"very like a whale" hamlet: iii, ii

After the rafting/hiking excursion finished up, we met up with a few people we'd met on the tour -- a Danish couple named Laurids and Jane (pronounced "Yena") and a young American man writing a travel book named Andrew. We had dinner at, of all places, a Mexican restaurant. And I'll be damned if it wasn't some of the best Mexican food I've had since leaving the Southwest!! The family that owns it is from Mexico. This was the best part though: So, many places in Reykjavik stop serving food at like 10pm. The five of us arrived at the restaurant (which had been recommended to us by our tour guide as "really good" and "serves food late") at about 9:50pm, and were told that the kitchen had just closed. Here's where it was awesome: V. made a sad noise and said to the hostess, in his friendly way, "Tell the chef that I came all the way from Juarez just to come here!" (this is close to true -- he grew up in a border town close to Juarez.) She regarded him for a minute and said "Ok, one minute." She disappeared into the kitchen and returned a minute later with some menus and sat us right away. Our new friends were, I think, impressed, as was I!

The next day we met up with our three new friends again to try out this awesome place called "Sushi -- The Train." It was so cool!! Basically, you sit at this long bar, and there is this conveyor belt that comes around the whole bar, and the kitchen sends out little plates with sushi on it, and you pick the ones you want and they just charge you by the plate!



From there we parted ways with Andrew, who had to rush off to his next stop on his schedule, and we headed over to the football stadium. This was my first experience at a European football match. It was Reykjavik's team, Valur, versus neighboring Keflavik. While small in scale, the energy was high. I managed to catch one or two action shots of the game:





We'd chosen to root for Valur, the team in red, since they were the home team. In the end, Valur managed to pull out a tie. All four of us bought some kind of team colors to wear at the match; Laurids and Jane each got a jersey, I got a cap, and V. got a jersey and a cap. After the match we all walked back into town and we went into a shop together. The clerk at the shop kind of looked us up and down and then finally said, "do you mind my asking why you guys are wearing all those Valur shirts?" We told her we'd just been to the game. She shook her head like that was very strange (I get the sense football's not a big draw for tourists in Iceland), and she said "Not even Icelanders wear that much color." Ok, message received. We look like tools.

V. and I went out that night in search of the great Icelandic local music scene that everyone raves about. It was a Saturday night, and we'd heard things don't pick up on Saturdays until about midnight, so we took a little rest and headed out around 11. We ran into a Dutch couple who we knew from the guesthouse we were staying at, and we went with them to try and find this place called NASA, which supposedly is the place to go for live music. So we arrive there only to find that not only is there a foreign DJ there that night but there is also a gagillion kronur cover charge. So that was no good. We ended up hitting a few bars and just hanging out and talking and people watching.

Here's my impression of the nightlife scene in Reykjavik, and bear in mind this is from the perspective of someone who doesn't really go out to bars and clubs all that much anymore, but who used to go out a pretty fair amount in NYC. Reykjavikans seem to thrive on trendiness, dressing up, and getting as pissed drunk as possible. No one's really violent or jerky, but they're all really, really drunk. Most people seem to pre-game pretty heavily because alcohol is prohibitively expensive. Not only that, but there is a line to get into almost every place you might want to go, even if the place isn't totally packed. We walked past one place that - I kid you not - had about 10 people inside, with a line of about 40 outside. It's like if you don't have to wait on line to get in, people don't want to go. Everyone's dressed to the nines, and if you're wearing something that doesn't look "smart" enough to the bouncer, you won't be let in. Some people find that awesome, I find it incredibly boring, and frankly, none of the bars there are awesome enough to warrant that kind of exclusivity. As we were heading home at about 2:30, most places were just heating up, since in general places don't close until about 6 or 7am. There was one place we passed by that had a second-floor balcony that overlooked the street, and the people up there were chucking empty bottles at passerby on the street. Classy! I can see why you'd need to get all dressed up for that.

Our last full day there, we poked around town, hit a small museum that had an exhibit about a volcanic mountain and also one about the Icelandic sagas, and then late that afternoon we were set to head out on a whale watch, along with Laurids and Jane. Now, this was the first day we were there where the weather was not picture perfect. Up until then, it had been sunny and about 65 - 70 degrees, crisp and clean. This day was very drizzly and windy, which I'm told is kind of the default setting in Iceland. So it was less than ideal weather for being on a boat, but we were optimistic.

At the dock, the people getting off the previous whalewatch were all smiles, saying things like "fantastic!" So we felt pretty good about things getting on the boat.

As we pulled out into the harbour, it started to get windier and choppier by the minute. After about 30 minutes, we got out to where they said we may begin to see some whales. Finally, we were told to look over to 11:00 on the boat, as there was a minke whale. I was standing right at 11:00, and I saw a brief flash of a dorsal fin, way too fast to get a picture. Meanwhile about 50 people pressed against me trying to get a look. Then there was supposedly something at 3:00 -- well, no way I was going to get over there, with all the people between me and there. Again at 3:00, and again. Something supposedly at 9:00. I didn't see it. The thing with the minke whales is that, unlike humpback whales, which I've seen on other whale watches, they don't even put their tails up when they make a dive. So you might see their dorsal fin for a second, but then that's it. There's no warning, really, and no big moves. The whales were all business on this day; no jumping or hanging out at the surface. This wouldn't have been so bad, but the tour guide kept trying to tell us how great these sightings were. "What an amazing sighting!" she'd cry after a brief flash of a fin. "Spectacular! We've seen four minke whales already!!" Lady, don't tell me what's spectacular. I'll be the judge of that.

Meanwhile, the wind and swells were really picking up, and I was trying my best to snap pictures of the whale fins I did see.







That last one I actually lost my footing and ended up with a picture of my jacket.

So I didn't get any pictures of whales, I barely saw any at all. Or so I thought, until I was going through my photos today (click on the photo to see it bigger):



So, there it is. I saw a whale.

This post is getting quite long, so the rest of the trip will be continued in another post.