The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny with a light breeze. Somehow
I had forgotten what a masochistic walk it is to the Kringlan shopping
mall and I decided that as beautiful as the day was, I might as well walk
there, since it had the only post office open on Saturdays and I needed
to send my postcards.
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| Alþing, Iceland's parliament building. The Salvation Army is about a block away. |
Predictably, the walk was grueling, but I got my postcards sent, got some food at the grocery store, and successfully fended off some people who were selling little fuzzy balls with eyes for some charity, and I'm sure it was a wonderful charity and I'm sure they could have told me about it in English but I had just walked from Hallgrímskirkja to Kringlan, and I wasn't in the mood. (I have since been informed that this is a fundraiser for an addiction-recovery organization.)
You know, I said on the first day the Reykjavík isn't one of the world's most beautiful cities, and I guess I stand by that, but it really is a remarkable one. Public transportation is frequent and convenient (it's amazing how a city one-fifth the size of Indianapolis in a country one-third the size of Indianapolis supports a bus system that covers more ground and runs three times more frequently than the one in my own fair city. Public art is an Icelandic hallmark, appearing all over the city but also on remote sections of highway. The city center is relatively walkable--and even though Kringlan is a long walk, there are sidewalks the whole way, so I never felt endangered by traffic. There are carryout Thai restaurants, which Indianapolis still lacks. Going home was going to be a major disappointment.
It was 4 or 5 when I made it back to the Salvation Army. After two nights sleeping there, I finally met my roommates. One was Patrick Murphy, an Irish expat living in Australia who'd just arrived in Iceland from South Africa. Robin was an American Bohemian from upstate New York stopping in Iceland for a couple days before heading on to Scotland.
We sat in the room and talked for a while. None of us were eating out tonight. I finished off my bag of Cool American Doritos and ate a chocolate bar. Patrick broke out a bottle of South African wine and duty free rum so we could spend a little less out at the bars.
We headed for the Dubliner again. I stayed out of the way as Patrick attempted to elicit some interest from the woman sitting next to him. Robin and I argued about whether it's important to vote (I believe it is; Robin disagreed). Robin eventually wandered off, and Patrick and I decided to go over to the Victor.
If it had been packed the previous night it was doubly so tonight. After
standing around for a while downstairs, Patrick and I headed upstairs and
stood near the stairwell, peoplewatching. As Patrick struck up a conversation
with someone near him, a woman started dancing with me. (Guess what song
it was! Yellow Submarine? No! The Greatest Love of All? No! Ice, Ice, Baby?
No! Maria, Maria? Yes!) As we were dancing, at one point my finger accidentally
clipped her nose, which she requested I kiss to make it better. I agreed
amiably enough, but contemplated later that it would probably be a good
idea to be more judicious about how I respond to flirtation.
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| Street scene in Reykjavík, Hallgrímskirkja in the background. |
The song ended. "Thank you for dancing with me," she said. And then came the forward question that had me wishing for Miss Manners again: "Would you like to buy me a drink?"
I didn't know how to refuse politely--the question itself struck me as rude--so I just smiled and shook my head.
"Fuck you!" she said, and disappeared.
"Not doing so good in love tonight, are you?" Patrick said, laughing.
I shrugged.
After a little while longer, the bar was getting ludicrously crowded. I never realized I could get claustrophobic, but I had to get out.
"I'm going to go out to get some air," I told Patrick. He nodded, and that was the last I saw of him that night. When I got outside I immediately saw I wasn't getting back in. The line was down the block.
I decided to go back to 22. It, too was crowded, but far more tolerable than the Victor. I stood downstairs drinking a beer. The guy next to me raised his glass. "Skál," he said. "Skál," I replied, raising mine.
"You do know you're in a gay bar, right?" he asked, as soon as he learned I wasn't Icelandic. "I mean at least it's known as one. I'm not gay and most people here aren't."
I had noticed that. He introduced me to his friend K, who, had I not known she was Icelandic, I would have been very certain was English, and it turns out that she had studied at Cambridge. She was engaged in an intimate conversation with her ex-boyfriend via cell phone text messaging. She reported he was in another bar, presumably mirroring the same bizarre situation I now found myself in.
She and I hit it off pretty quickly though. We went upstairs to dance, but I couldn't stay up there for long. It was even more crowded than the Victor. This was unfortunate, because the music here was fantastic. Back downstairs, K made fun of my shirt, telling me I'd never pass for an Icelander in it. This, sadly, is one of my favorite shirts, a burgundy oxford with a subtle grey plaid pattern.
"It looks like the ones they wear at McDonalds," K told me. "Except I think the ones they wear there are blue."
"Ok, so let me see. What do I have to do to be mistaken for an Icelander?" I asked. "I can't wear this shirt--and in fact I shouldn't wear any colors at all, just black."
K and her friend Sigurbjörg agreed with my assessment so far, as they were wearing nothing but black.
"And I need to carry a brightly colored cell phone, and I need to use my credit card to pay for absolutely everything."
"Now we are rebels against that," K said, punching another message to her ex-boyfriend into her cell phone. "We use cash."
It was getting late, about 4 again, and K offered to take me on a walking tour of central Reykjavík. We didn't cover any ground I hadn't seen before, but she was good company. She walked me back to the Salvation Army, and the same desk clerk who'd let me stumble in the night before got the pleasure of doing so again.