to think why you would be so cruel to bring this towards your face. It has the consistency somewhat of cheese, but it is fibrous like fish and when chewed (most tourists gulp it down with a drink to get it away apparently) - and they stress you have to chew it well - your face flushes a little and the mouth tingles. No doubt because all the anti freeze toxin turned into ammonia, another human toxin, is burning the lining of your mouth.

But I chewed those 4 pieces, and my mouth tingled and I have tasted worse, although perhaps not so strange a thing. No one can tell me how a Viking descendant worked out 3 months buried and 4 months hanging as the curative agent. I am glad it is a delicacy and they only nibble little bits, because a large filet may kill you.

But what does it taste like you wonder? Imagine tears, shattered dreams and promises, pulling the fingernails out of screaming Smurfs, or even watching a Bieber concert from end to end. That is what Hakarl tastes like, it's every last bit of disappointment and sorrow drowned in copious amounts of poisonous but organically fermented ammonia. I am quite used to all that so it didn't phase me that much.

I did not throw up, I ate it, catalogued the experience and wrote it off as a never do again misadventure.

I was going to end the post there, but I will fast forward for a moment almost exactly 24 hours (yes there is a delay in posting), when a strange but funny driver guide who's a sheep farmer in Myvatn was driving me over a mountain pass in Akureyri and talking about the flavourful shark... He went to college in Munich and used to take some with him as it is a delicacy for Icelanders like him, and his German friends all wanted a taste of the much talked about Greenland shark. He recanted what one friend said it smells like when he opened the package however - "a men's pub urinal after a long night of very heavy drinking" - and even though it was 24 hours later, yes, I wanted to immediately hurl vomit all over his land cruiser seats, carpet, dashboard...

That is the magic of this rare delicacy of fermented shark - the experience lives on with you for ever.

Good night!