[In July 2013, Kristine and I took the journey of a lifetime to Iceland (Kristine’s choice and not mine.)  Here, now in March 2014 I am beginning to recover from my experience.  What follows are my memories as dictated by my therapist to help in my recuperation.]

I am in a strange land with very strange art.  That is what I was thinking as I strolled the streets of Reykjavik Iceland.  There is a lot of art here.  Not all of it is good.  I was thinking that mostly “not all of it is good” as I looked at five half-filled hospital urine bottles in a glass case.

I’m really not sure what the artist was trying to say here.  I’m not really sure that I want to.

I don’t know if this reflects my Tuesday or not.  Maybe it does.  I have not been feeling good today.  Bad enough that I skipped the snorkeling experience.   Kristine did it and had a great time.  The water was 2 degrees Celsius, that means barely above freezing.  It was quite clear and clean enough to drink. But if you put your finger in it without a protective glove it would shatter into a million fleshy bits.

In order to go into these frigid waters you have to wear a dry suit.  Think Medieval History’s Iron Maiden meets modern dive technology.  It consists of a giant polar undergarment capable of keeping you warm even if you were instantly transported to the moon, followed by the dry suit itself.  If you felt good before you tried putting one of these things on you won’t once you’re done.  You’ll be lucky if you have enough energy to make the dive that you set out to do in the first place.  I liken it to wrestling a giant squid.  Ultimately you end up looking like “Randy” in A Christmas Story.

We also went into a cave.  This is no new experience for me.  I have explored lots of caves.  This one was all volcanic.  Our guide told us that Icelandic criminals would hide out in these caves, and “ I am not lying here” raise generations of kids.  He also told us that they grew blind from the darkness and scales like a lizard to adapt to the cave’s environment….

I wonder if he had something to do with the “pee art?”

Also in the “I am not lying” category, Reykjavik’s most popular restaurant is a hot dog stand.  Don’t ask me the name because the signage is all in Icelandic.  I’m not even sure if they use the same alphabet as us.  Most of the letters are the same and then they throw in a letter that is not sure whether it wants to be an upper case “P” or a lower case “b”.  They are also really fond of the letter “V” and I think they throw it in most words just because they love it so.

But the Hot Dog was quite good.   Actually, it was one of the better parts of my day.  I had the one with everything which consists of grilled onions, normal onions, fancy hot dog mustard and a spicy sweet ketchup.  Throw in a coke and you have a meal!  All for the low price of $600 ISK (Icelandic Kroner) which is about $8 American dollars.  Yeah that is one pricey Hot Dog….

Oh yeah and it will likely rain.

UP NEXT “WET”