4 Days in Iceland: Priceless

By Guest Noodle: Ryan

As the Noodles have correctly observed, a visit to Iceland is not easy on the wallet. However, lured by tales of natural steam bathes, black sand beaches and copious 6-foot-tall blondes, your Guest Blogger and Honorary Noodle could not pass up the opportunity to meet the Noodles at 65 degrees North latitude. And it was worth every krona.

Fresh from sleepless overnight flights, we met just after 7am at Keflavik airport and boarded the Flybus for the 52-kilometer, 45-minute ride to Reykjavik. We thought we were headed directly for Guesthouse Centrum, our humble abode for the next 4 nights, but found ourselves confused by the abrupt stop at the main bus terminal. Still a bit disoriented and puzzled by the porter's unloading of all baggage except ours, we approached the drivers of several nearby minibuses hoping that they would be our transfer to the guesthouse. In each case, we were told to wait where we stood and the drivers then proceeded to get into their minibuses and drive away without further explanation. Huh?

Undaunted, we managed to walk to the guesthouse and drop off our bags. As we watched other visitors eat the complimentary breakfast, we wondered: Could we join in? No. The guesthouse owner tersely informed us that breakfast on the first day was not included but could be purchased for 600 kronur ($9.50). We passed. Your Guest Blogger, however, makes a habit as he travels of noting what the locals eat for breakfast. In this case, it was ham, pepperoni and cheese, typically placed on toast and eaten as an open-faced sandwich with tomatoes and cucumbers.

We spent the remainder of Day 1 acclimating to the surroundings and exploring the city (somehow "town" or "village" seems more appropriate). One of our main observations about Iceland is that it's empty. Or mostly so. The country has about the same land area as England or the state of Kentucky. But while that subsection of Great Britain is home to 48 million people and the Bluegrass State hosts 4.1 million residents, Iceland's population is less than 300,000. And 180,000 live in Reykjavik or its outskirts.

But what the locals lack in numbers they make up for in style. As we walked down the main shopping street, we were struck by the trendy appearance of the natives. It was difficult to tell whether fashon in Reykjavik was following New York's lead or vice versa. One Noodle even remarked that "there are no uncool-looking teenagers here". There also were no visible bums or college-graduate backpackers in Reykjavik. Presumably neither could afford it.

We kicked into gear on Day 2, first spending three hours in the afternoon cruising several miles off-shore in search of whales. In the end, we did see a couple of Minke whales (see brown dolphin) and quite a few "chubby" web-footed puffins nesting on an island along the way.

Consulting the guidebook, we also learned that Icelanders love swimming and the natural hot springs provide the fuel for numerous public pools. That night, in our next adventure, we visited the largest of these, Laugardalur. Located just steps from the youth hostel, it still managed to retain the flavor of the place the locals go.

Subsidized by the government, a visit to the pool provides one of the least-expensive diversions in town. In the return for the admission fee, 300 kronur ($4.75), we each received a small token designed to unlock the wristband-key to our lockers. Once in the locker room, one of us (who shall remain nameless) had so much trouble with the token/key removal process that he had to seek the assistance of a naked but not particularly shy man who also happened to be the only person we met in the country who didn't speak perfect English.

The pool provided an excellent spot for people-watching and if you're looking for a way to achieve total relaxation after an afternoon (10pm and the sun is still out - that's still afternoon, right) spent whale-watching (and mostly sea-seeing), there really is nothing better than a little hot pot.

Icelanders channel the naturally heated water into jacuzzi-like tubs called "hot pots", which range in temperature from 39 - 45 degrees Celsius. (In Fahrenheit terms: Extremely Hot - Unbearably Scorching.) And by the way, when you exit the locker room for the pool, leave your towel on the shelf rack by the showers.

The Noodles and their honorary visitor parted ways on Day 3 as your Guest Blogger headed off on a guided tour called the South Shore Adventure. During the course of the 10-hour trip, your author's closest traveling companion was a Swedish E-N-T doctor who was in town for a conference and whose name was probably spelled "Per" but was definitely pronounced "Pear". This later produced tremendous amusement among the Noodles.

On the tour, we visited the Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss waterfalls, stood on the edge of the Solheimajokull glacier during a brief but heavy cloudburst and walked on the black sand beaches of Vik. The drive from point to point was a study in geographic contrast as we passed from barren moonscape to grassy sheep-filled flatlands and finally by seaside mountain peaks. In the course of our journey we passed nearly no trees and almost as few people. Outside Reykjavik, the population is sparse, with a 20-40 mile stretch of road separating each 500-person village. Upon stopping in the larger villages, one notices that commerce tends to center on the gas station, which in addition to the typical pumps and mini-mart also often contains a full-scale restaurant in which you can, and your Guest Blogger did, purchase a $10 bowl of mushroom soup.

Reykjavik, popularly known as the "smokeless city" for its total adoption of geothermal heat and power, actually means "Smoky Bay", a name coined in the 9th century to reflect its seaside location among steam-gushing thermal springs. But such sights are less common twelve centuries later in the world's northernmost capital city. So to see a geyser in action, we needed to hit the road.

On Day 4, our last full day in Iceland, we rented a car to pursue an ambitious adventure on our own. With the Soy Noodle in the driver's seat, we headed out on the first leg of the journey -- popularly called the Golden Circle.

Our first stop was Pingvellir National Park, the site of the first Icelandic parliament in the 10th century and where we stood in a crack in the rift valley formed by the separating North American and Eurasian continental plates. Along the way, we stopped at a viewpoint and had a surprising amount of difficulty figuring out the trick in the rental car's automatic transmission to get it from Drive into Reverse or Park. A foreshadowing of things to come?

Next on our agenda was the Geysir thermal springs area, home to the original geyser itself: Geysir - "the Gusher". Unfortunately, the Gusher is today just a staid pool but nearby sits another gurgling unit which, in response to geothermal stimulation, shoots off a 30-meter high spurt every few minutes. We stayed around long enough for a few blasts from this one, which was named, apparently without consideration for cross-border pun, Strokkur.

After hitting the last viewpoint on the Golden Circle, a two-tiered waterfall named Gullfoss, we began to backtrack toward Reykjavik on the way to our final, and not-nearby, stop: The Blue Lagoon. Your Guest Blogger was behind the wheel for this leg of the journey and as we approached the city, he began to notice the OIL light flash on and off periodically on the dashboard. Cause for concern? Well, we had noticed an odd burning smell earlier in the trip so we decided to stop at an Olis gas station to check things out.

That turned out to be a particularly good move given our friendly gas station attendant's highly technical diagnosis of the engine after we had unknowingly driven 228 km with virtually no oil: "I think it is majorly fucked up."

The last person to service the engine had inadvertantly left a cap off and nearly all of the oil in the engine had sloshed out, presumably throughout our trip. The car was no longer drivable, but after about an hour's work interacting with our local rental agency, Berg, we had a replacement Daewoo and were back on the road.

The Blue Lagoon, an artificial hot spring next to a geothermal power plant with its own line of cosmetics and sundries, is almost the definition of a tourist trap. It's a nice setting and we still had a great time, although you'd never find a local there. Where else would people pay 1300 kronur ($20) to smear grainy white paste ("silvery-grey silt," says the guidebook) all over their upper bodies and share a bath with hundreds of other tourists?

We returned to Reykjavik, refreshed by the Lagoon, tired from the day's activities and in time for a hearty meal to close this chapter of the Noodles' journey. Interestingly, Iceland does not follow the typical Western European practice of sitting down to dinner no earlier than 11pm, so we barely beat the 10pm food-service cut-off.

Dining at the trendy-chic Solon, we opened a bottle of Fat Bastard chardonnay and reflected on the trip. In particular, as we looked out on the still brightly day-lit street at 11:30pm, we commented that it had not ever gotten dark during our stay in Iceland. While the sun officially sets at around midnight this time of year, a twilight remains until sunrise at 3am. We took our last $10 beer at a local bar on the main street while the 3 Noodles admired the local DJs mad skillz and the fashionable decor of the bar's other non-Noodle patrons.

Alas we've reached the sunset of the Honorary Noodle's participation in this worldwide journey, so with envy he passes the blog back to the Noodles at the sunrise of their Eurasian excursion.

New pictures!

Old biddies go whale watching in Iceland


Jen in Reykjavik, Iceland


Strokker blows its load - Golden Circle, Iceland


Geothermal waters in Iceland


Iceland's Blue Lagoon + therapuetic sillica mud


More Blue Lagoon


Reykjavik at "sunset" - 1:30am


Ande healthy and happy in Copenhagen


Jen healthy and happy in Copenhagen


Drunk Danish grads in sailor hats


Michael Belivacqua exhibit at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, DK


Art appreciation


Typical beach goer in Swinoujcie, Poland - We hate Swishy!


Jen handles some important business from our hotel phone in Swinoujscie


Old town, Warsaw, Poland


Castle, Krakow, Poland

Denmark & Poland

And we're back... Sorry for the delay. We were waiting for our Guest Noodle to post about Iceland, but apparently he has been held up by work or something like that. But he's promised to deliver a masterpiece in just a few more days.

In the meantime...Copenhagen! While cheaper than Iceland (what isn't?), our budget only allowed for a few precious days in this cutest of Scandinavian cities. We spent our time there walking around the winding streets and oggling all the cute Danish people on their bikes. Their style was awesome - the girls in flippy, tiered skirts and low-slung belts (same as LA), but worn with black leggings without feet. (Have the feetless leggings hit LA yet? Noodles love them.) The boys were not as cute in those uber-Euro long shorts (um, they're capri pants, ok) and sandals. But the real style stars were
"babies as accessories". Everywhere you looked there was another adoreable couple pushing their adoreable baby in an expensive Apple Paltrow Martin stroller. We wished we had Ella Grace and Jill Madison with us to blend in with the crowd. And finally, the inexplicable, but endlessly fascinating Danish fashion statement: the mini-sailor hat. I think we were in Copenhagen the weekend that either high school kids or college kids (you know you're getting old when you can't tell the difference anymore) were graduating. All around the city, at all hours of the day, hordes of drunk kids were riding around in open-sided trucks decorated with tree branches, singing and shouting and blasting air horns. And they all wore small, white sailor hats perched on top of their blond heads (or, in the case of the not insignificant Mulsim Danish population, on top of their head scarf). Snoop Dogg was in town for a show as well and we hoped he'd be wearing a sailor hat too.

We took a day trip from Copenhagen north to a few towns to visit the world famous Louisiana Museum of Modern Kunst (er, Art), and the castle where "Hamlet" was set. The castle was kind of boring, but oh my god, the museum was AMAZING! Set on the grounds of an old Danish estate, the museum's stunning galleries and extensive sculpture garden overlook the narrow causeway separating Denmark and Sweden so, as if the art were not enough, the views are amazing. To give credit where credit is due, we went out of our way to go to the museum on a tip from Jen's Mom who visited the Louisiana 35 years earlier when she was backbacking through Europe, and who still remembers it as one of the highlights of her trip. And as Jen sat on the museum's lawn, next to its famous Henry Moore sculpture, looking out at the blue waters of Scandinavia, and the numerous sailboats in the channel and Sweden in the distance, and thinking about the strange twists and turns of life that lead her to be sitting in exactly the same place her Mom did when she was 29 and looking out at this same view, she looked down at her picnic lunch and realized she was thinking the same thing her Mom did so many years before: Why can't these Europeans embrace the peanut butter? We LOVED the Louisiana and if you are ever nearby, peanut butter or not, you must go.

On our walk back to our way overpriced (and disgusting) youth hostel in Helsingor, we stopped at a middle eastern joint to share a dinner. The friendly man who served us wanted to know if we were American. Our gut reaction was to say we're Canadian, 'from the Okanagen...you know in BC' (shout out to Rebecca), but he had a nice face, so we told him the truth. Turns out he was an Iranian who had immigrated to Denmark and was now living in Irvine. He chatted us up for a bit and then told us that we were eating in his brother's place and that dinner was on him. So nice! So we told him we'd catch him later on the 405 someday and headed back to Copenhagen to catch our Polferrie to Swinoujscie, Poland (Where? Yeah, we know. Trust us, ignorance is bliss on this one.)

So the all-night Polferrie was actually pretty nice. At first we were worried since to catch the Polferrie we had to consult a "fartplan" (the Danish word for timetable...doesn't bode well, does it?), but with a quiet private room and a little Ambien, the trip was a breeze. Swinoujscie (or "Swishy" as we called it because how are you ever supposed to pronounce this word?) was like the Polish Del Boca Vista, or Del Polka Vista, as we ended up calling it. We were by far the youngest people in the town...by about 45 years...and at the end of our enforced 12 hours there (waiting to catch the train to Warsaw), we were ready to kill ourselves. Worst of all, what should have been the real highlight of Swishy, the "Alf Zone", an internet cafe raved about in Let's Go and decorated entirely as an homage to '80s TV icon, Alf, was CLOSED! Permanently! Unfortunately, we didn't discover this until we had walked 3 miles through the Del Polka Vista hood to get to the bolted up "Alf Zone". And just like Swishy to kick us while we're down, after trudging back to our hotel room and submitting to the banality of Polish TV, what should be airing in all his wise-cracking, Polish-dubbed glory? Of course, Alf. Aagh, these pretzels are making me thirsty! Buh-bye, Swishy.

We then moved on to Warsaw en route to Krakow. Warsaw was actually cooler than we'd expected. The old town is well-restored and picturesque, and the more modern commercial district has lots of cool coffee places and decent looking shoping and restaurants. The famous former Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw was much less remarkable to visit than its storied history. The Nazis completely razed the ghetto during the war and although the Poles seem intensely interested in meticulously restoring other historical areas in Warsaw, the Ghetto was allowed to sink into communist, concrete square-building oblivion, so there's really nothing to see except for a few small monuments to the ghetto's former occupants and the ultimately unsuccessful uprising they tried to mount to save their lives there.

Now we're in Krakow. Just arrived but it looks good so far. Castles, fire-breathing dragons, and a town that Let's Go consistently writes is "mostly untouched by the ravages of WWII". Well, at least as far as the buildings are concerned...

More soon.

The Valley, DC, Reykjavik sneak preview

So the Noodles made it home for a matter of hours. We were able to clean ourselves and our belongings, hug mommies, refill our depleted products, and hit the Nordstrom half-yearly sale. Suddenly we were off again with a quick stop-over in DC. We were greeted by the greatest host of all time, Sharon. She fed us and walked us around her cutest neighborhood of Dupont Circle. Jen also made a quick visit to Virginia's cutest baby, Jill Madison. 24 hours later we were on a flight to Iceland. We met our first Guest Noodle, Ryan, at the aiport in Iceland and have offered him the opportunity to be the first Guest Noodle Blogger. His Iceland report is coming soon. In the meantime, the Noodles LOVED Iceland even though it was ridiculously expensive. Sample pricelist:
Use of internet for 1 hour: 9 dollars
Slice of veggie lasagna: 21 dollars
Our 3 person guesthouse room with no bathroom: 180 dollars per night
Corona: 10 dollars
Medium pizza, one topping: 25 dollars
More on Iceland coming soon, right Ryan?

Why does the little camera do all the work?

Here are a few more pics from the baby 2.0 mgp camera, but these are pretty old news. We take all our pictures with the big fancy camera, but then they are impossible to post. Someday. Or maybe you just come to the slide show in September.

On the road in Argentina


The big birthday cake in Salta


Small church in an even smaller town - Argentina


Ande hangs out at the El Amigo


Iguazu Falls


There are no words.



Where is Brazil?

Salvador de Bahia and Praia do Forte

This is the true story...of 45 people picked by God to live in a house...to find out what happens...when the drumming never stops...and people start losing their minds. Real World: Candomblè.

Candomblè is a religion with African origins practiced by some people in Brazil. The practice involves almost daily ceremonies in honor of different gods. During the ceremonies, the practioners, who typically all live together in a compound-like terreiro, do a ritualistic dance to an ear-piercing and constant drumming. Some people´s eyes roll back in their head and they go into a trance (for the Candomblist, this is a good thing...we think). Then they are dressed up in costumes by the people who didn't go into a trance, and the trance people dance around the room according to the direction of the drumming and, on occasions which are entirely mysterious, let out long, deep growling sounds. Sometimes the power of the beat and the trance is so intense that one of the dancers flies out of the dancing circle and right out the front door of the building. Usually they come back, eyes still rolled back and squawking, but this time dancing backward down the center aisle of the room and back into the performing circle. In addition to the performers, the room is filled with spectators sitting on several rows of benches. The ones with pink sunburned skin who paid R$50 to attend the ceremony are generally very confused. Our English speaking guide spoke English words but wasn't all that good at putting them together into a coherent sentence, so unfortunately we missed a lot (ok *all*) of the meaning in the nearly 4 hour ceremony. Still, it was fascinating and if you ask nicely (and promise to give one of us a job when we´re done with all this travel business in September), we will perform our interpretation of a Candomblè ceremony for you. Of course in the spirit of sharing another culture and not ridiculing it (stop shaking your head Jeff Payne).

The rest of our time in Salvador was spent in Pelourinho, which generally refers to the old part of the city built by the Portugese founders (or more precisely, built by the African slaves brought to Brazil by the Portugese founders) on top of a high bluff overlooking the Atlantic ocean on one side and the Bay of All Saints on the other. Pelourinho gets its name from the small square in town that housed the whipping post (called a pelourinho) where disobedient slaves were publicly punished. Pretty gruesome stuff. The entire old city feels haunted by its history and the pastel colored colonial buildings, rotting under the tropical sun and showing the decay of years of abandonment, have a tragic beauty about them.

The nightlife in Salvador is famous and there are many outdoor venues (including the ultimate outdoor venue...a street corner) featuring different kinds of live, Brazilian music where people dance and drink and hit on foreigners and generally have a good time. Paul Simon was inspired by this music when he made "Rhythm of the Saints" and we saw a really cool all girl drum troop performing the style of drumming featured in the first song on that album, "Obvious Child". Then we managed to narrow in on the hippest Salvador scene and catch a forro show (a type of music which the Lonely Planet says Brazilians think of as "rustic" and "for maids and taxi cab drivers") and a guy singing early ´80s American adult contemporary hits while backed by what looked and sounded like a junior high jazz band.

Now we're in Praia do Forte, a small (as in one street) beach town north of Salvador, trying to work on our tans in our last few days in Brazil. Sadly, the weather isn't cooperating and most of our view of Praia do Forte has been from the hammocks on our veranda at our awesome hotel, the Pousada dos Artistas. But we did go to the TAMAR Turtle Experience today, one of the Brazilian government's educational and research facilities set up to protect and study endangered sea turtles, so we feel pretty accomplished.

Oh, and we made friends in Salvador! Smart, cool, normal friends! One Noodle said to the other, "Finally, we've met some cool people in Brazil...people just like us." Uh, Christina and Brandon are way cooler than us. But we've had an awesome time hanging out with them in Pelourinho and now in Praia do Forte and hopefully this shout out on Noodle Talk will get them blogging as well. And maybe they'll even move to L.A., and we can be friends forever, and... Is this moving too fast?

Bye for now...the Iceland cometh soon.