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Published: June 25th 2017
Geo: 64.1353, -21.8952
So Iceland has a population of 320,00 with 200,000 living in the greater Reykjavik area (120,000 in Reykjavik proper) which gives it the lowest population density of any country in Europe (and explains many of the very lonely homes we saw in the countryside). And the low population explains why Icelandic phone books list people by their first names. There are no surnames or family names in Iceland.
Reykjavik itself is the northernmost capital city of any country in the world which goes a long way to explaining the low population- it can be a little chilly and dark at times. Too many cold and dark days does weird things to you and probably explains why 80% of Icelanders still believe in elves, trolls and ghosts.
And those many cold, dark, lonely nights might explain the unique cuisine of these former vikings. Traditional meals are e.g. “Hákarl” (putrefied shark), “Hangikjet” (smoked lamb), “Hrútspungar “ (ram's testicles) and “Slátur” (made of sheep entrails). A popular dessert is the “skyr” which is made of cultured skim milk and served with blueberries. Tempting as the rams testicles sounded, the rotten shark is an unmissable and unique part of Icelandic cuisine, and
given that we would soon be headed back to the Canadian health care system, we thought it would be as safe as it ever would be to eat a potentially poisonous fish. The Greenland Shark is toxic—at least if you eat it fresh. Eating too much can lead to stiff movements, hyper-salivation, vomiting, explosive diarrhea, conjunctivitis, muscular twitching, respiratory distress, convulsions, and—in severe cases—death. Early settlers of Iceland figured out a way around this (how many people did they have to experiment on?). Greenland shark flesh can be eaten with no ill effects if it is prepared correctly: the meat must be buried in the ground for 6 to 12 weeks, exposing it to several cycles of freezing and thawing. After thoroughly rotting the carcass, the meat is hung up to dry for several months, and finally cut into bite-sized cubes. The end product, Hákarl, is reportedly a delicacy. Really?? How many times do you see a delicacy paired with a specialty drink that is part palette cleanser, and part anesthetic (in this case a potato vodka called Brennevin or 'Black Death'😉.
The shark cubes show up in a small, tightly sealed mason jar for a very good reason- the
smell is actually much worse than the taste (which says something). When we sold everything to travel, I had to haul my well used hockey equipment to the toxic waste dump- you can't in good conscience sell or give away sweat-soaked festering hockey equipment but I have to think that after years of storage in a hot, humid locker, that equipment still would have smelled better than our tiny cubes of putrid shark. Having grown up as a fan of the Queens Park Rangers in London (and as a current Leafs fan), Dave B is used to very bad smells and was relatively unaffected but the rest of us were reduced to tears before swallowing the jelly-like shark. Yum!
The journey through our Icelandic menu also included a number of less smelly but eyebrow raising sampler items nonetheless. We boycotted the whale (endangered species- even the Killer B carnivores joined us for this boycott) and the Icelandic horse (we had just ridden these beauties a couple of days ago) but we did try the roast puffin (except for DH), a reindeer burger (I was the only one to snack on Rudolph while trying to ignore the death glares from DH),
and we all tried the relatively uncontentious dried cod.
I was still picking bits of Rudolph out of my teeth while we wandered Reykjavik and, over time, confirmed that none us had fallen ill to the poisonous shark. In the giddiness of the moment we foolishly allowed DH & Deb B to take over joint tour guide responsibilities and they immediately dragged us to the Icelandic Phallological Museum. In addition to being a prime example as to why I don't allow DH to do any of our trip planning, the Phallological Museum is home to an extensive penis exhibit that showcases all kinds of critters including a couple unfortunate men (280 specimens from 93 species of animals). If you Google "penis museum" you will get exactly one hit which goes some distance in explaining how unique (and unnecessary??) this experience was. It's almost impossible to stand next to a whale penis (67 inches long and weighing 70 kilos/150 lbs) without feeling somewhat emasculated but DH & Deb B were more focused on the casts of the 15 penises of the Iceland national handball team (apparently quite excited after winning the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games). Squarely
under the heading of "are you kidding me?", is the commitment from four men—an Icelander, a German, an American and a Briton—to donate their penises (and the American wants to donate before he expires). In January 2011, the Icelandic donor died and his penis was surgically removed so that it could be added to the museum's collection but the penectomy was not entirely successful and left the penis "a greyish-brown, shriveled mass- having learned from the results the proprietor promises better results next time.
Dave B restored his masculinity by checking out the 2 mm member of a hamster, which can only be seen with a magnifying glass and then the ladies got us kicked out for excessive touching. Just when you think you've seen it all!!
This was a strange way to wrap up our time in an otherwise extraordinary, if somewhat challenging, land that is populated with very friendly locals. Some have suggested (and when I say "some", I mean she-who-must-be-obeyed) that I gave the Killer B's a bit of a hard time in the Iceland blog- she must be reading deeply between the lines but, as always, it was good fun to travel with them.
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Marlene S.
non-member comment
Who had the biggest mouth to wrap around THAT baby??