A Slight Departure From My Master Plan

Okay, so with only a couple of days left in Iceland I'd managed to formulate a fairly concrete master plan. Today we white water rafting at noon, which I expected to take up the whole afternoon, so I figured that I'd sleep in as much as possible to make sure that I was fully refreshed, and then make rafting the focus of my day. Tomorrow I'd intended to hit a couple of interesting sounding museums and spend the day around Reykjavik.

Arriving at the Cintimani Centre at noon today I was informed that I wasn't in the system. Apparently Reykjavik Excursion, whom I booked this tour with, outsource most of their tours to other more specialize tour groups, and (I was informed) have a habit of forgetting to actually call these tour groups to book people into the tours they had been sold. I was quite ready to recommend Reykjavik Excursions as a convenient place to book any sort of tour that might happen to interest you, but this puts a damper on that plan. They still operate the FlyBus, the most convenient way of getting between Reykjavik, the Blue Lagoon, and the airport at Keflavik, so don't give up on them completely, but you may wish to exercise some caution when it comes to booking anything else with them.

That said, the good people at Cintamani were willing to accept my ticket to the rafting tour and book me in for tomorrow, so at least I don't have to go shout at someone from Reykjavik Excursions about getting my money back. The unfortunate thing is that I'd really just slept in and then killed time this morning waiting for the rafting trip, when I could have been using that time to see the sights.

Realizing that I'd already lost half the day I immediately set out to recoup what was left of yesterday's plan so I headed in the direction of the National Museum of Iceland. Along the way I came across this:





That is a rather substantial cemetery in Reykjavik that David had pointed out upon returning from one of our diving trips a few days ago. I believe it's the biggest in the country, though I can't confirm that. It's obviously quite old, and it was fascinating to walk around, especially with the drizzling weather setting an ideal mood. I just love the fact that it looks more like a forest than a cemetery. There are trees everywhere, often dominating the plot, with only a tiny chuck of stone to let you know that it's actually a grave. Very natural, and very nice.

From there I went across the road to the museum. There's a rather large, permanent exhibit in place on the history of Iceland that's well worth checking out. It's free on Wednesdays, which is why it's even more unfortunate that I couldn't have gone tomorrow instead, but at a mere 800ISK it's still worth checking out no matter what day of the week you manage to get there. The light was dim, and most exhibits were behind glass, so photography was difficult, but I managed a few good shots.

Below is the actual axe head and wood block used in the last ever execution carried out in Iceland!



The next shot depicts some settlement-era weapons that have been found in various grave sites.



Some of you are surely wondering at the strange coincidence that the only pictures that turned out happen to display one type of weapon or another. Those that know me better will realize that medieval weapons are the reason that I go to museums and that I have not, in fact, photographed anything else.

From there I began my final mission that I'd planned for tomorrow: Souvenir Shopping. Whenever I'm planning on living out of my backpack for awhile I bring at least one simple nylon stuff sack. This allows me to put my dirty clothes in a distinct bag to keep them separate from the clean stuff. It's just an organizational aid really. I found out today though that there is a great advantage to having your clothes in a stuff sack as opposed to neatly folded in your backpack... they take up a lot less space. With liberal amounts of squeezing, pushing, and swearing I was able to get all of the clothes that I've worn up to this point into an incredibly compact little package. I have no further worries about shipping silly souvenirs home, and all without having to buy an extra piece of luggage.

To Corey's point, yes, I could buy Brennivin at the duty-free in the airport. However, since it's become such a discussion point I didn't want to risk getting through airport security only to find that there was none to be had at the duty-free. I therefore decided to just go buy some at the local liquor store. I could have just bought a 1L bottle, but going with two 500mL bottles allowed me to get them in plastic bottles which should have far less risk of breakage. I was willing to throw out some of my clothes, but I'd rather they not all smell like caraway schnapps. Everything else I've got will just be wrapped in the few remaining articles of clothing that I'm either wearing, or will wear tomorrow, and I will have to hope that they survive the travel-related abuses that are sure to befall them.

As a side note, I've decided to take the advice that my dear Aunt Jeanette gave in the comments section of a previous post and do this for a living. From this point forward my new job title is "Adventurer" and that is how I intend to introduce myself. It should be noted that I haven't yet figured out how to earn any money by adventuring, so I will continue to occasionally perform the duties of a computer programmer in order to fund my hobbies of eating, having a roof over my head, and adventuring for a living. That's a fairly minor footnote though and should not detract in anyway from viewing me as a paramount adventurer while I figure out how to get paid for this ridiculously lavish lifestyle.

Well, I've still got a few hours left in this day, but the weather is (as it has been all day) truly miserable. I may decide to just stay holed up in my cafe here and have a couple beers to pass the time. I'll be back on tomorrow night, hopefully with tales of rafting!