First Day in Reykjavik

Alright despite my aspirations I am not a very good real-time trip blogger so I'll be publishing mini updates with pictures now that we are back!

Day One (Saturday April 16th)

We slept a few hours and then got lunch at a Thai place on the one main road in Reykjavik.  One of the reasons we chose this weekend to go was that a band we really like (Foxing) were playing at Hurra.  Brandon is friends with Jon in the band we met up after lunch to go to the Icelandic Phallological Museum which is basically a museum with a bunch of animal penises.  It is as weird as it sounds but it's only $10 a pretty fun.  Would recommend!

I think this is a sperm whale penis?

Jon and Brandon

I do not remember which animal this penis belongs to.

Afterwards we walked down the main road for a bit and went to a pretty big flea market.  There were a lot of junk stalls but also some great ones like the stall that sells lots of metal shirts and another that sells whale bones.  I bought some lava rock earrings for my mom and sister.

Then we headed back to shower and change before our fancy dinner at Fridrik V.  I'm going to go on a mini rant here about hair products that will be probably be of zero interest to anyone but me so skip to the next paragraph if you don't care!  I didn't bring any bath stuff (other than toothpaste) since I assumed our hotel would have them available and we were trying to not pay bag fees to WOW.  They didn't but he brought us some shower gel when we asked.  We bought this 2 in 1 conditioner from the Bonus supermarket that my hair hated so my hair was a frizzy tangled mess the whole time.  Next time I'll just check and bag and hopefully my hair won't get so angry!

Our dinner at Fridrik V was really one of the highlights of the trip I think.  They have a surprise 5 course menu every night and we got the wine pairings.  Each ingredient had a cute story of origin (like the reindeer was shot by the restaurant's lawyer in sector 7) and the waiters point to the map of Iceland on the table to tell you where everything comes from.  I found out about them from their Trip Advisor page and I feel fortunate that we were able to get a reservation since they're closing in June.

Here are the courses we had:
Amuse bouche: tomato soup, smocked mackerel, dried orange slices, cod jerkey, assorted biscuits
First: Reindeer filet and pate, beet chips and beet jelly/reduction type thing
Second: Cod ravioli
"Break": Lobster cappuccino - this was really strange but fun.  It was lobster soup/liquid served in a cappuccino cup garnished with nutmeg
Third: Ribeye with grilled carrots and mashed potatoes
Fourth:  Cheese plate with rye bread, pomegranate seeds and marmalade
Fifth:  Chocolate cake with Icelandic strawberries and strawberry ice cream

We finished the meal with espresso.  Our reservation was a 6pm and we were the only ones there until about 7 and even when we left around 8pm there were only 5 tables filled.  We saw them turn multiple people aware without reservations so I assume they only seat a limited number of tables each night due to available ingredients.

Each table had a map for the server to show you where the food came from.

The cheese plate at Fridrik V.

Dessert!  Wish I had remembered to take pics of other courses.

Also we tried to leave a tip but one of the servers wouldn't let us.  She saw the money sticking out of the bill holder thing and literally pointed at it and said "DON'T TIP it is not a tradition here" so that was very helpful!  We tried because we had such a great time and felt the price was very reasonable but she was insistent.

After dinner we rallied and headed to the show.  A couple of Icelandic bands opened for Foxing which were actually pretty good.  I had listened to their stuff on Spotify beforehand and wasn't too impressed but live they seemed much better- each band had 5+ people in it so they were fun to watch.  Foxing was the best of course and I was so busy having fun that I didn't take any pictures or video.  Sorry!

A picture of the show's flyer since I have none from the actual show.

Afterwards we took a cab back to our hotel (I keep saying hotel but it was really just like a house with a few rooms for rent) because it was freezing cold and went to sleep.  All in all I was up about 24 hours with only a few hours nap when we landed.  It was fun though!

I think the staying up for 24 hours thing was too much for me since I promptly got a cold Saturday night/Sunday morning.  It was super annoying but I felt fine and we were able to do everything we wanted so whatever!  The hotel caretaker probably wonders why we went through like 5 rolls of toilet paper in 4 days though.