Reykjavik

Upon arrival in Reykjavik, plans to move to this city and country began taking root in our hearts and imaginations. 

So clean, so beautiful, so inspiring. 

How can you not love a city that designs their capital buildings to look like the ones below?

Can you spot Ted's face, heading down into its entrance? 

And did you know that the oldest extant parliamentary institution in the world, the Althingi or the "all thing" is in Iceland?

Our first evening in Reykjavik, we stayed in a hostel not really worth mentioning, except for the fact that our room included two free tiny bottles of wine and a game of Othello

That first evening we explored until three in the morning, baffled by the sun's refusal to set.

Smekkleysa, or "bad taste" records in the heart of Reykjavik has been and is the fertile womb for musical expression/experimentationin Iceland (famous for birthing, among many other bands, The Sugarcubes).

 

As mentioned elsewhere, our home while in Reykjavik was the couch at Mr. Birgur Baldursson's apartment. Mr. B (seen in the picture below) possessed an unending supply of facts and figures about his country/Scandinavian cultures in general, which we sopped up greedily. What would start out as a morning conversation with him about myriad random topics would turn into a mid to late afternoon treatise on the differences between Danish and Icelandic or an in depth youtube exploration session. Lovely individual, king of Reykjavik, you Birgur!

Those knitters are fast in Reykjavik!

One evening stroll, after independence day festivities (June 17th), we found the alleyway below. It was probably around midnight or one in the morning and even though the Icelanders had indeed celebrated their independence quite heavily, this late night/early morning romp revealed no trash to be found anywhere on the street. No where. It was amazing to witness, considering the fact that we have come to expect litter as a fact of human existence.

After spending just a few days in Reykjavik, we began to see the same faces and hung out more and more with them. David, the lovely Englishman on the left, owned and ran the amazing coffee shop in the background which we went to most everyday in Reykjavik after we sampled his tea collection and incredible wit and wisdom.

When we returned to Reykjavik after the big ring road adventure, we noticed what we thought were gigantic rasta beanies on the newly installed bookcase shelves. After David called us a bunch of "bloody American ninnies" he explained that these beanies were, in fact, tea cozies.

We uncovered some runic graf in our wanderings about the town.

And some tie stylings

As well as some glitter mountains

and some youths in search of identity/belonging/a photoshoot.

A curious trend we noticed on the streets of any town/major population center in Iceland was leaving babies in their strollers outside of any establishment, while their parents shopped/sipped mochas inside. 

Melissa considered a flat fish.

And we loved this sculpture, located right byall of the government buildings. It was called "faceless bureaucrat." Perfect.

We had to duck into this teahouse many times to decompress/recharge.

Turd Stache!

We saw this guy all around the town...

Circle square Melissa in late nite sun

Our last night in Reykjavik, we stayed at the incredibly beautiful/insanely detail oriented KEX hostel.

Can you spot the Lebowski quote?

This was the common eating area, where we gorged on the pasta and biscuits and various other vittles travellers had left in the free bin.

Kex was like the city museum of hostels, where everything is reused/re-imagined/re-purposed and reinvigorated because of it all.

All of the room numbers were emblazoned upon old pinball backboards, the one below was ours to call home...for a nite at least.

Their library was incredible. It was stuffed with all manner of seemingly everything we care about. Below, Ted was reading up on Mr. Nek Chand.

 Icelandic titles and new cover art for familiar books were fun 

We wandered about it the better part of our last afternoon, finding piggies

And getting immersed in the wall decor. 

Reykjavik was super difficult to leave, especially after spending our last nite in such environs.