The bus to Akureyri (Isk 4300, one way) left at 8:30. I fell asleep
on the bus nearly instantly, waking up when we stopped at the petrol station
in Borgarnes, where I got a cup of coffee for Isk 120. I fell asleep again
till we got to Hvammstangi, where I was finally able to stay awake to appreciate
Iceland's truly spectacular scenery. steep mountains, with waterfalls coming
down, and pastures and hayfields climbing high, serpentine rivers, and
old farms with tiny churches. In many areas you can see the sea as the
road approaches the edges of a fjord, but for a long time on the road to
Akureyri, we go inland through a long valley. There was a little sun here
and there, and out the window at the bottom of the valley there was what
I guess on a map would be just one river, but which looks like a group
of intertwined rivers.
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| Scene from the Ring Road, near Brú, on the way to Akureyri |
Finally, after a 15-minute break at Varmahlið, a very small town built on the side of a rather substantial hill (Lonely Planet reports that it seems warmer than the surrounding areas because it faces the sun), we got into Akureyri. Akureyri is a town of about 15,000 people, and is the third largest city in Iceland (the second largest is a suburb of Reykjavík). It sits at the end of Eyjafjorður, a 60km long fjord whose mouth is in the Arctic Ocean. Akureyri's main commercial area sits on a small flat area near the harbor, with the rest of the town rising on a steep hill behind it. The scenery is spectacular. A river runs down from the mountains through the town. The architecture is a mix of attractive traditional, attractive modern, and buildings that seem to take their cues from Wal Mart (though they're smaller). There is a 24-hour Shell station on the outskirts of Akureyri, the first such station I had noticed since being in Iceland, though I'm informed they're not particularly unusual.
The bus dropped us off at the tourist office in the middle of town. My bags were heavy and I was worried about walking to the youth hostel, about 2k away, with them. But I got lucky. There was a German girl that the bus picked up near Varmahlið who was asking the bus driver if he knew any inexpensive guesthouses in Akureyri. I said that I was going to the youth hostel, which is only Isk 1500 a night if you're not a member. The bus driver agreed to take us there.
Turns out that Katja, as I later found out this German's name was, and I had the whole hostel to ourselves. And it is in fact a very nice hostel, more cozy than the one in Reykjavik, and with a very nice kitchen, too. Outside there's a deck and a grill, which we probably would have required somewhat warmer weather to use, but it was nice to know it was there. The hostel is surrounded by trees, a relatively rare quality for buildings in Iceland, though not particularly in Akureyri. It is worth noting that contrary to the account given in the Lonely Planet guide to Iceland, the staff of the hostel speak very good English.
About a five minute walk from the hostel, there is a supermarket called Netto. This is supposed to be a discount supermarket, but before we get all excited, we should remember that discount in Iceland is always in relative terms. Here we bought weak Icelandic beer, powdered spaghetti sauce, and pasta. This store does not make it easy to find pasta, so for any who in the future may go there, when you come in the main door, you're in an aisle that heads back toward the dairy section. This aisle is separated by a wall from the rest of the store. If you go through into the main part of the store, go left down the first full aisle (with shelves on both sides), and look on your left. You will find the spaghetti there. The brand with the Cyrillic type on it is the less expensive, and it's pretty good. Do not buy the plums. Do buy the chocolate. Contrary to the Lonely Planet guide, by the way, supermarkets in Akureyri (or at least 3 of them) are open on Sunday.
We brought the groceries back, put the beer in the fridge, and walked downtown. Downtown Akureyri is about 15 minutes walk from the hostel. The weather was cool and pleasant, and the mountains were impressive. Near the football field, we saw a house with a blue roof with the Pepsi logo emblazoned on it. As pervasive as advertising is in the US, it is more so in Iceland. Even the swimming pool in Reykjavík has an advertisement for Ikea on the back wall. Of course, that means that Reykjavík has an Ikea, a virtue Indianapolis lacks, probably to my benefit.
The center of town is compact but pretty. Dominating it is a medium-sized but very distinctively designed church. There is a pedestrian mall, which we investigated for potential places to go out that evening, to little avail, noticing only the Venus strip club, which was unappealing. Equally unappealing was the fact that the cinema was showing Deuce Bigelow, Male Gigolo. We went into a bookshop across from the KEA Hotel, where Katja bought envelopes and I contemplated buying the Icelandic version of Scrabble as a novelty item before noticing the price. The store also sells Gateway computers, which are comparable in price to similar computers in the US.
Katja and I cooked dinner. Both of us were hungrier than we realized, and between the two of us, we managed to finish off a half-kilo of spaghetti and watery reconstituted spaghetti sauce (the instructions were in Swedish, so we were pretty hopeless), then sat around talking and drinking beer. Eventually I looked at my watch, then looked outside. I looked at my watch again: 11:00. It was still light. I knew about the whole midnight sun thing, but it still came as a surprise. I hadn't noticed it the previous night because I went to bed so early. But here it was, 11 at night, and it looked like 7:30 in Indiana.
We decided to explore Akureyri's nightlife. We didn't anticipate much, but we got dressed and wandered down to the town center. We passed a place called Club 13, but looking in the windows, it was deserted. We saw a place on the pedestrian mall that billed itself as an underground club, but there was no indication of activity. Coming down the steps that lead to the church, we saw some young, relatively stylish looking people (I would let the stylish stand unqualified except that one of the women of the group was wearing sneakers with Capri pants. I disapprove of Capri pants altogether as a rule, and with sneakers they're just plain wrong), and we decided to follow them and see where they were headed, but we let them go when it looked like they were entering a residential neighborhood, figuring they were headed to a private party. In front of Venus, two young teenage boys stood, trying to convince the bouncer to let them in.
We finally settled on Kaffi Akureyri, a pleasant but expensive-looking coffeehouse with a bar that seemed to be enjoying a moderate amount of activity. We quickly found a table, but sat there for some time before we realized that we had to order our first drink at the bar. We discovered that waitstaff will help you with subsequent drinks--or at least that's how we think the system worked. It seemed to work for us pretty well, at any rate.
Kaffi Akureyri has the distinction of being the site where I purchased
the most expensive drink of my life, a double Beefeater tonic, which, I
might add, was made with lemon instead of lime, and with flat tonic water.
But I considered the fact that had I bought this drink in Chicago, it would
have cost me $8, plus a dollar for tip, so Isk 870 (which works out to
about $12), didn't seem all that unreasonable (of course, in Chicago I'd've
gotten a lime, and the tonic water wouldn't have been flat. But never mind).
Plus it was potent, which instantly alleviated any worries about expense.
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| Downtown Akureyri |
Kaffi Akureyri has a back room that on weekend nights apparently turns into a disco. The Wyclef Jean/Santana collaboration "Maria Maria," seemed extremely popular, and worth noticing if only because of the fact that more popular was the Grease megamix, to which everyone in Akureyri apparently knows all the words.
Katja excused herself to go to the restroom. A man came up to me and said something in Icelandic.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't speak Icelandic."
"How much for the table?" he asked.
I was now only slightly less confused. "What?"
"I want to buy your table. How much? One beer? Two beers?"
"I have to ask my friend," I said.
"Where is your friend?"
"She's in the restroom."
"Ok, we will wait for her."
Katja came back. "This guy wants to make a deal with us," I said. "He wants to buy our table."
"What?"
"He wants to trade beer for our table."
"How much?" The man was back. "I will buy you two beers, four beers for your table."
"Sure," Katja said. "Two beers."
The man yelled to one of his friends and we were quickly served a pint of Tuborg each, and we vacated the table. Six people sat down, but not for very long. Some apparently well-liked song (I can't remember what it was, but you can be assured it was American) came on, and they were off dancing. One of the men grabbed Katja, who left me with her beer. It wasn't long, however, before the only woman in the party, who had a very good haircut and a rather bridal-looking dress brought me onto the dancefloor as well, then flung me in the arms of one of the men in the party, who swung me around a couple times before releasing me.
When the song was over, they invited us to join them. It turned out the woman in the dress that looked very bridal was in fact a new bride, and several friends of the groom's from Reykjavík had come up to celebrate their wedding. So we were now joining this anonymous couple's wedding party (I think Katja caught their names...I know I didn't. The only two I remember are Bensi and Oddgeir, but neither of them were the bride or the groom). Bensi asked what I thought of Icelandic women, and I remarked that Icelandic women are quite beautiful, which was true. He had been in the United States, in Texas, and was disturbed by the women there. I asked if it was the hair, whereupon I explained to curious link between Southern women and Mane & Tail shampoo. Between this and my explanation of meatloaf to Katja earlier, I don't think I managed to be a very good evangelist of the American way of life this evening.
At some point I sat down and talked to Oddgeir, a pleasant but at least initially somewhat standoffish guy who sat drinking coffee and Cognac. He and I struck up a pretty good rapport, though, and discussed the relative merits of Orlando, Baltimore, New York, and Minneapolis, as he is a pilot for Icelandair, and has spent time in those cities. We also discussed Akureyri, and how no town of Akureyri's size in the US would have as interesting or lively a nightlife as we'd found here. Bensi made fun of me for coming all the way to Iceland and drinking a gin & tonic, and I asked what I should order if I wanted a real Icelandic drink.
"Are you a man?"
"Yes," I said, feeling confident that my affection for straight whiskey and straight vodka was finally going to be good for something.
"Then I will order you Brennivin. You must drink it in one shot, and not drink any beer after for two minutes."
The Brennivin came in a shot glass, clear and cold. I sniffed it, then drank it. As it turns out, I not only have a thing for whiskey and vodka, but had several years earlier become a fan of Danish Akvavit, a clear drink flavored with caraway, to which Brennivin is very similar. I was an instant (and already well-practiced) fan, and needed no chaser. I think Bensi, who expected to be amused by hacking and various contortions, was disappointed.
By this point it was 3:00, and the sun had already set and risen again, having finally gone down around 12:45 or so. The bar closed. Oddgeir gave me his address, so I will have to write soon. While he and I had been talking, Bensi and the man who had bought the table from us had both taken a liking to Katja. As we left, Bensi tried to pull us into Club 13, which was by now packed, but the cover was Isk 500, and it was late, so Katja and I decided to go back to the hostel.
Katja put her arm through mine, and we took the long way, walking through the shipyards in the early Arctic light.