The main focal point in Reykjavik is the big Lutheran church called Hallgrimskirkja.  We have no idea how to say that, so we just called it "the church."  We liked this church because you can see it from everywhere.  If you feel lost, just head towards the church to reorient yourself.

 

Post card of the church

 

Front of the church.  Something like 90 percent of Icelanders are Lutheran.

 

Lisa by the church

 

In front of the church is a statue of Leifr Eiricsson (Icelandic spelling of Leif Erikson).

 

lf you look close, you will see this statue is a gift from the United States in 1930.

 

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I was amused by all the large Icelandic vehicles.  They weren't as big as a monster truck, but almost.  Somehow they fit massive tires on these cars.  I suspect they wouldn't be legal in the U.S.  Also, most of the tires had studs, so they make a funny crackling noise when they drive by.  I guess you need all this in the harsh winters.

 

We noticed another funny trend in Iceland.  Remember I said it was hot in the plane?  Turns out the Icelanders seem to like it hot indoors everywhere.  We found several places to be almost uncomfortably warm, including the plane, the buses, a few buildings, our hotel room, etc.  Very odd.

 

On the hill above our hotel is this fancy building called The Pearl.  It has a restaurant in the top of the glass dome that revolves every two hours.  The building is functional in that the large things under the glass dome are hot water tanks.  Iceland has lots of geothermal water.  The Icelanders tap into this super heated water and pipe it into tanks like those above.  They then flow this hot water into houses and buildings for cheap, environmentally-friendly heating.  The only downside to their cheap hot water is the sulfur smell.  It stinks a little like rotten eggs.

In addition to the hot water, they have very good fresh cold water.  They claim the fresh water out of their faucet is as pure as any bottled water.  We drank a lot of it while we were there, and it did taste pretty good.

 

Brad on the observation deck on top of the Pearl with a great view of Reykjavik.

 

Lisa on the Pearl's observation deck with a nice view of the city.  We didn't eat at Pearl because it was pretty expensive and didn't get great reviews.

 

Our one big complaint with Iceland is that everything costs a fortune.  If you go there on a package deal like we did, then I recommend going, but otherwise it's too impractical.  We didn't eat anyplace fancy, yet I bet we spent at least $70 for dinner every night.  To give you an example, beers cost $10 each.  I had a steak sandwich and fries one day for almost $25.  We tried not to pay too much attention to the prices, but it really added up by the time we left.

The Iceland currency is the Kronar.  During our visit, it was 66 Kronars to the U.S. dollar.  We didn't use much cash though, as most of Reykjavik is electronic.

Icelanders eat some strange stuff.  They really like loaded hotdogs, which have fried onions, fresh onions, ketchup, some Scandinavian mayonnaise stuff, and some meat paste they call mustard.  I tried one and it wasn't bad.  I also tried a drink called Maltextrakt.  It's not alcoholic, but tastes like a sweet Guinness beer.  I didn't care for it too much.  We tried a few Icelandic beers; our favorite was called Viking.  Lisa tried this Icelandic dessert called Skyr.  It is like a yogurt with fruit.  Lisa thought it was ok, but I thought it was terrible.  I thought it was like eating sour cream.

We saw a lot of black licorice, too.  They must like it.  I bought an Icelandic chocolate bar to try it, and it was black licorice covered in chocolate.  I'm not a licorice fan, so I gave it to Lisa.  She thought it was pretty good.

 

For the truly bizarre cuisine, check out the above.  Talk about nasty.  We went to a tasty Spanish Tapas restaurant one night and saw Puffin on the menu, but after reading the above review, we decided against it.  We never saw the famous putrid shark meat.  We were going to try Brennivin, but we kept forgetting to order it.  We picked up a sample size at the airport to try later.  Brennivin is schnapps, and is otherwise known as Black Death.

We tried fish twice and I have to admit, it was really good.  I had fish and chips one day and it was very tasty.  At the Tapas restaurant, one of the items we ordered was Salt Fish.  For a boring name, this was awesome fish.  It was our favorite out of the six or seven entrees we sampled.

 

Icelandic schnapps called Brennivin.

We met a nice guy at a pizza joint/Italian restaurant called Galileo.  I commented to Lisa that he spoke English too well to be from Iceland.  Turns out he is from New York.  His mother was an Icelandic native who married an American GI and moved to the U.S.  This guy came to Iceland to check it out, met a girl, and has now lived there for three years.