Iceland Extras

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Geo: 64.1353, -21.8952

Just a few more things I want to say about Iceland tonight since we have now walked downtown looking for places to eat (it was about 10 min before midnight) and found nothing but bars with loud music (not our scene) so we have returned to the hotel and Kamie is out front waiting for Domino's delivery. He wanted hamburger but they do not have hamburger for their pizza here (maybe lamburger??). He settled for ham and pineapple. So, around 2am in the morning, Kamie will be eating and hopefully I will be sleeping.

So, a few things I wanted to say about Iceland.....

One of my favorite movies is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" which has several cool scenes filmed here in Iceland. There is a scene where he is skateboarding down a hill with mountains in the background. We drove that road. It was just as pretty in person as in the movie. There are a lot of skateboarders here, oddly enough. If you haven't seen the movie, you should. It is good.

Icelandic water is the purest, cleanest water in all the world. There is NEVER any reason to buy bottled water here. You can drink straight from the tap and the water is cleaner than your filtered water at home with Brita. It is all water coming down from the glaciers.

Remember the horse jerky Kamie ate?? Well, we got to thinking about that and on our tour today there were lots and lots of farms - many with horses. Everyone was oohing and aahing over the horses and at one stop, we could go up and pet them. The tour guide announced that it is illegal in Iceland to import horses. All the horses in Iceland are born here. They have also adjusted well so they can stay outside year around and do not need to be inside. We noticed so many farms with horses that on a break, we casually discussed the eating of horse meat with our guide. She was horrified that the other tour guide had told Americans that they eat horse meat. She was really embarrassed. We asked her where the meat came from and she hesitantly admitted that they raise them just like chicken, lamb, or how we raise cows. Several of the "pretty horse farms" we were seeing were so the family could have a horse slaughtered for food every now and then. I realize it's all mental and some people worship cows and China thinks Simon is a delicacy but I told Kamie if I had to kill ANY animal before I ate it, I would be a vegetarian. I just have a soft spot for animals. Iceland would not want that information spread throughout all the tour groups as food here is very expensive even for the locals so they are eating the horses to survive as there are no cows here.

Also....there are really only three large ways to make an income in Iceland:1) Tourism being the #1 industry right now2) Working for the school systems (more in a bit)3) Raising sheep - for food and for sweaters (the wool)

Iceland has approximately 435,000 sheep - more sheep than people. They were all over today but they are the same color as the landscape so hard to photograph from a moving bus and we did not stop at a sheep farm. They sell lots of wool blankets, wool sweaters (starting at over $200 for a sweater), and wool gloves/hats/etc. I did buy a pair of Made in Iceland slippers. They were ridiculously priced.

As for school...they consider "high school" to be 16 yrs old to 20 yrs old. University starts at 20 yrs old which is also the alcohol/drinking age here in Iceland. High school is not free but is about 300 US Dollars per child per year. There are approximately 15 high schools on the Island and today our tour guide said Iceland has 7 Universities (but the other day our other tour guide said only 2). Today's tour guide seemed more on target with her knowledge.

I have a sore throat tonight. My throat is scratchy. I need a cough drop. That's NOTHING. Kamie is teething - it started November 8th so he blames Trump. His back wisdom tooth is finally pushing through - at 43 years old. He was fairly miserable yesterday but we found a pharmacy and a pharmacist gave him some Ibuprofen which seems to have helped somewhat.

The Icelandic people LOVE America. (A lot of countries do we've learned) They watched our election like a hawk and it is on every channel here. When they get an American restaurant (like Dunkin Donuts), they are super excited. The Americans bring in a lot of tourist dollars now - about 350,000 Americans visited Iceland this year (I think that was the figure). I think that is why they tend to hide the horse meat eating and the truth behind their believe in trolls.

As for the trolls. They are everywhere. There is actually a troll in our hotel room on the shelf. They must be watching over us or good luck or something. We saw a documentary on Iceland sometime last year and the guy admitted that the majority of Icelanders actually believe in fairies and trolls.

I've got nothing else. I'm exhausted...it's 1:46am and Kamie's pizza is just NOW being delivered as I type this. Screw the pizza, I'm going to sleep.

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Comments

[Stacy Stark]

LOVE that movie! AMAZING cinematography! Also FYI, we have an outbreak of strep at the facility currently. 12 of 16 kiddos tested positive for strep. Once again, Kamie picked a good time for vacation ;)