Friday night we had dinner at the Isleski barinn (Icelandic bar) downtown. Despite the unassuming name it was quite nice and cozy. Kat had a barbecue chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries and a lager. I had a stout and some traditional fish stew, which was kind of like a cheesy shepherd's pie, and a plate of mixed meat bites including pieces of ram testicles, pickled whale, lamb, and various sausages. Kat tried the whale, but said it was too fishy. I shared the rest of my testicles with the two nice ladies at the table next to us. They shared some of their whale jerky and puffin meat with us. Kat didn't like the whale jerky any better than the pickled whale.
After dinner we wandered down the main drag again looking at some of the shops and did a little grocery shopping before calling it a night. We got to bed around 10pm and since we really didn't have much planned for the next day we slept in a bit. In the morning I showered and washed some of my underwear and socks. The hot water here is really hot and naturally heated by geothermic action but smells like egg farts. The cold water is mountain run-off and clean and delicious.
On Saturday the conditions were much more icy, windy, and cold so we bundled up in multiple layers of coats. We walked to Mokka for breakfast since the guidebook mentioned they had waffles. Kat wanted syrup but they only had jam and whipped cream for the waffles. We needed some butter for our toast at the apartment and we didn't want to pay $5 for a tub of it at the grocery store so I managed to score couple extra individually wrapped pads of butter from the cafe, ostensibly for our waffles although we packed them away in our bags and then shuttled them back to our room fridge. We were pretty proud of our frugality and considered becoming butter barons. Along the way we noticed several patches of yellow snow on the sidewalks, hopefully left by pet dogs and not people.
Our plan for the rest of the day was to do a bit more exploring, some shopping, and hit a couple of the museums. Along the way I stopped to take pictures of some of the cool graffiti wall art decorating many of the buildings. The first museum stop was at the Icelandic Phallological Museum, were we looked at preserved penises of all types of animals and even a human one. They had lots of interesting artwork and knick-knacks all within the same general theme.
Once we'd had our fill of penises we headed back toward the Old Harbor district to hit the Saga Museum. Along the way we stopped at The Nordic Store where I found a Icelandic wool sweater I liked and that wasn't too expensive. We pressed on through snow flurries and finally reached the Saga museum which consisted of a short series of dioramas inhabited with creepily life-like mannequins depicting the somewhat brutal history of Icelandic settlement. Kat listened to the audio tour while I took some dimly lit pics. At the end of the exhibit they had a dress-area with a couple of cheerful stuffed characters as scene setters. I got a pic of Kat wearing a big helmet and wielding a spear twice her size.
After our saga was complete I was feeling a bit peckish and we both wanted to sit with a beer so we went in search of something nearby and preferably not too expensive. Most of the fancy restaurants on the harbor were quite spendy, but we found a decent fish and chips place not very far from Ramen Momo. The fried fish and beer were just what I needed. Kat wasn't as hungry as I was so she just shared some of my fries.
Kat did a little research on her phone and located a flea market nearby that sounded interesting so we went to go check it out. We wandered around the market for a bit but resisted the urge to buy anything. There turned out to be some cheaper sweaters in a few of the stalls, but I was still happy with my earlier purchase.
Next we stopped by a grocery store and picked up some peanut butter and jelly with which to make sandwiches for our lunches on our excursion on Sunday, and some hot chocolate mix for later back at the apartment. We headed back to the room and settled in for a relaxing afternoon break with hot chocolate and nature shows on the tv as a storm began blowing outside.
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