Reykjavik is a beautiful city. Though about 2/3 or Iceland's population live in the city, the older section, which attracts the most tourists, is small and easily walkable. Streets curve and wind around snowy hills and buildings painted with fantastical creatures, centering around the city's landmark, Hallgrimskirkja, an enormous church with a statue of Leif Erikson in front of it, guarding the city. The main shopping road, Laugavegur, is filled with the hum of curious tourists skittering around, trying to keep warm, those who underestimate the snow and ice here buying Icelandic wool sweaters and coats which are readily sold in every tourist shop. However, amidst the bustle of the foreigners, ducking into cafes like Mokka Kaffi (Chocolate Coffee) or Grai Kotterinn (The Gray Cat) you can find the locals, reading the newspaper in a white t-shirt and red suspenders, chuckling like a bald Santa Claus, or young Icelanders sitting around a table, chatting excitedly for hours and drinking cappuccinos that come out once every half hour because they don't have anything better to do than to be in each others company. There are only four and a half hours of sunlight here in January, and yet walking around the city, I couldn't help but feel that here, in this frozen city where the sun doesn't rise until 11:30, they have found the secret to good living.
In the center of it all sits Hallgrimskirkja, an almost otherworldly church whose outside belies a stark white inside whose only decoration are the arches reminiscent of old world cathedrals. The design of the outside of the church is based off of some of the volcanic rock formations in the Icelandic landscape. This means that while the church may look bizarre to foreigners like me, it is uniquely at home in the Icelandic landscape, as if nature itself produced this church for the descendants of the hardy vikings who were willing to settle this place. The statue of Leif Erikson was a gift from the United States to Iceland, and a quiet acknowledgment that the vikings were the first ones to discover America years before Christopher Columbus. The Icelandic people are incredibly proud of this heritage and advertise it in a myriad of ways: in their tours, in the Saga Museum where you can dress up as vikings, in the way that all the pubs sell Viking beer, and in the Icelandic language, which is the closest thing to the original viking language spoken today. It permeates the city, and when exploring the wilderness in Iceland it is impossible not to imagine that you yourself are a viking venturing into uncharted territory.
The city lies right on the ocean and has a beautiful seaport district. While we were there, the mountains were covered in a nearly permanent mist, reminiscent of the city's name, Reykjavik, which means "smokey bay." Icelanders have a long history of fishing and living off the sea, especially when in comes to cod. You can still find salted cod, smoked salmon, and even shark and whale to eat all over the city.
Another landmark is the gorgeous Harpa Concert Hall, sitting right on the bay. Before the New Year, during the darkness, the year 2016 was lit up on the walls. After an evening of 2017 when the New Year had come, lights synthesizing the colors of northern lights danced across the building, adding ambience to a late harbor walk.
The inside of the building reminds you of being in a beehive, and the way that life and activity seems to center around this building only helps. When we visited, it was the finishing point of a race in which the runners dressed up as all sorts of things, from prisoners to tigers to ballerinas.
Despite the many people who call Reykjavik home, there were so many times where it felt like Nick and I were the only ones in the city. This church, just one road off a main tourist stretch, was a peaceful beacon of light our first night in the city. Wandering into the streets at 9:00 am, with the darkness still wrapped around the city like a cloak, there were few people on the streets, though we had seen and heard them thrumming around our guest house at 3:00 am. In many ways, wandering around in the dark, the city felt like ours, a secret love affair of stillness, snow, and lights.
Speaking of love affair, we stumbled into an unexpected one while in Reykjavik. Neither Nick or I eat hot dogs, but the pylsur in Reykjavik is world renowned and basically the cheapest food in a city where everything is, as one of our tour guides exclaimed, "damn expensive." Bill Clinton has even stopped at Baejarins Beztu Pylsur a few weeks before his bypass surgery. With all this to recommend them, Nick and I decided to bite the bullet and try some hotdogs, and we were not disappointed (although it would have been hard for two hot dog haters). However these hot dogs were absolutely incredible! In Iceland, the hot dogs are not mystery meat like they are in the US. Instead, they are made of Icelandic lamb as well as pork and beef. Lamb in Iceland is free range and spend their lives wandering around the countryside nibbling on berries and leaves, and the cows that live in Iceland are raised on small family farms, not the factory farms we have in America. You can definitely taste this difference, though the toppings of raw onions, fried onions, ketchup, sweet mustard, and remoulade definitely helped as well.
One of the reasons we were so willing to go to Iceland in the dead of winter, though, was for their New Year's celebration. As soon as we arrived, two days before New Year's Eve, fireworks were already being periodically set off around the city by excited natives who couldn't wait entirely for the New Year. That's because every year, the city of Reykjavik is lit up with fireworks set off in public spaces, in people's yards, down by the water, up by the church, next to the restaurants, anywhere there is enough physical space to light a firework on fire. When we heard the fireworks the first night we were there, we knew it was just a preview of what was to come.
On New Year's Eve, we started by walking into one of the residential neighborhoods to visit a local bonfire. On this night, the citizens of Reykjavik come out to visit local bonfires from 9-10:30, then go in from 10:30-11:30 to watch a local program that satirizes the events of the past year. At 11:30, everyone emerges and the fireworks start in earnest, although fireworks brightened the sky all evening. When we got to the bonfire, it was massive, surrounded by throngs of people lighting off their own fireworks, flares, and sparklers. Children danced around excitedly, dogs pranced around with light up collars, and adults laughed as they dazzled youngsters with flares. Some preferred to stay further from the fire to play, and still others, like the girl pictured below, sat on parents shoulders to get a better look at the flames brightening the Icelandic sky and warming the park. It was so hot that walking 15 feet around it yielded puddles and mud in a place where everywhere else was covered in snow, ice, and frozen ground.
After visiting the bonfire, we traveled up Hallgrimskirkja to see the fireworks. A lot of people also go to the Perlan, a building slightly outside the center of the city in order to better see the fireworks exploding over the cityscape, but the best place to be at the center of it all is definitely at the church. Though there were lots of people here, it was nothing like the close packed bodies I've watched in Times Square on TV on New Year's Eve. At 11:30, we were surrounded by fireworks from all sides. Some exploded magnificently over the city and church, others hit the edifice before exploding, making me wonder if they ever have to wash the building, and still others exploded low and into the crowd. None of these fireworks are professionally set off. It is all done by the people of Reykjavik, and although at times I could simply whisper, "This is madness," the magic of the place, the ambience of the evening, the energy of the crowd, and the miraculous way in which no one seemed to get hurt held me in place until the brunt of the fireworks had begun to die down. They continued until 3:30 in the morning.
As if the earth was welcoming in the New Year as well, that was the evening that the northern lights were visible, dancing across the night sky. The sky was beautifully crisp and clear, but smoke and light from the fireworks periodically obscured nature's celebration. We searched for the northern lights the rest of the trip, desperate to see them on their own terms, but they never reappeared. Regardless, the sudden appearance of this phenomenon seemed to point to more light in this upcoming year, as long as we are willing to do some searching and chase it, as we did the northern lights in Reykjavik.
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