Flight

I'm sure that a lot of you who've been here will get this picture, though maybe you'll find it as surprising as I did to see that it's a big huge Icelandair 757 buzzing the city center and not just a Fokker from Flugfélagið or a private jet that is coming in for a landing at the domestic airport which, of course, we're all used to.

I don't know if there was any specific reason why it landed in town instead of out at Keflavík, but don't be surprised when you visit if you hear the sound of an incoming plane. You might even make it a game to see if you can get an awesome belly shot as it zooms past overhead!*

*The best location for this is out at Hljómskálagarðinn by the town lake (link is to a photo and post by Professor Batty.) Oh, and here you can watch a live cam feed of Tjörnin, the town lake : ) 

Modesto's 50% lunch deal

I recently tried Modestos for the first time, eventhough that restaurant has been around for ages. I always thought it was a overpriced restaurant. I was walking towards KLCC from jalan p. Ramlee when I happened to pass by Modestos. There was a sign saying it was 50% off for lunch on weekdays for pastas and pizzas only. Why not take up the chance to try....

Try I did and with no regrets. I was with my mum. We had smoked salmon pizza and a plate of spaghetti (i forgt the name).

The spaghetti was good. It came with a generous portion of lala. We also had tiramisu for dessert. Mum said it was reallu good,

We were also served a complimentary appetizer. Cheese crisps with a dip. Delicious!

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to rave about the smoked salmon pizza!!!! I have never heard of a salmon pizza before and here they have it. I love salmon. I should have tried to make salmon pizza in Glasgow.

At first I had doubts about ordering the smoked salmon pizza because I was afraid that Modestos would just put a few measly slices of smoked salmon in it. I mean, there are so many restaurants serving seafood that overprice their food but not giving a satisfying amount of the main ingredient.

When the pizza came, I was amazed at all the orange coloured salmon on it... It was also topped with really good cheese. The gooey kind of cheese. The pizza was not that oily too which was an added plus point. I loved it so much. I swear I can finish the entire pizza myself. The size of the pizza was the same as a large order of a pizza from pizza hut. It has a thin crust. It was really good that I crave for it a lot and I will make a second or third visit even without the discount!

Bay

To stave off any claustrophobia the last few posts might elicit, here's the big blue sea, with the Smoke City skyline in the distance.

I went on my first whale watching excursion last week, just as the weather was finally deciding to favor us with some spring sunshine. It was a group charter affair coordinated by Tækniskólinn as a fine sendoff for employees at the end of the school year. There were at least a hundred of us partaking in the bright sunshine and excellent catered surf and turf dinner on an Elding boat co-skippered by a guy named Vilhjálmur whom I just happen to know.

Oddly, the Elding diary claims that the 17:00 tour on the day we went out "has been cancelled due to strong winds out in the bay." We left at 17:15, and yes it was definitely windy! I wonder, though, if the fact that amongst our group were the very men who run the School of Navigation (located at our sister campus on Háteigsveig just next door to this lovely church many of you will recognize) had anything to do with us setting off onto the High Seas of Faxaflói regardless of any bothersome southerly gusts. These teachers of the oceanic arts most probably taught the captain, and definitely Vilhjálmur, who studied skipstjórn and graduated in 2011.

The tower of the Stýrimannaskólinn building was long used as the main guide for ships coming to port in Reykjavík, but as Haukur Gunnarsson, below, pointed out to me, this still-empty pre-crash  steel and glass wonder now blocks the view (see the skyline photo for proof.)

Some of us, including Haukur who teaches among other things Aviation English, chose to ride the waves adventure-style: standing on a bench on the top deck, holding onto a pole for balance. There's no doubt that we had way more fun up there getting all sea-salty than some of our poor slightly greenish-looking cohorts who chose to suffer it out below deck. And we even spied a few pods of dolphin to boot!

Moral of the story? Take a boat ride when you're here. Pack your foul weather gear and find a bit of railing to lean into. Let the ocean sprays wake you and make you feel like an old-style viking for a little bit. As you sail west, out of the bay, pretend you are on your way to mythical Greenland, just out of sight over the horizon, and possibly lands beyond. And keep your eyes open for creatures of the sea, who may put on a show that you can imagine is only just for you.

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J. Co's donut

Sinful yet delicious and deeply satisfying due to the oozing chocolate from the inside.

Name of donut: Coco Loco

It was free!!

Mum gave a thumbs up to J. Co's hot cappocino, while I give two thumbs down to their ice chocolate.

Frontera, Jaya One

I have been yearning to try Frontera's super spicy buffalo wings which has managed to make grown men weep with just one bite. Well, at least that was what I read from blogs.

One plate of 5 pieces of super spicy buffalo wings was ordered. I took one bite, two bites, three bites.... NO TEARS! It was not even spicy to begin with.... It just had a bitter tangy flavour. It tasted like fried buffalo wings coated with tobasco sauce....... So dissapointed. Eat sambal from nasi lemak have more spicy kick than this so-called super spicy wings. Maybe it was spicy many many years ago, but they toned it down coz not many men wanna cry while eating right???

Besides buffalo wings, I visited two new malls - SS Two mall and Paradigm Mall in Kelana Jaya. Eventhough SS Two mall opened earlier than Paradigm Mall, but SS Two was soooooooo empty.... Currently there has been residential malls booming in KL, which is good :)

Theater

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Þjóðleikhúsið, or the National Theater of Iceland, is quite a beautiful building, and it's always a pleasure going to see shows there. My wonderful mother Ásthildur gave Valentína and I tickets to go see Les Misérable there a few weeks ago and yes I cried at the end (and somewhere in the middle too, maybe?) It was an almost full house for a show that's been running since the beginning of March and has dates set at least through June. This shot is of the main stage just before the second act, when patrons were just beginning to meander back in.

It can be a bit weird attempting to suspend disbelief when watching the same people you bump into at Bónus (as well as at your kids' schools, the gas station, the pub, children's birthday parties...basically everywhere) pour their hearts out in character on stage (and there is a lot of dramatic pouring out of hearts in Icelandic theater!) but I guess it is a bit cosy as well.

This is not an easy musical to sing, so I actually found myself feeling proud of our talented and dedicated locals who obviously pushed themselves to new heights to bring this classic to the Icelandic stage. This talent of course includes not only actors, but set, lighting and sound designers as well!

I had no idea that there was a thing called the Theater Museum of Iceland, but maybe it's because they have no permanent exhibition space as is. Their web site, though, is rich in local theater history (that's actually what I wrote my BA in Theater Arts thesis on while at UCSC, where my lovely niece Mekkin Roff is now studying, and actually performing/teching in their annual Chautauqua Festival :)

If you are into the arts and get a chance to see a production, especially one where the language barrier won't affect you so much (a musical, opera or play you've seen/read in English) I recommend going in for an evening's experience - for such a small country, Icelanders almost always succeed in producing theater on an international scale.

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Movement

A mother and her daughter exit a gate on a rainy May day at Óðinn's preschool, Grænaborg. He graduated yesterday in an official ceremony, complete with being called up to receive a diploma and rose, and to shake hands with the wonderful people who have been caring for him daytimes for the past four years. They're like family, and the safety and security of such a small school will be much missed.

But we grow and get older and change happens in our lives whether we like it or not. For a kid who just turned six this transition - from a cozy preschool campus to Austurbæjarskóli with its rich 82-year history, hundreds of students (many with families who have recently immigrated here) and geothermally-heated indoor swimming pool - is a huge deal. Never mind that the two schools are less than quarter mile apart, on either side of Hallgrímskirkja. This is as dramatic as an intercontinental relocation!

His father and I considered private schools, but ultimately I'm really glad that our boy will be attending an urban campus only yards away from our home, that encourages multicultural education without that drive to total assimilation into Icelandic society that has been such pressing and often destructive force here. (I often tell people that even though I am a 'pure-bred' I still choose to speak Business American on the phone when dealing with companies or banks or anything money related -- basically when people only hear me with my accent I seem to get much worse service! If I show up in person, though, and speak my Icelandic [which is admittedly a totally unique language ;] all is fine: I look Icelandic [whatever that means these days!] and am forgiven my less-than-perfect conjugations. *Not cool!*)

When Iceland opened itself up in the 80's to becoming an active part of the global capitalist conversation, allowing an influx of foreign goods and services to dilute the cultural 'purity' and isolationism of the previous centuries, it effectively gave up the ability to control the rampant growth and often destructive effects of consumerism. The foreign-born talent and labor that has followed in the wake of globalization, and especially the children of these immigrants, simply cannot be denied the same opportunities and rights as the 'pure-breds' whose ancestors have clung to this lava rock for over a millennia now.  A human is a human is a human, and we're all in this Life on Earth thing together. I'm happy that Óðinn will continue to get the chance to meet kids from all over the world at school, and grow from that experience : )

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