I woke up in the morning with two phone calls – the first from my dad at some early hour asking if I was ready for breakfast (I declined and went back to bed), then later saying that the Hertz car guy was there to pick us up (I directed him to my parents and went back to bed).

After eventual brekkie and re-packing we packed into the car and went back into center city. I picked up a slew of yarn for full-on cheap and we hit the settlement museum. It’s way high tech with table-top touch screen computers with ghostly figures wandering through old longhouses and clobbering seabirds (really).

It was culture day (which explained the fireworks) and there was a marathon going on. Cars got stuck at the crossroads where the runners were crossing and had to either wait or do u-turns.

We bought some burgers from a grill set up on the sidewalk and started the drive up to Hellissandur. Some wrong turns, weaving roads and roller-coaster hills led to landscapes that I can only call “Colorado plus ocean.” Stark, yes; desolate, yes; charming, oh, you betcha.

The roads can be tricky – animals aren’t shy about, well, sitting smack dab in the middle. We nearly smacked into three sheep who decided that it would be very good, thank you, to pass right in front of our car.

Then there’s a stretch of road – with a warning sign, mind you – on which arctic terns like to chill. Their nests must be nearby and they must really enjoy the feel of concrete beneath their little toes, because they gravitate towards that road like it’s their job. And they’re not so good at getting out of the way of cars, unfortunately.

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Finally we arrived at one of the tinier towns you’ve ever seen. Hellissandur, and its neighboring town Rif, containing a whopping 580 people. Total. There’s one hotel in Hellissandur which contains the one restaurant. We were checked in at the desk by a woman with a buzz cut save a tuft of hair fountaining out the back.

We walked along the beach, though some fields for a while before returning back to our sparse rooms.

Drinks and dinner in The Restaurant, where the gentleman serving us was charming, and they played the same song over and over again. One song. “My Way.” Played poorly on the piano. Over and over and over. It was impossible to tune out and made us laugh (with some hysteria) every time it re-started.

Now I’m in my room, watching the sun setting slowly over the sea (at 9:30pm) and watching “The Matchmaker” on TV (there are a whopping four channels and no paid movies).

For the record, in this tiny little Podunk town in Iceland I get full cell phone reception. No wireless internet here, though. Pah.

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I’m in my room and exhausted, and watching some bizarre British show in which women complain about things. Shopping with their teenage daughters, coffee shops, “Saturday girls”¹… I don’t get it but I love it. Now they’re talking about muffins and the fact that they’re huge. Damn you, muffins! Kids these days! You get off my lawn!

Brekkie at a pub where they played jazz and Bob Marley. We wandered up the main shopping street (you know it’s the main shopping street because it has a sign that says “main shopping street”), all of us jet-lagged and tired, and just staring dazedly at all the clothing stores. It’s almost all clothing stores.

I managed to find a few yarn shops, which pleased me more than a little bit, but didn’t find much else.

Oh! These women like gardening! This show is completely delightful.

We hit the National Museum of Iceland and scoured around for information about Aud the Deep Minded (which, by the way, is why we’re here). Didn’t learn much new, outside of that I pronounce her name so wrong that the museum worker didn’t know who I was talking about. She said it slowly, and there was a “th” sound and a rolling r in there that I just couldn’t quite make happen. There was spit involved. On my part. Accidentally. I am totally classy.

Now. The guidebooks had implied that the electrical outlets here were the same as those in the UK. For the record, this is a big fat lie. They’ve got two round pins. So, when dad’s camera battery died we trolled the shops for an electricity converter. Not finding one we went back to the hotel where I checked the converters I’d brought. The good news was that I had one with the two pins! The bad news is that their outlets are circular and recessed, and my adapter was rectangular and, um, not good for recession. The good news is that they had a converter at the front desk that we could use. The bad news is that we can’t take it with us. Which is also good as it weighs about 20 pounds. Which isn’t much of an exaggeration.

Plowing through a buffet dinner (YES GOOD BLUE CHEESE), I went to the pool and sauna², and now I’m spacing out. Tomorrow we head out to… Snufflesburg³.

Nothing too exciting.

¹ A young girl who works in a clothing shop only on Saturdays who traditionally knows nothing about the store in which they work. And doesn’t care to know. And hates you.
² While I was lounging in the hot tub (ish? Thing? It was a shallow rectangular pool with jets on the long sides) watching wrestling on tv (it’s what was on) the pool… guy? watcher-over-er? came by and warned me to watch the steps as some drunk young men had broken the tile. How you would break a tile in a hot tub is beyond me, but we both agreed that boys and alcohol don’t mix. And then he turned on Charmed for me.
³ Snæfellsness.

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