After walking up to Hallgrimskirkja and taking a wholly unnecessary circuit around town, I ended up back on the main shopping street, Laugavegur. The name literally means "Wash Street", and refers to its origins as a path that led to hot springs where the women would take laundry to be washed. (Incidentally, the Icelandic word for Saturday, Laugardagur, is a related word -- "Wash Day".)
It was still a bit early so I stopped at the 10-11 -- basically a 7-11, but in Iceland -- to get some fruit and a diet coke for "breakfast". (By the way, diet coke is branded as "Coke Light" here.) After my makeshift breakfast, I walked down two blocks, past the Chinese embassy, to check out the view from shore.
 |
| This is nice. |
 |
| Not ugly. |
 |
| Very, very not ugly. |
I say I was a bit early because I was waiting for the 10 am opening of the Icelandic Phallological Museum. What credibility would I have as a visitor of unusual tourist attractions if I were to be in Reykjavik and not visit a penis museum? None at all. So I paid my 3,500 kronur (which, I kid you not, was placed by the cashier in a hinged wooden penis-shaped box) and stepped through to see what was on display.
I have no pictures, and very few words, to describe what was inside. The owner, who was not on the premises, is clearly obsessed with this particular anatomical feature. His goal is to collect samples from every species that lives in Iceland -- including the human. And they do indeed, have a human specimen, although the museum mostly consists of items from whales and other sea-dwelling creatures. The Folklore section includes a sample from an elf -- elves, you may recall, are indigenous to Iceland, and invisible to humans.
Is it really worth travelling all the way to Iceland for this? No -- but they have a gift shop. And I did buy a few items as gifts. All of the items are gifts for other people, but there is a meta-gift for myself. And that is the knowledge of the reaction that the TSA baggage screeners will have when they look at my luggage and see four penis-shaped objects... on key rings. I'm sure they've seen worse, but I think of this as my petty revenge for the shoe incident at Newark.
Anyhow, since it had been, at this point, about twenty-seven hours since I had last slept, I decided to take the advice of the very next advertisement I encountered.
 |
| Yeah, let's fly to Akureyri! |
Admittedly, I lucked out; this could have gone much more poorly. I guess I'll just have to be thankful, and end my post with a sincere...
 |
| This one is going next to the Maryland "Allelua" plate in my vanity plate photo collection. |
