The Local Mall's Dirty Little Secret...

This post has been a long time in the making but I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight before I reported it. I first heard about the Reykjavik mall's dirty little secret at lunch when a coworker told me...then a few weeks later another more reliable source confirmed it.

By scrounging around a bit on the internet I was able to find the evidence needed (thank you google images). Apparently the architect of the mall had a sense of humor because he designed the structure into a rather strange shape. Here's an aerial photo...

Yes that's right - it's a penis. The locals actually call it "the penis mall." I discovered this fact pretty early on, but the icing on the cake came when I found a pic of something much weirder. Apparently it was also designed to change colors based on temperature; how they pulled this part off I have no idea.

It's hard to argue that Icelandic people don't have a sense of humor!

Nothing but Craters and Bird Attacks Here

Locations: Eldborg Crater, Arnarstapi
This story is actually a couple of weeks old (you wouldn't have known the difference if I hadn't told you), but the roommates and I were bouncing around west Iceland for the weekend and we took the recommendation of our guide book and decided to hike Eldborg crater. Like most of the craters in Iceland, it's caused by volcanic activity, not meteors.

After we found the right sign in the middle of nowhere, we pulled off to the side of the road and began our 45 minute hike to its base. The only thing we passed on the way were farms with cows. Here's what it looked like when we were getting close to the base. Notice we found some friends along the way...
The hike was pretty good except for the top where it was very steep. Fortunately they had stakes with chains to help make the climb more manageable; otherwise it would have been borderline rock climbing in my book. Here's the view from the top - well worth the effort!
And of course here's the pic with me in it to prove I actually did it. Notice how steep the drop off into the crater is.
Later on that trip we stopped to sleep in a small town on the west coast named Arnarstapi. Our intention was to catch the last tour for the nearby glacier (conducted entirely on snowmobiles) and then stay in a cabin for the night. We quickly discovered we weren't the only ones with this great idea, and the lady at the front desk was kind enough to laugh at us when we informed her of our intentions but admitted we did not have a reservation. Bummer!

We figured we'd still make the best of it by wandering around the small town while trying not to panic about the fact that it was now midnight and we didn't have a place to sleep. We starting walking towards the nearby cliffs, and we were following the road fine until I pointed out that we could cut our distance shorter if we would just cross these open fields in front of us. I even proclaimed "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line!" and charged right in to lead by example.

This turned out to be a relatively poor decision. What I have now learned is that since Iceland has relatively few trees, birds are forced to nest in other places...like open fields. They gave us plenty of warning that they were not happy, but we were talking and not really paying attention. This is the last known photograph taken before things turned bad. Notice and the birds and me leading the idiot train on the left.
What ensued was nothing short of something straight from Hitchcock's "The Birds." These things were pissed off and aggressive. It started with me getting hit on the shoulder by one's wings as it darted past me. Then another girl got clawed on her head. Then the other guy did. At this point all logic went out the window as we ran in almost completely separate directions to escape the madness. One girl actually took this photo while screaming for help (of course by that time I was standing safely off to the side telling her to head this way).
We also quickly discovered the birds weren't just using claws and beaks, but also their digestive system. Two out of the four of us got bullseye shit shots, one of which was in a girl's hair. Ironically I didn't get hit.

This view was our reward.
Understandably the girls did not want to return the same path we came. A strongly worded dare forced me to don one of the girls coats (already covered in bird poo), to run back through the same field alone. I agreed to the stunt on the condition that it be filmed. My eagerness quickly deflated when I put on the coat as it did not have a hood to cover my head. Plus it looked a little ridiculous.
Unfortunately no such video was ever recorded because I was talked down last minute. It's probably for the best.

We continued driving to the next town (and then the next one, etc) until we found something open. I show this picture not only for its beauty but because of the light. This is how "dark" it ever gets here...it takes some getting used to.
When I showed up to work Monday, I described how the weekend went (including the bird attack). The locals asked me to describe what the birds looked like, and then blurted out laughing. Apparently those are locally known to be really aggressive birds...

Additional pics can be found here and here.

Esja

Location: Esja Mountain

















One of the closest mountain's visible from Reykjavik is called Esja (pronounced Es-ya). Because of its proximity (about 30 minute drive from town), it's quite common for the locals to hike it after work. I kept hearing how nice it was so I recently tagged along when the weather was clear.

By Icelandic standards this is a very easy hike. Apparently there is a race held every year and the record time is 37 minutes. I'm unsure if this includes the return as well, but either way I'm damned impressed now having done it.

Here's a picture of Esja from the base. You can tell how well-traveled this is because the paths are really nice. Apparently the naming rights of the trail has been purchased by Toyota; it's actually called the "Toyota XXXX" trail. I found this strange until a local pointed out it is no weirder than our sports stadiums having company sponsors. I guess I see their point.
Here's a shot of some of the landscape along the way.
Of course we got "lost" at one point. I consider this a technicality because we were clearly heading towards the top, but we certainly had veered off trail. Here's what I mean.
And the end of the hike was really difficult. I'd say it resembled something closer to mountain climbing, but fortunately they had installed posts with chains to help pull ourselves up. I kept thinking to myself "37 minutes!?!"

Finally we made it, and the summit view was worth it the effort.
This one is taken facing inland. Note this is overlooking an area adjacent to the capital which houses 2/3 of the nation's population, and it still mostly looks untouched.
And my personal favorite...
That city on the left nestled right up against the ocean is Reykjavik. I don't know the price, but I think Toyota got their money's worth.

(Author's Comment): At our brisk pace, which included very few breaks and attributing our slow pace to having not stretched, it took us about an hour and forty minutes up and an hour down, which unfortunately did not qualify us for any of the local records. Maybe next year.

More pictures of the Esja excursion can be found here.

Miscellaneous Stories

I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to share some of the interesting observations and stories that stick out in my mind from my time here thus far. So without further ado...

A Matter of Great Importance
Lets start off with arguably one of the most important topics in the world. "Our nation's addiction to oil and it's implications towards future energy security?" you may ask. No, I'm talking about something vastly more dire and pressing in my life today. The beer in Iceland is really terrible.

At first I thought it was because I picked the wrong brand, but after a trip to the liquor store which produced 6 kinds of local Icelandic beer, I felt confident that I would find at least one winner. Even considering the blurred judgment of having them all together, the last one still tasted as bad as the first. Then I thought perhaps they had more mature tastes for something else. A quick gander through their wine selection settled that idea when I found more than a few $20 bottles of Kentucky's best. Perhaps I'm spoiled from my time near California's vineyards but my honest reaction was "Oh that's cute - they grow grapes there."

I was later told that beer (although not all alcohol) was banned until 1989, so in effect their breweries are playing catch up. My opinion is that it certainly shows. Not all hope is lost, however because another oddity is that beer sales are taxed by alcohol content, not on its import or local status. This means the imported beer from Germany and the UK cost pretty much the exact same amount (about $3 a beer in stores, ~$10 to buy in a bar) as the stuff brewed next door. I stood in the beer aisle for at least a few minutes watching people come into the beer aisle, walk right past some of the best German imports I've ever had, and buy the local stuff for the same price. Very strange.

If the prices seem high, you'll like this even better. I went in for a haircut this past weekend to a place recommended by some of my male coworkers as a place which does good work for "relatively inexpensive" prices. The total (they include tip for you) was $56!

Going to the Movies
Not all items are this disproportionately expensive. A cinema ticket goes for $10, which I'd say is on par with US prices. But even an experience as simple as going to the movies has a story. Most of the movies are subtitled in Icelandic, which is no surprise. But they also have this other strange tradition of stopping movies half way through for an intermission so you can go purchase more popcorn and soda. This might not seem so bad, but the projectionist must have had a sense of humor because he/she stopped it at an absolutely critical point in the movie. I'm on the edge of my seat, the hero has just said "well then I guess you'd better shoot me," and the screen turns off and the lights come on...I was not pleased.

Finding My Way Around Reykjavik
Another humorous topic...I've never learned how to drive stick shift. Okay that's not funny in itself, but it turns out none of my current roommates knows how to either. Yet our company car that we all share (as you might guess) is not an automatic. Sprinkle on the weird street names and a completely unfamiliar city, and you get some embarrassing situations. So far I'm the only one who has stopped fast moving cross traffic by stalling in an intersection, but I doubt I'll be the last. And the really sad thing is that I might be our best driver right now.

"How bad can the street names be?" you ask. Here is a shortened list of how I get to work; I promise all street names sound like this...
-Left from Þrastarlundur
-Left onto Hoffstaðabraut
-Left onto Karlabraut
-Left onto Vifilsstaðavegur
-Merge onto Reykjanesbraut
...and you get the idea. And of course there's no way to get online directions with google maps or mapquest...neither have anything for Iceland.

Celebrating American Independence...in Iceland
I also had an interesting 4th of July experience. To start off, I was shocked on my way into work when two separate coworkers wished me "Happy Independence Day". At the third greeting I stopped and asked why on Earth they knew it. They laughed and replied "Oh it's in so many of your American movies that everyone knows"!

But the celebrations didn't stop there. Our company chef decided to make ribs in honor of having their first American summer interns. And believe it or not, they were some of the best ribs I've had in years. In case you're skeptical, I'd like to remind you of my Texas upbringing and the strict meat-heavy diet that accompanied it. It was kind of funny because many of the Icelandic folks had never eaten them before and were trying to cut it with their utensils. They laughed when I threw out my best Texan accent and declared "ya'll don't be shy 'bout using your hands for those!"

And to cap off the whole day we had one final late-night experience. We began a road trip right after work which lasted until the wee hours of the morning. We stopped and checked into a hotel in a very small town (population ~1200) along the way called Olafsvik, which was having some sort of celebration by coincidence in the city square. Here's a shot walking down the main drag.
We decided to walk towards the festivities after we dropped off our stuff and were shocked to find a live band playing oldies music. I don't think the celebrations were aimed at American independence, but hearing "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Brown Eyed Girl" in a village out in the middle of nowhere, Iceland with the locals cheering was truly a cool experience. Here's a picture of the band.

Lava Caves

Destination: Surtshellir














This past weekend we decided to pack up our car and go explore some lava caves. As one of the most popular tourist and local attractions in Iceland, we had high expectations. I should explain up front that these caves were formed by lava and don't actually contain flowing magma. I know...I was disappointed too.

There are a cluster of such caves about 3 hours away from Reykjavik and the one we chose is called Surtshellir. Its name comes up a lot in guide books as it's the longest in Iceland at a length of about 2000 meters.

As we were driving, we quickly realized our luck to have gotten our hands on a 4 wheel drive truck because of the rough terrain. I had previously read how NASA trains their astronauts in Iceland because of its harsh terrain which resembles Mars or the Moon. If you've been looking at the pictures of the past posts, you're probably a bit confused (as I was) because there are rolling green hills everywhere you look. Turns out that's not the case everywhere...

Here's a good shot of the terrain we were around - although there was a beautiful geothermal river running through the rest was pretty desolate.
Once we parked and started hiking towards the entrance, we were shocked by the number of people we saw. Keep in mind that we were going 20 minutes without seeing another car on our shared one lane dirt road, but when we arrived there were at least 10 cars parked at the path entrance.

We walked for a bit until we saw our first cave entrance, which turned out to be bigger than I anticipated. Here's a shot looking down at it.
Once we found one that we could climb down without rappelling gear, we started walking around. We also quickly discovered that having one flashlight for the 3 of us was not the most efficient way of navigating caves. And we were a bit under dressed, since it was around 20 degrees colder inside.

While we were mostly under very tall ceilings (at least 20 feet high), here's a picture of one corridor where we had to duck down for awhile. Unfortunately the pictures taken with people inside the caves did not turn out so well.
And here's a pic taken after we climbed back out. It felt great to be back in the warm sun!

More pictures are available here.

Touring a Geothermal Power Plant

Destination: Hellisheiði

















One of the perks of working for a company which designs geothermal power plants is being able to easily arrange a tour of their facilities. One such geothermal power plant is Hellisheiði (pronounced Het-lish-haiti), which is only about a 30 minute drive from Reykjavik. For some background on how these plants work, this is a nice and reasonably short video explanation.

Essentially, the deeper one digs into the Earth, the closer we get to the molten core and the hotter the rocks get. Iceland is unique because it sits directly on two tectonic plates (the American and Eurasian one), which means they don't have to drill very deep to get to the hot stuff. This makes geothermal energy much easier and cheaper here than most other places in the world.

Geothermal plants themselves don't look very exciting because not much of it is above ground. The majority of the money spent is on drilling and other subsurface activities. It is considered renewable because it's very clean and replenishes itself naturally (if one assumes the center of the Earth will always be hot). Normally there are no emissions of any kind, but on that day they were doing some additional testing.
This is actually just pure steam (water vapor), even though it looks like smoke. Notice the resemblance with all the other stuff in the background? The plant is essentially just emitting clouds.

Our guide decided to park the car at the end of one of the roads and hike us up to some of the natural geothermal vents in the area. Just to prove these plants really are located in remote areas...here's the only other signs of animal life we encountered along the way.
And here's what the geothermal vents themselves look like. Remember these are completely natural and in fact change whenever there is an earthquake (some close, new ones open). The steam coming out here is not pure, and contains small amounts of gases like methane (basically the same as natural gas) and hydrogen sulfide (which smells like rotten eggs). Lets just say you wouldn't want to bottle the scent for perfume...
I don't know what this vent had been eating lately, but it certainly seemed to have more than its fair share of stinky hydrogen sulfide!
We hiked up a little bit further and found this smaller (and less stinky) one near the top of the mountain.

More Hellisheiði pictures are posted here.