Category Travel

Long ago in days of yore, it all began with a god named Thor: The Saga Museum

May 27, 2016 Comments Off read Attractions, Iceland, Travel

Well, a bit after the time of Thor, actually. The Icelandic Sagas are narratives based on the 9th, 10th, and early 11th centuries (essentially the Viking age), about the struggles that early settlers faced in the harsh climate. The Saga Museum has rendered these histories in silicone to give you a visual representation of their great heroes, infamous villains, and everyone’s favorite, the black plague. I took the audio tour, but to be honest, I did not retain much information at all–I was distracted by the couple behind me who started the audio tour something like five minutes after me, which should have kept us a consistent distance apart, but they were up my butt almost immediately and stayed that way for the entire museum. I tried skipping ahead, I tried waiting long after the audio portion of an area had ended to let them pass, but they stuck to me like my backside was giving them oxygen. It was really distracting. If this were a professional travel blog, the writer in question would probably not post about the museum at all so as not to pass along disinformation. This is not a professional travel blog however, so instead I am going to make all the jokes I couldn’t make because of the aforementioned butt-clingers. At least until I get to the really important part. You’ll know it when you see it.

“No, I am not busy at all, please tell me about your band.”

“I swear to god I will do it if you mention politics one more time at this brunch, Marci.”

“Hey did I hear boobs popping out of a shirt? Just checking”

I do remember that this guy’s name is Snorri, and based on that information and also his haircut, I am going to assume that he’s one of the dwarves who stayed home.

“Oooh, I forgot I left the oven on, let’s continue this battle later byeeee”

“No really, I am very interested in your dream journal. I’m not staring off into space, I’m, uh…contemplating the significance. Yeah.”

“Hey I changed my mind I am definitely not a witch, it was just a phase. It was just a phase!”

“This arranged marriage is working out great. Super great. Sure, there was that incident when I found him on AdultVikingFriendFinder but other than that, it’s been really, really, really great.”

“Please tell me more about how hard that level in your video game is. Go on.”

YOUR CAPTION HERE

After the, uh, learning was done, it was time to determine whether or not we were true vikings, a process which involved putting on costumes and flailing around weapons wildly. It’s possible that I didn’t need to make fierce battle screams, but at the same time, I wanted to make it clear that I was in no way struggling with that twenty pound shield so as to better ascertain TRUE VIKING status. I think it’s safe for me to put it on my resume now. TRUE VIKING. But in which section? Accomplishments? School? Hobbies? All of them?

The background for this epic bear fight is pretty lame, though.

Aaah, that’s better.

Give me one of every animal you have: Grillmarkadurinn Reykjavik

May 25, 2016 Comments Off read Iceland, Masticating With Mellzah, Travel

It’s no secret that before I go somewhere that involves a flight, I do exhaustive research. Not because I’m a monster opposed to any and all spontaneity, but because I want to maximize my time. I may also be a monster opposed to any and all spontaneity, but I’ll leave that determination for a therapist. My obsessive planning reduces the chances that I’ll show up on a museum’s doorstep on the one day of the week they’re closed, that I’ll eat dinner at a crummy restaurant when there’s one I would have enjoyed more just down the street. First, if any friends have been to that area, I’ll pump them for personal recommendations. On this trip, my friend Shannon was an invaluable resource–she’s the one who warned me it gets much colder at night and that I needed to invest in some waterproof fleece-lined pants. It’s not her fault that I didn’t wear them…once. I did, however, keep them strapped to my ass the rest of the time, grateful for her suggestion. I also scour travel guides, blogs, and anywhere else that I think their tastes may align with my own–because that’s important, too. I don’t want to get recommendations from the same people in my local facebook community who would wholeheartedly recommend papa murphy’s as the best pizza place in the entire city: just because any pizza is generally pretty good (because it’s pizza), if I want something remarkable, I want a recommendation from someone who has also eaten a lot of pizza and knows what’s remarkable. I don’t want a recommendation from an unbearable douchebag. One place that has always knocked it out of the park for me recommendation-wise are the makeupalley boards, which may seem weird at first, but once you consider that it’s mostly women, generally in my age range, not afraid to try things and share their opinions and it starts to make more sense that I’d use it as a resource. One of the places that came highly recommended was Grillmarkadurinn.

We happened to be in the area around lunchtime, and stopped in. While I couldn’t have been more delighted with my fish and chips and my twenty-three dollar (USD!) fancy-pants drink, a Þórsmörk, the thing I really wanted to try on their menu, they don’t serve at lunch: a horse fillet. Hear me out: in addition to being beautiful and fun to ride and what have you, I have heard that they are also delicious. When I was a horse-crazy kid, I received a lot of books about horses for birthdays and other holidays, and checked out many more from the library in my quest to absorb all things horse. I vividly remember that one of them spoke about a European (French?) ruler (king? general? fancypants aristocrat? This was over twenty years ago, cut me some slack) who loved the taste of horseflesh so much that he would literally bathe in horse broth, eating floating chunks of meat as it pleased him. This is something that made quite an impression on young Mellzah. Not enough to be able to find any evidence of it actually being a thing, no matter how many internet searches I did for the story and for the book in question, probably borking up my amazon recommendations forever and ending up on some kind of list of potential internet weirdos. Be that as it may, whether the story is true or not (probably not), I was bound and determined to try horse if given the opportunity, so I made reservations for dinner at lunch.

When I came back that evening, some of the staff recognized me and gave me a queer look. “Weren’t you just here for lunch?” Yes, yes I was. Don’t judge me, love me.

The restaurant was much more crowded at dinner, so I didn’t feel comfortable whipping out a camera or a phone to take photos of the meal. I’m not one of those bloggers who feels no shame and stands right up on their chair to get that perfect snap, wafting my butt in a neighboring table’s face space so I can make the internet jealous of my meal while it slowly gets cold and less palatable as I arrange and rearrange the table. That will never be me. So help me god, if you’re out with me and I do that, do the right thing and pull the chair out from under me while coldly asking if I had mistaken the establishment for a jungle gym. Be the hero the world deserves.

Ahem. So given that I’d eaten lunch not terribly long before, I elected to split the horse filet with Jason, so I’d have a bit of room left in case I felt the need to try any more weird licorice candy on the way back to the hotel (that is a need that I generally always have in the presence of licorice) and so I’d also have room for puffin and langoustine sliders, another special they don’t serve at lunch. In my post-Iceland research (looking futilely for horse soup bath verification), I learned that most people consider horse to be a leaner, drier meat. I don’t know if Grillmarkadurinn lards their horse fillets (filly-ets), but my meal was juicy, flavorful, and rivaled some of the better steaks I’ve eaten–between this horse steak and the imported A5 kobe I tried (the gold beef standard), I’d actually pick the horse, as A5 is almost unpleasantly rich. I’m not going to start bathing in it, though.

Who would have thought a whale could be so heavy? Whales of Iceland

May 23, 2016 Comments Off read Attractions, Iceland, Travel

It took some doing to find the Whales of Iceland building–it looks like a nondescript warehouse in a street filled with nondescript warehouses. Compounding things, it had some confusing signage on the outside and it didn’t look open. “Nuts to that, I’m cold and I’m going in,” I declared. Thankfully, what could have been my last words before I ended up in Icelandic prison turned out instead to just be yet another bit of complaining before ending up exactly where I meant to be, which is often the case. My most uttered sentence may well be “Where in the hell is–oh, there it is.”

Whales of Iceland has to be in a warehouse-it’s the only sort of building large enough to contain its displays: life size whale replicas. It’s hard to fathom the size of some of Earth’s largest inhabitants, hidden beneath the waves as they are, until you’re standing beside them. It’s still hard to comprehend, even then. At some point, my brain just kind of shuts down in a loop of “That’s really, really, really, really big. Like, really, really, really, really, really big.” Like, rilly.

For example, when I went whale watching, the boat had to maintain a pretty solid distance from the whales (I’m not complaining, I’m just saying), so it was difficult to get a sense of scale. At Whales of Iceland, you can definitely get an idea as to which species you could conceivably ride should you find yourself in the ocean with the power to command whales. You could definitely get an even better idea of rideability if Whales of Iceland would go ahead and fit all the whales with saddles, just saying.

Rideable.

Not rideable.

Rideable, and very amenable to being ridden. A++

Useful as a mount and a weapon.

Rideable.

Not rideable.

The SUV of whale mounts, eminently rideable.

Rideable.

Rideable, the double decker bus of whale mounts.

Rideable, rideable.

Rideable but may turn on you.

Is this joke getting old? It’s getting old. Would still ride, though.

In addition to wandering around, pretending all of the underwater carnage you’d cause as Poseiden, lord of the sea and rider of whales, there is a educational display where you could learn about whale anatomy and physiology–the display itself would change as you learned about different functions, animating or playing video to illustrate the point that was being made. They also have a “swimming with whales” VR experience, though I had to specially ask for it at the cafe. My best guess is that having to check it out makes it less likely that the headset will, uh, walk away with a guest. Each entrance also comes with free coffee or tea, so you can warm up, sit, and contemplate your place in nature.

Or flip through the guestbook, where people have drawn some remarkably detailed whales.

…and vulvas. “Whale eye,” indeed. THAR SHE BLOWS!

Ahem.

Once you’ve absorbed as much whale as you’re physically able, you exit through the gift shop (of course). In addition to the t-shirts, magnets, and keychains, they also sold what I believe can only be described as an orca whale that has been stretched on a torture rack and turned into a whale-shaped whale whip, for all of your whale riding needs. Seriously, guys, make with the saddles. Think of the photo ops!