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The Saga Continuum – 24/10/07 Why Iceland? Here are the top 5 reasons:
We are now well settled in Iceland. Reykjavik is a nice city, probably about the same size as Norwich, maybe slightly bigger, and so is fairly compact and easy to walk round, although we are about half an hour walk from the centre. There is not much in the way of sightseeing apart from the unusual Cathedral on the hill, built to represent Iceland’s volcanic landscape apparently! Close to our flat is the GeoThermal beach, complete with heated water in a small harbour and a beach made of sand from Morocco! It is quite nice in a English beach during winter style! Between the beach and the city is a forested hill, full of beautiful trees in all shades of autumn. On top is a restaurant called The Pearl in a space-age style building that is actually one of Icelands geothermal plants. There is also a geyser up there as the hill is home to seven mineral springs or something.
The Pearl, Reykjavik The weather however is horrible! On our arrival we could not see the ground until we were about fifty metres above it, and the bus ride from Keflavik to Reykjavik was quite depressing. We almost drowned walking to our flat from the bus station and since then it has rained every day and the wind is relentless. We have had two clear nights and maybe two days with any prolonged period of better weather! Iceland has been in the news recently as Yoko Ono had been here with Ringo Starr to open a peace tower in memory of John Lennon. Well, she did and it is just a giant beam of light. It seems as if half of Iceland went to the opening but I did not, firstly I did not know that was the day and also it was bloody pissing down! On one nice day I went to the tower of the cathedral and could see for miles, even some snow capped volcanoes in the north. The mountains close to and around Reykjavik are all snowy as well!
Mt Esja over dowtown Reykjavik As I said our flat is just out of the centre and is actually located in between the domestic airport and the coast. The flat is nice, it is part of a guesthouse (Palshus Guesthouse) and they have two double rooms and two singles, all share a kitchen and two bathrooms. There is one German woman, Francesca in one of the singles, she is staying over the summer as she is studying Icelandic. The other single room was filled yesterday by a skinny Polish guy, I hope he is no trouble. This week the other double room, which is in the main building (the singles being in a smaller building next door) is going to be filled for two days and then in January an older Russian couple are going to come for two or three months or so. I hope they are nice and it still OK to leave all of our food etc in the kitchen! Last week all the rooms were full as it was the annual Airwaves music festival. I managed to get to a couple of off-venue free concerts but had to work all weekend although Monika saw a few bits and pieces as well. There were are few bands from England (Bloc Party and Magic Numbers) although I managed to see a few Icelandic bands and two bands from the Faeroe Islands! It is very quiet here, especially around our flat, and there are walking trails around the coastline and up to The Pearl, when the weather is OK. The domestic airport is busy as most Icelanders use domestic flights as if they were buses! There are no night flights however, a good thing. But it gives great views, the end of the runway is just at the bottom of our road and almost every time we pass there a plane crosses not 200 feet above us. When the small private planes take off they have to fly almost sideways because of the wind, it looks strange, as if they are being blown around uncontrollably.
Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik We arrived on the 1st October, went to the job centre on the 2nd, had an interview on the 3rd and both started work at Serrano, a Mexican fast food restaurant on the 4th. It is kind of like a Burrito version of Subway. It is hard work in the kitchen, 12 hour shifts doing all sorts of things from frying chicken and vegetables to cooking rice, corn, beans and ground beef etc as well as preparing salads, sauces and creams, salsa and guacamole etc. We are working opposite shifts, so when I am working Monika is off and when she works I am off. We do the short/long week shifts, as in the first week you work MON/TUE/FRI/SAT/SUN and the next week just WED/THU, 11-11 each day. They will open a new branch in a few weeks and then Monika will move there and we will have the same shifts, but different restaurants. Actually not this Friday but the Friday before I worked as a chef! They asked me on Thursday if I would do three weeks as a chef. However at lunchtime they told me they had just interviewed a real chef so could return to my old job. I was relieved, although the chef job is not as long hours or tough work I prefer to avoid the responsibility! So after cooking 200 chickens in one day my chef career is over! So far we have not seen anything outside of Reykjavik except the airport and a quick trip to IKEA. The only exciting thing I did apart from this was the sea walk and climbing the Pearl and the view from the tower. We are waiting to be on the same shifts before striking further afield.
Ducks on frozen Tjornin, Reykjavik We are getting all of our Iceland ID, residency, tax and bank details finalised and then I am looking forward to at least a month or two of no problems, no thoughts, no checking of English sports reports, just get up, go to work, come home, sleep, going to Bonus on the day off. Bonus is the cheap supermarket here. It is probably something similar to Lidl but of course in Iceland that means the prices are more like Sainsbury’s and the quality as well. The cost of living here is high but the standard of living justifies it. The tap water is exquisite, better than the bottled mineral water. It is a plastic society here, everyone pays for everything by card, hardly anyone uses money. As for whaling, some Icelanders have asked me my thoughts, and I have to admit my response was carefully political. Most seem either uninterested or bemused as to why they bother whaling but a couple have tried to justify it with an argument that runs along the lines of “if you killed a cow to eat it in India they would think it as the worst thing ever” I.e. A problem with culture. Right, better go, I am going to enjoy my free meal. We get two meals a day at work because we do long shifts (everyone else only gets one) but I always bring one of mine home for later! This may not have been as exciting as my previous mails. I will write again when we actually manage to see or do something!
Viking monument, Reykjavik |
