So just a quickie to say hurray! we've arrived! everyone in one piece, except for J's suitcase, which has yet to join the party, unfortunately - it's still lost in Iceland Air limbo, possibly in Minnesota somewhere, possibly not. We are going out to look for size 20 shoes today in Akureyri (population about 20,000) - hopefully expedition will be successful.
I arrived in Reykjavik yesterday afternoon and was so so so pleased to see J. waiting for me at the arrivals gate - I never quite believe that an arrangement to meet on another continent will quite work out (see previous episode with my mother in Euston Station) - and we yumped straight on a bus to go to the domestic airport, from there on a plane to Akureyri, and rental car from there to the hotel. The view from the plane over Iceland was nothing short of spectacular - clear blue skies, and snow-capped flat rock formations with massive scraped-out glacier valleys between. (Tragically no camera...)
We got ourselves turned around at the hotel (shower, much needed) and then headed off for dinner at Halastjarna, which wins the prize for surreal dining experience of the year. Twenty minute drive through bleak countryside, low mountains either side of the road, nothing but the occasional slightly depressing red or white painted 1930's era farmhouse every few miles, and then you turn off the road onto a gravel track leading to a similarly bleak depressing-looking 1930's era farmhouse. We were welcomed by a scruffy dude in a waiter outfit who may or may not have been slightly retarded, and ushered through the lobby (glass cabinet containing lace doilies and collection of plastic flamenco-dancer dolls) into the lounge for pre-dinner drink (large plush velvet sofa, velvet mass-produced tapestry of peacocks), and from there into the dining room (table cloth with holes in it, random packet of cards with more flamenco dancing dolls, old family photos, brightly coloured velour version of the Last Supper on the wall) and then dinner started (oh, and we were also the only people in the place, apart from the Icelandic Deliverance waiter and the lady doing the cooking in the miniscule kitchen; how she ended up at the end of a gravel track outside of Akureyri is difficult to fathom). It was quite, quite delicious, and the presentation of the food (on slightly chipped plates) was of the style that I definitely don't associate with velour tapestries of the Last Supper: small elegant towers of food with drizzles of sauces was the general aesthetic. We had five courses: salted cod, lumpfish roe blini, smoked Icelandic pony steak with fig, lamb with gnocchi and mushroom for main course, and rhubarb thingy for pudding and it was quite elegant and yummo (to borrow a phrase from Vijay) and completely surreal and weird.
We drove home at 11 pm (J. was UNBELIEVABLY cute in the car: he was very jetlagged by that stage, and he was actually falling asleep mid-sentence, and then he would snap up and say "Right! I'm awake! I'm here!" and then literally two seconds later the head would go down and he'd be out for the count again.) To bed (very comfy, slept like a log) and then up this morning for breakfast (fish eggs in a toothpaste tube on sesame rolls... mmm....) and then we will set out to look for shoes and try and discover the fate of the missing suitcase and possibly go whitewater rafting.
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