|
| View of Akureyri from the harbor |
I hadn't really had that much to drink Saturday night, so I woke up hangover free at about noon on Sunday. It was slightly overcast, but I didn't anticipate that I'd have another time to take pictures of Akureyri, so I decided to head on out. Katja was already up and doing laundry. We decided to do something together in the afternoon, and I went out, planning to be back in an hour or so.
It really would be hard to ask for a better location than Akureyri has. Snowcapped mountains dominate the landscape, but the weather is mild, and it's frequently warmer than Reykjavík in winter, despite its proximity to the Arctic Circle. My reading tells me that Akureyri is known for its remarkable microclimate, which allows even plants from Tanzania to survive in its botanical gardens. At this time of year, the botanical gardens were unimpressive, since it was still early spring and the leaves were only just starting to come out, but the weather was pleasant, and I went out without a jacket. Daffodils and other early spring flowers bloomed in some yards.
One of the frustrating things about Iceland if you're a tourist and you're trying to take pictures is that the light is weird. Iceland's landscape is dramatic. When the island was formed through a long series of volcanic eruptions millions of years ago, it was a high volcanic plateau. When the Ice Age came along, massive glaciers carved out the deep valleys and fjords that are common features of Iceland's landscape. This explains the most peculiar facet of Iceland's landscape that I noticed: there are mountains everywhere, but they all look like they're exactly the same height. Iceland has few trees (though the government is working on that), lots of waterfalls, lots of rivers, and deep blue water. But to be in Iceland is quite a bit different from seeing pictures of it, because the light is weird. Somehow sunlight seems thinner, less intense, here than say, in Indiana, or Mexico. Or the Sahara, with which Iceland shares more in common than you might think.
The fact that rather few Icelandic days are like the days featured on postcards from Iceland exacerbates the weirdness of the light. And weird light leads to weird photographs--pictures that convey the features of the landscape without conveying the drama--so you know even as you're taking pictures of the bubbling pits of sulfuric mud or downtown Akureyri or funny-looking rocks or massive mountains and rushing rivers that when you pick up the pictures, all 200 of them, at Wal-Mart, the ones that you're going to get developed with one-hour processing because the anticipation is making your skin prickle, you'll be disappointed because the light's funny. Or maybe it's just that photography somehow diminishes the power of the landscape, because it muffles the waterfalls, deodorizes the sulfur, shrinks the mountains, and makes the isolation somehow closer, less desolate, more mundane.
I knew all this as I wandered through the shipyards, trying to capture the contrast between huge fishing boats dwarfed by the walls of the other side of the fjord, between the clean, cobblestoned downtown and the no-man's-land within sight–-and walking distance, but I took the pictures anyway, out of a sense of duty and of hope that maybe the pictures would be Ansel Adams masterpieces after all.
Katja was done with her laundry by the time I came back, and we decided to check out the swimming pool. Now, if you will recall, downtown Akureyri is on a flat strip of land on the edge of Eyjafjorður. If you do not recall this, you have obviously not been paying attention to the previous paragraphs waxing philosophical about the Icelandic landscape and photography, and I do not blame you for skipping it. But I think it's an important point to make, because if you're picking a destination based solely on what the pictures of it look like, you probably wouldn't bother with Iceland. But you should.
But as I was, saying, so there's this flat strip of land, but most of Akureyri rises up on a steep bluff above the water. This bluff, as it turns out, is the location of the best swimming pool in the world. My impression may be due in part to the fact that the bluff really is steep, so when you finally get to the pool after climbing and climbing, having a conversation about how Der Spiegel, which Katja had been reading while doing her laundry, had an article about how Stone Age men were lazy bums and just hung out in the caves while the women went out and hunted and gathered, interrupted occasionally by complaints by both parties about how long a climb it is and inquiries about whether Brendan had read the map right, the pool seems that much better for the effort you've expended getting there.
Icelandic pools use little chlorine, so they have very strict regulations regarding showering before getting into the pool. If communal showers make you uncomfortable, I suggest you get over it before going to a pool in Iceland, because signs in the pools specify that you must shower without your swimsuit, and they have monitors to enforce it. One of the things I noticed is that while men and women alike pay more attention to grooming and looks than they would in the United States, there seem not to be the same body image issues there are in the U.S. I felt out of place because I was wearing swimming trunks rather than Speedos, which the great majority of Icelandic men, regardless of age or physique, wear.
I showered, put on my swimsuit, and went outside, where I waited in a hot tub for Katja. To my left was a large lap pool, with another for less serious swimmers straight ahead of me. Across from that was a sauna, with two more hot tubs in front of it. Next to that was a shallow lagoon with two waterslides. Once Katja came out, we headed there immediately.
I soon discovered that my watersliding days may be limited. Or maybe
I'm just incompetent, but whatever your interpretation, Katja sped down
the waterslide, while I had proceeded only a few meters before I slid to
a stop, and it was only a couple seconds after that that a small child
crashed into my back. I pushed myself with my hands, inching my way down
the corkscrew slide while a no doubt very impatient young boy pressed his
feet into my kidneys. I finally exited the slide with an ungraceful splash.
Katja laughed at me. I assume the kids thought I was an idiot, because
I would have thought the same at their age.
 |
| Akureyri from across the fjord. |
Katja and I lounged in the water for a while, until she decided she wanted to slide again. I decided to take a pass, but after seeing her speed down again, I decided to give it another shot, and after a couple tries (this time, thankfully, without impatient kids at my back), I managed to come down the slide at a respectable, if not luge-worthy, speed.
After getting dressed, Katja and I went downtown for dinner, to what may be the best bargain in Iceland, a restaurant called Bautinn. Dinners, in my case a 100g lamb chop with a Cognac and pepper sauce with a small side salad and perfectly boiled potatoes, include a generous bowl of soup (soup of the day when we were there, Cognac & mushroom), and unlimited trips to the salad bar. If you're in Akureyri, go here. You won't find a better deal.
There's not a lot to do on a Sunday night in Akureyri, so Katja and I walked back to the hostel, settled in on the couch (did I mention the hostel has leather couches?), and watched To Die For starring Nicole Kidman, with Icelandic subtitles, before going to bed. It looked like this was it for our brief travels together: Katja planned to get a bus to Mývatn the next day, while I planned to take a ferry to Grimsey so I could cross the Arctic Circle. We exchanged contact information, wished each other well, and went to bed.