reykjavik roam

We're going on a full-island tour of Iceland. Every night we stay in a different city; every day we have an 8-9 hour driving and sightseeing tour.

Today was the exception. We landed at Keflavik Airport at 9 am and spent the day blobbing around Reykjavik on foot. Our hotel is a few minutes' walk from downtown, so we're ideally situated for roaming. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," R said before I left. Freestyle blobbing around is definitely something he wouldn't do. He would ask, where are we going and what are we going to do there? And critically weigh the merits of leaving his room. We just casually flipped through a tour guide, noted some places that sounded cool, and headed out to see what we could see.

What we saw was a charming and very walkable city with tourist shops and restaurants on every corner. A patchwork of sleek modern architecture, all glass and geometry, mixed with colorful classic design. (We passed a mauve house next to a lime-and-chartreuse house - not out of place in the slightest. HOAs across America would throw a fit.) Little playgrounds around every corner. Cool sea breezes and sudden sunshowers. A surprising amount of graffiti.

Also, food! Iceland is known for its seafood and its lamb. There's a highly-rated local dish of fermented shark, although Mom thinks that one sounds sus. Anyway, we went to the Reykjavik Fish Restaurant for lunch. I had fish and chips (excellent). Mom had plokkari, a traditional fish-and-potato stew served with rye bread; I sampled some and it was quite nice. Then for dinner we went to a restaurant advertising "the best soup in town." They serve it in huge bread bowls and it's heavily spiced with cumin. tbh Icelandic food is 3-for-3 so far.

As we were walking, we heard a great hubbub. We looked up the street and saw a procession of people hollering and chanting. My American instinct was to think they were protestors and we should steer clear in case of violence. NO. IT WAS A FOOTBALL CLUB. They were all drinking and laughing uproariously and burst into song as they walked by.