Icelandic Cultural Day

Our second day in Reykjavik started off with hanging out at Te og Kaffi for a macchiato and morning chat. We then took a walk along the water to go admire the Sun Voyager sculpture. We ended up meeting a friendly Canadian who has been camping around Europe for the past three months. We talked about traveling - where she went, and what our plans were. It was pretty crazy that she was literally just wrapping up her 3-month trip as we are just starting ours.

Walking along the water

Sun Voyager sculpture

Adam, voyaging into the nonexistent sun

After parting ways, it was now lunch time, and we knew exactly what we needed to have - HOT DOGS. Icelanders love hot dogs, so we went to the most popular spot in the country Europe: Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur. Needless to say, we were not disappointed! These hot dogs are dressed with raw onions, fried onions, ketchup, mustard and remoulade. They were simply divine.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur stand

SO DELICIOUS

We took our lunch to a nearby square to enjoy. While there, we noticed a tea-party set up, which seemed a little weird. Soon enough, people dressed from the 1700s started slowly walking out and sat around this table. It got increasingly bizarre, especially because none of them were saying anything. Instead they all just sat around making eyes at each other while music was playing in the background. At some points someone would stand up, and pretend to drink a cup of tea or wine, but then they sat back down. We had no idea what it was about, but it was interesting to watch for a bit.

Weirdest tea party I've ever seen...

Once it got old just watching people stare at each other, we went to the Culture House, which was very cool! The Culture House is a collaboration the National Museum of Iceland, National Gallery of Iceland, and the Natural History Museum. The house had a "Points of View" exhibit which displayed many historical artifacts and works of art that represented Iceland's cultural history. It was very well put together, and the building itself was very charming!

The Culture House

A Great Auk - a bird that went extinct throughout European settlement in Iceland. Only about 80 Great Auk skins and 75 eggs remain in the world.

Next, we walked across the street to a unique bar called Mikkeller & Friends to grab a beer. The place was super cozy and had lots of cool artwork throughout the restaurant/bar! I'm gonna be honest though, beer in Iceland is very expensive (like $9.25 per glass). Well...everything in Iceland is expensive, and beer is no exception!

Glass of a persimmon saison

Since we had more energy today, we went back to Hallgrímskirkja to go up to the bell tower to get a 360 degree view of Reykjavik. It was very pretty! Not only were we able to get a view of the entire city, but we were also able to see some more mountains and other beautiful parts of the country (from a distance of course).

The rest of the evening has been spent planning out our next couple days, doing a little bit more walking, and enjoying a hot bowl of Thai-inspired noodle soup for dinner!

-Alyssa