Selfoss, Iceland

We had an interesting evening at the Hotel Buðir last night. We shared the dining room with three other couples for dinner. Only eight of us were staying in the hotel so they were quite empty. One of the couples was from Rhode Island, one from the UK and the other from Holland. The Dutch couple were winding up a 15 day holiday in Iceland, having done the "ring" road all around the island. By the time we got to dinner, we were pretty hungry so all our previous plans went out the window. We each got a starter (appetizer): Hubby had shellfish skewers of shrimp and scallops, with mussels and clams in their shells. I had the crusted hare (yes, the bunny!!). It was really very good, not like chicken as I expected, but more like very tender beef. For dinner, Hubby had the cod with more mussels and razor clams, tomatoes in a ginger chili sauce. I had the lamb which was very good. The big pieces that I had to cut were very tasty, although the shredded pieces of lamb were a bit gamey for me. It was accommpanied by roasted potatos, carrots, asparagus, and tiny pieces of zucchini. We even had dessert, the Skyr cake, which is an Icelandic favorite here. Skyr (pronounced skeer) is sort of like a cross between yogurt and cheesecake and can be eaten like a pudding. This was sort of a pudding cake in that it had a piece of thin cake on the bottom with a Skyr topping and cut into squares and served with blueberries and a blueberry drizzle over it all. It was very nice. We even decided to share a bottle of wine after thinking it was too expensive! Hubby brought down his standards and shared pinot grigio with me since he was having fish. Ready now? We ordered the San Angelo Banfi pinot grigio which I can buy at home at Sam's Club for $12....here it was $75!!! The reds were over $100 a bottle and the other couples all had wine, so I guess we succumbed to a little peer pressure. Maybe they just didn't know how to convert Kronur to dollars!

When we went up to our room after dinner, we realized the wind had really picked up, and it roared all night. Between the noise of the wind and Hubby's allergy nose attack at 2 AM, I was awake and read (and finished) my book all night. So today I'm working on 3 hours of sleep. But the amazing thing this morning was that overnight it had snowed on the mountains all around us. It was so beautiful. Pictures below. When we came down for breakfast this morning, we noticed a lot of leaking and puddling of water throughout the hotel. The manager told us he had never seen anything like this before. It's been quite the event!


I took a photo of a sign at the info center because it contained Puffins, and really unique bird native to this area. There were puffins at the hotel, but I never ventured outside to photograph them, so the sign birds will have to do.


We took our time this morning and left the hotel around 11 to head south to Selfoss. Along the way we saw some beautiful mountain vistas, some with snow and many waterfalls because of all the rain we've had.













At one point we came upon a mountain that had clearly been a volcano that had erupted and blown out the entire front of itself. This is an amazing picture:


Once we made the turn toward Selfoss, we could see a glacier in the distance. The photo isn't great, but you can just make out the glacier in the top left of this photo:

Here is the map of the area we're visiting now. We are east of Reykjavik which is on the southwestern tip of Iceland. You can see Selfoss on the left side of the map in the center. Tomorrow we will go to Geysir (a big geyser) top middle on the map, and Gulfoss (the Golden Falls) just to the east of Geysir, and þingvellir (pronounced thingvilleer, and the historic site of government and the place where the east and west plates come together separating North America from Europe) on the top left of the map just northwest of Laugarvatn. Tomorrow the winds are supposed to be much calmer, it will be cloudy, and about 45 degrees.

When we stopped to take the photo of the map at the info center, there was a small graveyard right next to the parking area. I can't tell you anything about it because the small sign was entirely in Icelandic, but I thought it quite unusual, and being the ancestor collector that I am, I had to snap a photo. Notice the one cross with the small cross attached to it. Mother and child perhaps? Hubby is glad we don't have any Icelandic ancestors....he wasn't eager to search through graveyards here in the cold, wind and rain!

Now we have arrived at Selfoss. Our hotel was a great upgrade actually. It appears much nicer than the hotel we were supposed to be at for the next two nights. We have a large room with good Internet access, and there is a beautiful restaurant here. The rate per night is quite good so we're happy. We decided to hunker down and not venture out this afternoon. Although the sun has come out a bit, the wind is the strongest I have ever felt. And it's only in the 30's so the wind chill is pretty low. Although we have our hiking gear and winter woolies, it just wasn't appealing. I did make Hubby come out with me to take some photos here at the hotel. We have a beautiful view of the River Öfulsá which is raging and all stirred up right now. It's brown and murky, but is usually quite blue and serene. It's angry but somehow that makes it rather interesting. The bridge over the city is a little suspension bridge. There is a quaint little church on the river right outside our window and all together, with the mountains behind it all, they make for a striking view all from the 20 feet of windows in our room. Last but not least, I'm posting a photo of hubby being blown around by the wind...it made me laugh.





We've just gotten back from a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant. We were quite hungry since we had only had a package of peanut butter crackers since breakfast. We each had the mushroom soup with crusty bread for a starter, then Hubby had the Chicken Marsala (not at all what we would have expected....didn't taste much like marsala wine, and was served with a little mushroom quieche and on a bed of peppers and onions. I had the beef tenderloin with icelandic lobster tails, served with roasted potato and the same peppers and onions and we each had a greek salad of greens, olives, feta and pine nuts served on the plate with our dinner. We each had a glass of wine with dinner, but we begged off dessert. Toward the end of our meal, thankfully, a whole bus load group of elderly Americans came to dinner with their tour guide. They were so loud and so obnoxious. It just amazes me at how inappropriate they can be...it makes it embarrassing to be an American traveling abroad. At one point, four women were sitting by the fireplace talking about underwire bras, loud enough for us to here them. Very uncouth. The funny thing is that twice now, we have been taken for Brits here. And twice, Hubby has be taken for Icelandic. We went into the gas station store to pay for gas today and two salespeople spoke to him in Icelandic...he had to speak English for them to realize he was not one of them. Also the tunnel toll taker thought he was Icelandic. We had the same thing happen in Norway. I guess we look pretty Northern European.

The wind is still whipping here...I wish I could post a sound bite. It is really unbelievable. It's supposed to die down overnight and I hope it does because it's going to make it hard to sleep. Tomorrow we're off on our visit to the Golden Circle (above) so it will be an early morning. Can't believe we'll be home on Saturday (late). The time has gone by so quickly. I'm starting to feel a bit sad that it's over and we'll soon return to our real hectic lives where we don't see that much of each other and the pressures and stresses of work/church/Scouts will take over. I love vacation! Time to start planning the next one.