Hallgrímskirkja

"Kirk" comes from the same place as the word "church;" Hallgrímskirkja is Hallgrím's Church. It's technically a Lutheran church and you can see the tower from just about anywhere in Reykjavik. The architect, designed it to look like an Icelandic glacier. The acoustics are beautiful, and from the clock tower you can pretty much see all of Reykjavik.

I'm uploading some of these pictures as X-Large, just because I don't think the medium size can really capture what the church felt like.

A lot of Iceland was filled with light that my camera just couldn't capture. Remember how earlier I said the mountains gleamed like Minas Tirith? Standing in this church felt like I was standing in the center of that gleam. My camera just couldn't catch it.

The Baptismal Font

I don't know who this is

Story of the Sweater...

Remember how I mentioned that winter in Italy and Ireland didn't really prepare me for May (freaking May) in Iceland?

(Holy cow, was I really in Italy eleven months ago as of last Friday? I can still remember clear as crystal when I landed in Rome and when we drove out to Orvieto.)

Anyway, before I landed in Reykjavik, my parents told me to get myself a wool sweater while I was there. I thought about it, but those things are expensive! So I told myself I would wait a few days to see if I really needed it before the grand finale experience (which I will get to soon.)

Like I said, the first day with the whale watching and the Golden Circle, I was cold. But it wasn't something I couldn't handle, and I also wasn't wearing my warmest clothes. I'd left my scarf behind (that was dumb) and wasn't wearing my warmest shirt. So I decided I'd see about the volcano.

Well, on the hike out to Thrihnukagigur (still copy-and-pasting) I wore more warm clothes and I was fine. I thought, Okay, I don't need a sweater. Then we got down into the volcano, and... yeah, I decided I needed a sweater. I mean, I was okay inside the volcano, but in an event where I was not moving at all and exposed to wind chill... yeah, I needed a sweater.

So on my day in Reykjavik, I bought a beautiful sweater. Here are some of the ones I looked at:

Love the buttons on this one

Cheap... but not very warm

Snowflakes!

Puffins!!! And a hood! But I didn't really trust the zipper.

They were all very pretty... But here's the one I went with:

That is one of my favorite shades of blue, and it's very warm. I've actually worn it a few times here in Milwaukee because it's getting cold enough now. I wonder if I should wear it to my thesis defense...

Downtown Reykjavik

Title says it all.

That fountain is actually a mineral spring.

The Saga Museum

Sagas are the stories that hold early Icelandic history, including the stories of Eric the Red and Lief Ericson (and, incidentally, his sister Freydis.) The Saga Museum has wax figures of all the stories in the sagas. They don't let you take pictures of the wax figures themselves... but at the very end of the museum, they have a place for dressing up as an Icelandic Viking.

Of course I did!

That chain mail was really heavy!

This is my attempt at a serious face... didn't go very well.

I'm growling, not laughing

Ah, Reykjavik... I miss it. 

The Reykjavik

Why did I say "The Reykjavik"? Well, because I don't really know what else to call it. It was bigger than a town, but when you see fewer cars all day than you see at a single intersection in Wauwatosa, when you can smell mineral springs instead of coffee or gasoline, and when you can stand in downtown and still hear your heart beating (I'm writing this in a library, and it's already too loud for me to hear my heart beating) then it can't be a city.

I think with Americans (and probably Europeans) the word "city" doesn't just imply size, but also content. Cities have certain noises and certain smells that Reykjavik didn't have. Size-wise, it could definitely be classified as a city (not a big city, but still a city) and it certainly had shops, restaurants, tourist traps, and landmarks, but it was really different from any other city I've been to.

Here are some pictures from the previous night and the early morning:

Marta!!!

Thrihnukagigur - The Hike Back

Yes, I know I haven't published in a while. School.

Anyway, here's the last set of pictures from Thrihnukagigur (still copy-and-pasting):

You can't really see it in this picture, but the snow sort of threads through the mountains, almost like embroidery. It was extremely beautiful.