Horses and a Blue Lagoon

Dave and I set off yesterday morning for a horseback-riding adventure at a farm on the other side of the mountains just outside Reykjavik. I haven't been on a horse since I was about 12 at Camp Indian Head, so this was quite an outing for me. We spent about 45 minutes riding to the farm in a mechanically suspect van with about eight other people, and once there we were fitted with helmets -- all except Dave, whose head is too big -- and assigned a horse. My horse was a short little brown guy whose name I shamefully never asked.

Icelandic horses are small, and whereas most horses have four gaits -- walking, trotting, cantering and galloping -- the Icelandic horses also have a fifth gait, which as best I can tell is between a walk and a trot, with a variation in the sequence of the footing. It's called "tölt." We were tölting during our ride.

We started off at the farm and made a wide loop through the surrounding pastureland, all in a coastal valley ringed by mountains and the ocean. We crossed streams and traveled on rocky paths. Fortunately my little horse was so well-trained that I didn't need to give it many directions -- we all basically rode in a nose-to-tail line -- but I was surprised at how much of the Camp Indian Head riding technique came back to me. I could mount the horse correctly and knew how to hold the reins and sit in the saddle. Funny how stuff like that stays in your brain.


After riding, we hopped back into a van and went out to the Blue Lagoon, which is a huge, naturally heated mineral pool and spa on the peninsula southwest of Reykjavik. It was the weirdest landscape in the world -- sharp, black rocks and virtually no vegetation, aside from the tiniest mosses growing in the crags of the lava stone. In the middle of this wasteland is a geothermal plant and what looks like a big pool of blue milk. That's the spa -- and swimming there is really otherworldly. It feels great, though the water has a very high mineral content and you're warned to shower both before and after swimming. (I neglected to shower afterwards and although it didn't bother me, I'm told some people have reactions -- such as itchy skin -- to all the minerals.)


After a couple of hours at the Blue Lagoon we came back to Reykjavik and had dinner at Fiskfelagid, or Fish Company, which is the best restaurant we've been to in Iceland and maybe even in Europe. I had the "Tour of Reykjavik" menu, which was three courses of fish specials that were imaginative and incredible. (And none were whale!)

Whales

The attitude in Iceland toward whales seems a little schizophrenic. On the one hand, Iceland is one of the few countries with a commercial whaling operation, and the country regularly kills Minke and fin whales. Minke whale is on the menu at many of the restaurants in the capital.

On the other, Icelandic people hand out pamphlets on the waterfront warning tourists away from the whale meat, saying that tourist consumption helps fuel the death of the animals. While whale meat is portrayed as a traditional Icelandic dish, only a tiny percentage of the population (something like 1 percent or 5 percent) actually eats whale regularly, surveys by environmental groups have shown.

We went whale-watching yesterday and the whale-tour companies are also firmly against commercial whaling, according to the pamphlets we saw. We did see many whales, looking just like the one in the borrowed photo above -- the rounded back of a dark Minke whale. We saw about ten of them, our guide estimated.

We also saw schools of mackerel, gannets and other seabirds and one lone puffin, flapping wildly away from our boat. (Apparently puffin breeding season is over, because their nests on one island were all empty.)

From what I've been reading, commercial whaling in Norway and Iceland has more to do with the appetite for whale meat in Japan and the desire by those countries to export products from their whale fisheries. Considering how terrible Iceland's economy has been, it's not surprising that they might turn to that option. I hope it's an unsuccessful ploy, though, and I hope they give it up.

One thing's for sure -- I'm not eating any whale.

Iceland

I'm in Iceland! Dave and I had to leave the UK to re-enter on our residential visas, which became valid in early August, and he has a friend visiting Iceland in just a few days. So we decided to meet her.

We flew up yesterday, over a cloud-covered England and Scotland. The clouds parted just in time for me to see the northern coast of Scotland over Stornoway. Then we cruised out over the North Atlantic, and after another hour and a half or so we landed in Reykjavik.

Everything here is very clean-lined and Scandinavian, even the landscape. There are no frills. But it's a beautiful country, with wild-looking treeless mountains covered in green heathery scrub, bordered by a deep blue ocean. It seems to be daylight all the time, at least at this time of year. It was light when I went to bed at 11 p.m. last night, and even brighter when I got up at 6 a.m. this morning.

So far we've had only one meal. I had hatched fish with black bread, which is apparently a traditional Icelandic dish -- it was like a huge fish cake covered with hollandaise sauce. (I'm skeptical that the truly traditional version includes hollandaise, but who knows.) Dave had lamb, another local specialty. I think I'm going to steer clear of the cube of rancid shark meat with a schnapps chaser -- call me crazy -- and I can't bring myself to eat Minke whale, either. We asked the waiter at the restaurant to recommend traditional Icelandic food and he suggested the whale or the horse -- but then admitted that he ate neither.

I haven't quite figured out local pronunciation -- there are letters that we don't have in English, and names tend to be long. Our hotel is on Raudararstigur, which looks to me like someone leaned on the keyboard.

And the TV! It's pretty awesome. We saw a guy on an Icelandic cooking show grill a platter of fruit covered with Snickers bars -- I am not kidding. And last night I watched a Swedish show called Allsång, which is basically a huge sing-along with pop musicians and dance numbers. It reminded me of an updated and more youthful Lawrence Welk Show, which makes sense, because Welk himself had a Scandinavian background. Must be a cultural thing. Anyway, I started watching it because it was so funny -- just so sincere and sort of square -- and before I knew it I was really into it!

I didn't bring my computer, so my photos may have to wait until I get home. Or maybe I can upload some via iPhone. We'll see. Meanwhile, here's the Icelandic flag, ganked from Wikipedia.

Mankato

I'm crashing through the woods on a path. It's night, and I can't see very well. I'm running away from a large building, a lodge or hotel, to who knows where. I'm carrying some papers and other light objects.

When I get to a clearing, I collapse. I'm disoriented and I seem to be drunk. I know I strayed off the path I was supposed to follow, so I'm not sure where I am or which direction I should run. I pull out a flashlight, thinking I can see the path, but from the clearing there are many openings into the trees -- any of them could lead to my destination.

I feel threatened, exposed, and urgently want to move on.

Suddenly, Melissa Gilbert appears, dressed as Laura Ingalls. It's as if she's been there all along. "Wait!" she says. "Aren't those the lights of Mankato I see in the sky?"

I look around but no part of the sky seems brighter than any other. "Are you sure?" I say.

"Yeah!" says Melissa/Laura. "Come on!"

She takes off ahead of me, running toward Mankato. I gather up my papers, careful not to miss anything, and I follow her.

Quiet

The unrest in our neighborhood quieted last night. Most stores were closed, and in many places boarded up, in the late afternoon and by dusk there were very few people on the street. I went out for a walk and saw numerous police officers, but other pedestrian traffic was much lighter than usual.

Even our local pub, the Earl of Lonsdale, which normally features a buzzing beer garden on summer nights, was shut tighter than a drum.





There were 16,000 police officers on the streets of London last night -- nearly three times the number that were out on Monday night. Police said they'll maintain that level of coverage for the next few days. Hopefully we've seen the last of the rioting.

Meanwhile, Dave and I have been distracted by another weird neighborhood development. Several foxes -- and I mean real live foxes, not street art -- have appeared in the courtyard below our building the last two nights. They run around and make an unearthly barking sound. I've never seen or heard anything like it. Who knew we'd have wildlife (of the four-legged variety) in Notting Hill?

Apparently, though, foxes have been on the rise in urban London for some time.

Violence

While the rioting in London on Saturday and Sunday occurred in a handful of areas, last night's unrest was much more widespread. We even had a few marauders here in our neighborhood, Notting Hill. Their mischief was on a much smaller scale than in Croydon or Clapham, but it was still alarming.


After watching TV news for hours, I tried to go to sleep around 11 p.m. I had no sooner turned in than I heard banging and yelling in the street. I looked outside and saw a group of about 20 youths wearing hoodies walking in a loose group down Westbourne Grove Road. I called Dave to the window, and said, "This doesn't look good!"

The gang turned the corner, and Dave went back to the TV. But a few minutes later I saw smoke billowing up over the buildings next to ours, and a flickering orange glow on the walls. "Dave!" I yelled. "Something is on fire!"


I called 999, which is the emergency police number, but my call went unanswered and was disconnected twice. Fortunately the fire seemed to diminish and we saw at least one police car a few moments later. I heard many other sirens elsewhere in the area -- I suspect that group was walking around causing mayhem.

Dave and I stayed inside. I went out this morning and took these photos. As you can see above, all that remains of the fire is a burned smudge on the pavement, including plastic and some mechanical parts. I don't know what burned.




I don't think these people were motivated by anger at the police for shooting a man on Thursday -- the purported reason for the first night of rioting. I think they were just up to mischief. There seemed to be no successful looting in our area, but merely sporadic damage.

I uploaded more photos to Flickr here.

UPDATE: Actually, later in the morning we saw this shoe store on Portobello Road, which did appear to be looted:

Rainbow

Dave spotted this rainbow yesterday from our balcony. I couldn't take a photo of the whole thing, but it arced all the way across the sky. We've got another one tonight in almost the same place. We found it funny that came down right on that ugly '60s high rise.

More rioting last night and tonight in London. There's nothing happening in our neighborhood, but the persistence of the unrest is pretty scary!