News

More macro loveliness from the heart of Reykjavik, this time of a flower medley in my parent's front yard ~.~

While cruising the interwebs today I ran across a link from the Bookworm Bookshop in Beijing highlighting the City of Reykjavik's first Reading Festival in October 2012, Sleipnir and the Joy of Reading. Reykjavik is a UNESCO City of Literature, which will be no surprise to my more literary readers (góðan daginn, Professor Batty!)

In other news, I promised to keep us all informed about the winner of the competition for the redesign of Ingólfstorg. They are the ASK architectural firm, and here is their winning design. Even though some people are righteously furious over everything that smacks of change, anything is better than the bad chi feng shui state of things in that downtown square. The city of Rvk has made a recent valiant attempt to draw more summertime life there, but when I drove past yesterday evening there were exactly 8 well-known town drunks (who usually hang out at Austurvellir) taking advantage of the new lounge chairs, two bikers, and lone skater petulantly sliding a measly wooden box. I'm beginning to think ancient Indian burial ground for that particular plot of land...

So though I try my best not to sleb gawk, ok, ok, yes Tom and Katie came into Valentína's ice cream store on the last official day of their pre-divorce papers marriage.  And as it seems that the final photo of them holding hands EVER displays the very same double vanilla latte that Katie politely ordered from Kristjána (the cute girl in the headband in the back row of this photo) while bodyguards waited outside and Tom flashed her his winning grin, I thought I'd go ahead and mention it.

Speaking of visitors, I mentioned cruise ships in the last post. The following photos are from June 18th, when four huge luxury liners docked here and spewed forth 10,000 curious humans which, combined with fold arriving by air, meant the highest number of visitors Iceland has ever had in one day.

One of the ships was the Costa Pacifica, sister ship to the ill-fated Costa Concordia (this last link is to a very compelling article in Vanity Fair about her last night afloat.)

These pics are however of the German AIDAmar, a 252-meter long Sphinx-class cruise ship with 1096 cabins and adorned with a smile, unlike her pensive residents in these shots, who I'm sure were just unwinding from a long day of Golden Circling and postcard buying and such. It seems that tourism is booming here on the Lava Rock, and with more arrivals and departures from Keflavik International than ever, as well as the increase in cruise liners, it seems things won't be settling back into any kind of "isolated republic in the North Atlantic" any time soon.

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Crêpe

She had just made me an amazing organic-coffee latte, and now my daughter Valentína set herself to the the task (art?) of making a crepe at the ice cream store on Skólavörðurstígur, Eldur og Ís (they don't have a web site/Facebook page yet, but it's the only ice cream store that's actually open in midtown, as is.) This is her first official career move, and so far she's absolutely rockin' it! It helps that she speaks excellent English and has that American ease-of-smile and open demeanor (she was born in San Francisco :) that works so well in this line of business.

The owners have also spent time in California giving this small family-run store a friendliness that is often lacking in Iceland. Let's not sugar things here: Icelanders are not known for being so adept at expressive hospitality

So if you're on your way to our island for the first time, please don't take the cool rudeness personally! (In his amazing 19th century travelogue Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874, Bayard Taylor writes, "The common people - if one has the right to use such a word as "common" to describe such a people - are still something of a puzzle to me. Except among our Indian tribes I never saw such stoical, indifferent faces." pg. 218)  If you are lucky enough to get good, friendly service at a store or restaurant, go ahead and let the person know that you appreciate it. There's no tipping culture here, and Icelanders are horribly negligent about showing appreciation for a job well done. Slowly but surely, with increasing international influence, the service culture here is being massaged into something the average traveler can feel comfortable with. So go ahead and take part in whatever way you can!

And so without further ado, I here present the result of Valentína's artistry, the absolutely delicious Nutella, strawberry and vanilla ice cream crepe:

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )