[[2023-06-01 - Flight and First Day in Iceland|<- previous day]] Okay it was more than a "Night's Sleep". I was up and down for 12 hours. Next door neighbor hammering away at 4am. The washing machine finishing it's cycle and hanging clothes to dry. Messaging friends in the middle of the bright night. ![[_DSF3018.jpg]] (Midnight in Reykjavík summer - Fujifilm X-T5 8-16mm f2.8 - it was hard to nail focus through the foggy glass) I finally got up around 5am and had a shower. I found that despite the 90%+ humidity outside, most of my clothes had dried overnight. Now to plot my journey to a phone service location to buy a SIM card. My sources online said that you could just buy a SIM card at a gas station, but for the 2 i walked to yesterday, they seemed unmanned and had no attached convenience store. The map online shows that many of the local 10-11 chain closed down in the last couple of years. My destination is almost 2 miles away, and as it's still early isn't even open yet. More of a problem is that the local transit system requires a phone number to use their various apps, and refuses to talk to my Internet phone number and I refuse to pay T-Mobile's outrageous roaming fees. So I may just end up walking the whole way. There is a nearby bus station, so maybe I'll stop in there first to see if I can buy a monthly pass. # The Ride On my way out i remembered the Hopp scooters I've seen around and decided to download the app on wifi. There was a scooter i found around the corner, but it was just out of wifi range. Thankfully, the app let me type in the scooter number manually, so i ran back into wifi range, activated the scooter and ran back. ![[IMG_20230602_084553.jpg]] (OnePlus 7T) On the way i paused at Hallgrímskirkja, it's such an odd brutalist thing. I mean that in the best way. Will definitely need to come back for a proper capture. The constant overcast 24hr/7dow sun thing makes getting interesting photos very difficult. ![[_DSF3023.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm) I got 2 miles away, with a lot of uphill riding, before my scooter conked out - luckily just a few meters from the Siminn store! Perfect timing, since i wasn't going to be able to stop the ride myself from the app until my SIM card activated. The staff was very nice and helpful. Their app is not ideal, particularly the "English" version, where maybe 80% is translated and the person helping me just shook their head at. Neither of us were impressed. There's text at the top of the page trying you too do things that don't make sense. Minutes hard coded into my SIM card were not properly displayed. But the SIM card activated basically instantly, no finagling with my phone to get it registered on the network or anything. From there i decided to go to one of the camera stores i had on my list. The couple that owns the place were adorable and also operate a little photography museum in the far north of Iceland. They have been in business since 1980. I spent quite a while in there, they gave me a nice paper map of Reykjavík, bus directions to up north, and recommendations for private tour guides and where to buy a compass. They also told me horrific stories of people getting lost in the wilderness and how a month ago a bus ran off the road due to an sudden snowstorm that killed visibility and created slippery conditions. These kind of sudden weather shifts are apparently very common in Iceland. This is the reason I changed my plan from a long range solo hike across Iceland. I asked what the Icelandic word for "thank you" is and was told /tak/. Google translate spells it "takk" - a clear cognate to "thanks" which Wiktionary supports but adds that this particular version came via Danish, while the direct old Norse word became "þökk" in icelandic where it is generally only used as a noun. ![[IMG_20230602_153043.jpg]] (OnePlus 7T - Handwritten note with directions i received from Inga `/inca/` - the wife of the pair that owns the store - at one point she said "i am the wife and he is the husband" and looked at him lovingly as he walked by, it was so cute i could have died on the spot) I decided to walk a bit and i picked the wrong direction because i soon find myself in an industrial park near a shipping port. ![[_DSF3029.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm) Near the end of the public road i found another scooter hidden under an overhang by a little building. Sorry that i probably took some dockworker's ride to lunch! I headed to the store i had been pointed to for a compass - which was in an alarmingly suburban-American-looking commercial park that would have been a nightmare to navigate on foot. While the scooters don't have the best turn radius (to improve stability i bet) they're fast enough to drive in the little streets and parking lots in such an area since cars in Iceland generally drive rather slow anyway. I explored the little 2 level outdoor store and found some compasses under glass at the counter. They only had one brand and maybe half a dozen options. Still it was enough and i picked a midrange one after looking up the manufacturer. It took a while to make the purchase because an older guy came in and was bugging the young clerk about fondling various Leatherman tools. Eventually he left without buying anything. ![[_DSF3066.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm - taken much later after i got back to my Reykjavík home) I was starting to feel pretty bad from how long it had been since my leftover pizza breakfast around 5am this morning so I looked up places nearby. I realized I hadn't actually stopped the scooter ride in the app, only paused it - so it reserved my scooter but charged me a lesser fee. This due to a minor dark pattern that makes the pause button more prominent and color coded to stop then the actual stop button. If i remember I'll upload a screenshot of it later. The first restaurant i attempted turned out to be one of those Hilton hotel restaurants - which i swore off after a Chicago photography excursion last winter where i had layers of non ideal experiences with them from non-posted closures, mediocre and limited options, and generally overpriced. Then i tried a place on the corner, which according to an online menu should have food, but the menu on the wall inside only had smoothies. I didn't feel like figuring it out and i remembered passing a Vietnamese restaurant earlier. I'm on a mission to try Vietnamese in every city i visit so this worked out well. Their menu was in a smattering of at least 4 languages but not cohesively. Usually no more than 2 languages for any given type of information or menu section. Next door was a Vietnamese store so i knew the food would have fresh ingredients - and they did! Unfortunately, they make a regional variant of pho and spring/summer rolls that I'm just not very fond of personally. However the broth was good, in addition to the overall freshness of everything. ![[_DSF3034.jpg]] ![[_DSF3036.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm) I was feeling tired after lunch, after all, that was around the time i had gone to sleep yesterday. So i found another scooter (after seeing that a bus ride was going to require like 15 minutes of walking anyway) and high tailed it back towards the city center. It wasn't long before i was out of the suburban esque area and was back in a more close knit European style one. So i slowed down from the - probably literal - break neck speed and checked my map. Then i noticed that i was really close to the local goth store, so i went in. It didn't really have much that went with my aesthetic but i did find a pair of black suspenders - something i had wanted to get before my trip - so i purchased those and asked the staff for some recommendations of events. They didn't really tell me anything i didn't already know but they were very nice and helpful. I decided to walk for a bit and left the scooter behind. This let me take in the sights rather than just focus on trying not to die. One of the places recommended to me by the Rokk & Romantik people was a nearby little bar called Dillon. The proprietor(?) was training a new person who seemed nearly frozen with anxiety and he was being very calm and patient with her. He introduced me to their local aperitif [brennivin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenniv%C3%ADn) which is essentially grain alcohol steeped with caraway. > Brennivín (Icelandic pronunciation: ​[ˈprɛnnɪˌviːn]) is considered to be Iceland's signature distilled beverage. It is distilled from fermented grain mash and then combined with Iceland's very soft, high-pH water, and flavored only with caraway. > ... > It is considered to be a type of aquavit and bottled at 40% ABV ![[_DSF3043.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm) They seemed like they had their hands full so I didn't get a chance to try any of their cocktails and instead continued on my meandering path home. It wasn't long before I saw this facade, and although you can't see it in the photo, I could see rows and rows of books through the glass so I decided to stop in and see what was going on. ![[IMG_20230602_145322.jpg]] (OnePlus 7T) Inside was 2 floors of books - mostly in icelandic. Plus a floor full of board games. A full bar. And a stage where there was a musician doing sound check. When the musician powered on the system it had been cranked too loud and produced the most ear shredding feedback scream you've ever heard. Everyone in the building ducked and covered their ears. I heard the (unamplified) sounds of apologies from the stage a moment later. ![[_DSF3052.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm) This was the second place I tried to order a negroni and the second place that was out of vermouth. But the bartender made me something she called a "white negroni" which is pretty amusing if you think about it. I'm not sure what was in it other than that there was gin but no campari (nor vermouth). It wasn't bad! But it wasn't a negroni. > The White Negroni was invented in 2001 by British bartender Wayne Collins at VinExpo, a beverage trade show in Bordeaux, France. He wanted to create a Negroni riff that featured gin but not Campari or sweet vermouth. To replace those two stalwarts, he reached for a couple of French ingredients: Suze, a bittersweet gentian liqueur and Lillet Blanc, a wine-based aperitif. The former plays the role of bittering agent, similar to Campari, while the latter does the work of the vermouth. \- via [Liquor.com](https://www.liquor.com/recipes/white-negroni/) The two drinks had not made me any less tired - surprise! So I continued the trek homeward. I definitely missed my 10 stop ND filter when I realized the Rainbow Road pointed directly at the Hallgrímskirkja. But after a few attempts (and some crude post-editing on my phone) I managed to get a pretty decent capture of it. ![[_DSF3061~2.jpg]] (Fujifilm X-T5 16-135mm) After this my journey home was uneventful and I collapsed in bed after emptying my pockets. ... And woke up just a few hours later. So I headed out to Gaukurinn - where i arrived just before midnight. ![[IMG_20230602_235901.jpg]] They were also out of vermouth! But a bartender there recommended to me Röntgen down the street as having the best negroni in Reykjavík. I came to support the local alt establishment so i stayed and had gin and tonic (Beefeater was their well!) and watched karaoke until close. I missed the Hedwig and the Angry Inch production earlier that night unfortunately, but the performers doing karaoke were incredible. I had a lot of thoughts about what it might be like growing up in Iceland. How very small town it feels in Reykjavík - and i mean that in a good way. It reminded me of places that used to exist and as much as i miss that feeling for myself, it was very nice being somewhere where i could feel that these people had a strong sense of community and comaraderie. Just my first impression and outsider perspective of course, but i saw rather a lot more positivity there than even in the fondest memories of places I've frequented or visited elsewhere. There are a lot of thoughts i had on this but will process them later. When i returned home again i found some food in the cupboard and made a low budget penne carbonara that turned out pretty good. But also reminded me that i will need to stock up on food. At least some protein bars for emergencies. [[2023-06-03 - A Day of Planning|next day ->]]