Where to begin with the day today? We woke in a rather rustic hotel- it’s in a less populated part of Ísafjörðor, where we began as we always seem to with an included breakfast. I know from other travels that having an included breakfast is pretty great. It’s always hard to find a reasonable way to grab food at the start of a day in a place you’re not from. Hotel breakfast is not always the best food, but is is always a huge convenience. It also gave us a second chance to chat with the bird that lives in the hotel’s reception area/bar/restaurant. I only caught a glimpse of him, but we all heard the fella. He said Hello. Hi. I believe I heard him say Wow, and a few people swore they heard him say Shit, though I didn’t witness it for myself. Given that Cas has spent a little bit of time on this trip using an app to identify which bird is nearby by listening to its song, I feel like this is a missed opportunity. I have no idea what breed of bird old HelloHi is. Why not figure that out with your fancy app, huh, Cas? But alas, that ship has sailed.
From there, we drove a while to Ísafjörðor proper. This is a reasonably large city by Icelandic standards. There’s a university here, several shops, multiple restaurants and hotels and about three cruise ships out in the water when you roll into town. The difference in the pedestrian traffic from 1 pm to 4 pm is no joke. The cruise passengers loaded back up, and the whole city became much more pleasant. I am now more convinced than ever that I am not interested in a cruise. It makes you part of a swarm. I’m all set being part of a small tour group and pouring a few dollars into the local economy by eating the food and staying in the hotels.
Also, at dinner last night, we hijacked other travelers’ great ideas. I was pretty distracted as we prepared for this trip, so I didn’t really pick apart the itinerary like I normally may have done, so when we started talking about what to do on a free day, I was a little bit caught off guard. Oh yeah- we have a whole day to dork around in Ísafjörðor. Hmm. What to do?
So, we stole ideas. We went on an e-bike adventure with one of our traveling companions and we had our guide help us make reservations at a spot recommended by another pair of folks on our trip. We copied off of their papers- stole their ideas. Where does coattail riding get you? It gets you on an amazing e-bike tour and eating a fantastic seafood dinner.
The e-bike tour advertised with an invented scarcity. They touted the tour and warned that there were only six spots left Cas booked a spot. I booked one. A fellow traveler booked a spot for herself. Crisis averted- we got three of those six little old spots. Only three remained. Turns out, the maximum number was six in the first place. All totaled, we were half the number they would allow, and it turned out, nobody else threw down the bucks, so we were four all together with the guide. Honestly, that was perfect. The guide was younger- a graduate student at the University here in town- and he was guiding the three of us around. We were all decidedly less young than our guide, and we all felt fully comfortable slowing down a little on the spots where the kid went a little too fast.
The e-bike tour was so very much fun. It was a mountain bike trail with an electronic assist for the steep spaces. I had a few moments where my mind transported back to steep streets in Red Wing, Minnesota, and my first bike that Dad cleaned up and repainted from its original state of disrepair. The fifth birthday was the bicycle birthday when I was growing up, and Dad was always a great repairer and re-purposer of things. My bike was the prettiest and most well-constructed like-new used bike in the neighborhood. I was back there again today, racing down a hill that was just a little too steep to feel 100% safe, and my head was back to my five and six year old self- WHEEEE!
I guess what I am saying is- if an e-bike tour is an option you are considering on a trip, do it. Just take my dang advice. You’re welcome.
The last thing we did today was head to Tjörhúsið. When you have two folks on your tour who researched dinner spots in advance, then your tour director says something and your bike guide makes a recommendation, and all three of those recommendations are the same place, you maybe should make a reservation. Well, we did. And oh my gosh. To quote that bird from breakfast today, “Wow!” The place does a buffet. And they have a big guy come out to explain. The big guy is about the size of my older brother, so if you know Jeff (or remember his photos from our Italy blog), that’s the size I mean. He big.
Anyhow, the big feller told us how the soup was served- he said we should receive it in Dickensian style, which I assume to mean that we walk up with an empty bowl and sad, street urchin eyes, proclaiming Please sir, may I have some more? Which I did most of- I didn’t remember my one line of script in the moment, but I did manage to get some exceptional soup.
He also told us how to move through the line to get as much of the somehow six different things that were the evening’s main course. The big guy said his parents were in the back, cooking up the food, and we could eat as much as we wished until 8:45, when he would throw us all out. Fair enough. We couldn’t eat that whole time, anyhow, but I suspect some folks take that as a personal challenge.
When we wrapped that up, we headed back to the room. We leave here tomorrow and see- you’ll never guess- a waterfall. I know… what are the odds? Okay, okay- I will dispense with the cynicism over natural beauty. It’s just that there are so many waterfalls. They are all spectacular. I am overloaded on them today, but in a week, I will be back in uninspiring Dallas, hoping for a pretty pattern in the soap bubbles when I wash a dish. And so it goes…
But for this evening, sleep well and dream of the little puffins who are likely to say Hello. Hi to us tomorrow- the crafty little birds have evaded us on this trip so far, but hope springs eternal, right? Here’s a great picture that shows how awesome we both look in helmets:
And here are our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.
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