Reykjavik, Day 2

After a very healthy breakfast (green smoothie) we set out for the local library in Seltjarnarnes. It is located right above the grocery store, very practical! It was quite windy, I was very glad to have a good jacket and hat on! The sun came out on the way back, but it was still very windy. We checked the local newspaper, Morgunblaðið just to see if they were reporting on the book presentation. Since the editor-in-chief ran against the current president in the last election, there was no report expected, and none found. 

We had a lovely coffee in a little café, Arna, nearby. It’s just like Berlin, I can get my Chai Latte (I’m not going to try and even calculate what the price is) and there are people sitting around with laptops plugged in, working away and sipping coffee. 

We spoke about politics and life in general. Iceland is lucky to have geothermal energy, so they won’t be freezing this winter like the rest of Europe. The homes are heated with that, you open the window to bring down the temperature to what you want.They sure could make much more energy if they put up windmills, but of course people think that would spoil the landscape, hurt the birds, and gee, the wind is so strong the things might blow over. They do need gas, however, as there are an enormous amount of cars and lots of traffic jams for such a small city (about half the size of Neukölln). Many people have electrical cars, but they are currently hard to come by, there’s a long waiting list to buy one. 

It seems there is a story behind every house door, as our friend explains as we walk along. This is the house of that politician, this is the Fauci of Iceland, here’s a famous musician. Iceland is truly a country of stories!

After lunch we went swimming in the local pool. Not only is there a 25 m outdoor swimming pool and a kid‘s area, but there is a steam bath and about 5 heitir pottar, hot tubs (the automatic correction keeps wanting to make that Harry Potter).  They come in varying degrees of heat, we started at the hottest one, 41-44 °C. Somewhere in the middle I had to then go through the 4-8°C cold tub, I got out of that real fast, an Icelandic friend even got completely under the cold water. Brrrrr! One feels so healthy and restored after the trip!

In the evening more old friends came over for dinner. We all met some 40 years ago when we were really all just children, young students! Now we are all grandparents. As one person noted: even her son now has grey hair! We hope that they will all be coming to Berlin next year to visit one of our fine theaters.