Day 34 (30 July): Displeasing Departure Day

Being waken up by the alarm clock at 4.30 a.m., I immediately jumped from my bed as I knew that I could fall asleep again very easily and that I would risk missing my flight. In 10 minutes, I finished my daily morning activities and packed my suitcase ready to go. As I was so tired for the late night and too little sleep and knew that the taxi would come at 5.15 a.m., I made super strong coffee, my last cup at Seljavegur 32 in Reykjavik...

When we were downstair, a taxi van was waiting. It was surely large enough for Fergal, his friend and their luggage to fit into the space of the van. Anyway, it was too late to think about it that the taxi we ordered would be a van.

Arriving at BSI Bus Terminal 5.20 a.m., we could take the 5.30 bus instead of the 5.45 one as planned. The bus ride took 45-50 minutes, meaning we arrived at Keflavik Airport before 6.30 a.m.

It was early morning, but the queue for check-in was already very long. A long queue for early morning flights wasn't entirely unexpected and shouldn't be the matter that annoyed me. What disturbed me was human behavior. First, while I was standing at the end of the queue, a man walked into me, causing my passport and ticket fall from my hand. With a brief glance from the man, he said no apology. Although I knew he didn't hit me on purpose, he should have simply said "I'm sorry" which would be the civilized way a human should do in this kind of incident. However, this wasn't the only displeasure... Having queued for the check-in for a while, TT thought of trying to do self check-in on a machine. So, I was left alone with a large suitcase, a large box and a large backpack without a trolley (as there was none at the entrance we entered the airport). At the moment when I was moving the three items, a couple approaching from the left-hand side came to stand in front of me. Simultaneously, another couple, very well-dressed indeed, did the same thing but approached from the right. What happened was truly unbelievable! What a shameless behavior! I was really angry and felt so sorry for those queuing behind me...

Luckily, TT came back with the success of the machine check-in. If he have been back later, I would have said to these two couples "excuse me, I'm queuing for the check-in and please notice that the queue ends far behind me". Well... even if I said this, these uncivilized people would do this on purpose, anyway.

After several days, I realized that this incident had revealed a truth about the world. On this planet, there are numerous people who think that they are smarter than others if they can get whatever they want while means to achieve what they want is unimportant and consequences of what they do on other people aren't their business. This made me understand why the world today is full of problems!

Keflavik Airport was rather small. It was difficult for us to find seats to sit and eat out last Skyr... The Iceland good-bye weather was really nice, warm and sunny.

View of Seltjarnanes Peninsula from above... Seljavegur 32 is situated on the Northwestern bay.

Reykjavik from above looked large and quite densely populated.

Mount Esja (780 m) where TT went yesterday.

The middle of Iceland is a no-man's land. The interior is uninhabited because of the harsh weather due to the high altitude (500-1000 m) and the insufficient water due to the desert highlands.

Views of Vatnajökull...

The rugged Austurland (East Iceland)...

Whirled clouds appeared rather strange...

Finally, I safely arrived at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport at 2.20 p.m. These 34 days in Iceland have granted me superb experiences regardless of exhaustion caused by walking and working... I hope to return to this island in the middle of the ocean some time in the future.

Day 33 (29 July): Presentation Day

Today would be the presentation day; all of artists had to present what they had done during their residency. We were supposed to set our works up at 12 and the presentation would be for public from 6 to 8 p.m. 

After breakfast, I packed the tree in the box I had earlier prepared. TT went to buy rope to tie around the box for carrying. Then, I cleared things and packed a bit.

I left the residence around 11.30 a.m. to SIM office to set up my work.  TT also came with me but he was going to Heimmur to take a bus to Mt. Esja where we was going to hike today.

When I arrived at SIM, Yemima was already there. Soon after, Sonja came, followed by Clair, Jovanna, Tero and Karolina, and Julia. We then divided the space and installed our works.

As I had tried to install the tree,  it was quite easy for me to just do it again. During the installtaion, the yellow kitten in the photos below was around. Kristin told me that he was a lost cat who started to be in SIM's office last week. Unfortunately, he had to be brought to a homeless house for animals soon. The cat was really cute and in good mood... However, he was pretty dirty; his 4 white pawns even changed the color to gray... I wished I could take him to Helsinki.

The installing hours went quite nicely. Everyone just did their work and chatted every once a while... 

Julia was talking with Sonja while she was placing the photos of her paper stone installation she made in Hofhus...

 

Jovanna was arranging her polaroid pictures...

Corey's boat was meant to be a floating trash bin...

View from outside, Clair was chatting with Sonja...

After the setting up, most of the others went swimming in Laugardalur. They seemed to be crazy about swimming pools in Reykjavik as they always carried their swimming suits and towels around... I thought about joining them but to rush to the residence to fetch my swimming suit was a bit too much for me (after the marathon hike yesterday). So, I thought I could check some shops on Laugavegur. 

Mal og Mening, a bookstore, on Laugavegur 13, had a hugh collection of interesting art and design books from around the world. I was specially interested in a book titled "Simply Materials" from a Japanese publisher. However, the book was thick, heavy and expensive. I thought about buying it via Amazon.com when I got back to Helsinki. I got a twill-weave wool skirt (700 ISK) from a second hand store run by the Icelandic red cross.  

Having been shopping for almost 4 hours, I walked back to the residence for a shower around 4.30 p.m. I was supposed to meet TT at 5 p.m at the residence for dinner. However, as we didn't have much time left, we just had Skyr. Then, we left the residence with others (I didn't notice when they came back from the pool).

We arrived at SIM a bit after 6 p.m. All the guests seemed to be artists who had studios in the same building as the residence. 

The tree and I...

Performance of Karolina and Tero...

Helga also briefly visited. I chatted quite long with a textile artist who is also a psychologist. She asked me to visit her studio which was actually in the same building as the residence. Unfortunately, I was leaving tomorrow...

After most of visitors had left, we started to talk with each other... For example, Corey with Jovanna...

 

Clair and others...

As I never like any opening, I went for a walk and to the book store nearby. I returned to SIM when the event was about to end. I chatted with the other in the yard and packed my work. They were going to have dinner and a drink together. I skipped the dinner as I still had to clean and pack...  But I thought I would like to join them later for a drink.

So, as soon as we got back to the residence. I unpacked the tree and repacked it for the flight tomorrow.  TT cleaned the room and the studio. I made dinner (fried white fish and zucchini). After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and emptied the trash bins. Then, I packed my suitcase. It was already 10.30 p.m. when everything in the room and the studio looked tidy and our luggage was ready. Then, we decided to join the others although we were very tired and knew that we had to get up tomorrow at 5 a.m. The bar was somewhere on Laugavegur. After one drink, we said goodbye and walked back to the residence...  

The last night in Reykjavik ended around 12.30 a.m... 

 

Day 32 (28 July): Marathon Lava Field Hiking Day:

Today's blog will be photograph-free post due to the rainy condition that wasn't proper for my camera....

It was a truly  rainy day today. However, we thought that we could still do something. So, we decided that we could rent a car or otherwise take a local bus to a neighboring town. TT called the 4th Floor Hotel to ask about a rental car. They said that they might have a car at 2 p.m. After lunch, we started to walk to the city, planning to first check at the hotel and continue to the bus station in Hiemmur to take a bus to Hafnarfjördur. Unfortunately (or fortunately in terms of money), the hotel didn't have a car. So, we walked to the bus station. Bus 1 was about to leave at 2.12 p.m. I went to ask the bus driver to wait for us as TT was still queueing to buy the one-day passes. A bit more than half an hour later, we arrived at Hafnarfjördur together with the rain... We then had to figure out what to do and how to get to some attractions for example, the hot spring and lava-field hiking trails. We went to the town tourist information center to find out information. The man at the tourist info was nice and tried to suggest us who came to the town without a car. The hot spring was too far to walk and no bus goes there. So, we decided to take Bus 33 to go as close as possible to a hiking trail. Before leaving the tourist info, the kind man told us to take free coffee and bottled water. The town seemed to be wealthy although too little tourists. Before taking the bus, we stopped very briefly at Hafnarborg, Institute of Culture and Fine Art. There were 2 exhibitions: "Wavelength" showed the drawings of the American artist Creighton Michel and the exhibition showed pottery from Nicaragua.  

After the bus ride, we had to walk through the new residential area which was still under construction and then along the main road. TT tried to hitchhike with the hope to get to the hot spring, but there was no luck as only trucks were passing by. Having walked already more than half an hour under the rain, we reached the starting point of the trail. 

The lava field looked interesting because of its various formations of lava rocks slowly cooled. There were also many small caves under the ground. We basically just walked and walked, following a hiking map we got from the tourist info.  

Walking along the trial until it ended, we continued along a small road and then a larger one until we returned to the town at the bus station. We walked (under the rain) altogether perhaps 12 kilometers. What a marathon! I was so happy to see the bus station, because it meant that the hike was ending. Having checked the bus schedule at the bus stop and found that there was still 10 minute time, we went to a hotdog stand nearby and ordered 2 hotdogs (230 ISK each, more expensive than the best one in Reykjavik. The hotdog was good and gave me some energy to continue the day.

We caught bus at 7.52 p.m. back to Reykjavik. We thought that we could take Bus 13 from Laekjatorg to as near as possible the residence. When we arrived at the Laekjatorg stop, we misunderstood that we had to wait 10 minutes for the next bus. So, we went to 10-11 on Austurstraeti to get rid of coins. We ended up buying a yogurt and sliced bread. TT gave the rest of the coins he had to the cashier. The getting-rid-of-coins process took us less than 5 minutes. However, while walking to the bus stop, we saw Bus 13 departing. Then, we realized that we misunderstood the bus schedule. As we didn't want to wait any more, we walked to the residence.

We dropped by at Noutun, a supermarket nearby, to buy food before returning to the residence. I took shower and prepared dinner... After dinner, I started to pack my stuffs...

Day 31 (27 July): Volcano Day

Getting up as early as usual, we had breakfast and then I continued the last rows of the knots of the tree to reach the height of its future package.

I finished around 12.30 p.m. and suspended it from the lamp on the ceiling, as the photos below... The tree was would need to be continued later in Finland. Otherwise, I couldn't take it back home.

 

After lunch, the weather became cloudy. However, we decided to go for a movie about volcanos at 3 p.m. As we had still time, we dropped by to have coffee and cake at the cafe by Tjörnin in the City Hall and went to the National Gallery of Iceland on Frikirkjuvergur 7 to check the current exhibition.

I hadn't been interested in the National Gallery because of its name that suggested something classical or traditional. I changed my mind when I entered the museum. The interior looked completely different from the exterior. It had bright and relaxing atmosphere unlike the solid warehouse-like building viewed from outside.

The ongoing exhibition showed the works of prominent Icelandic artists, most of which were truly contemporary by nature. One interesting work was a video installation Of the North 

(2008) by the artist named Steina (born 1940). It was an enormous work representing the material universe. When we went to the second floor, we saw people sitting in a row in a similar way to one would do in a medical clinic. We found out later that they were queueing for entering an installation that allowed only one person at a time to experience it. The installation was by Elin Hansdottir(born 1980).  The actual exhibition room was transformed it into a psychological and phenomenological playground. After we realized why they were queueing, we joined them.  After 10 minutes and the one who was in the exhibition room hadn't yet come out, I gave up and went to the museum shop, leaving TT to queue alone.    

It was already 3 p.m. and it wasn't yet TT's turn to the installation. He went to take me from the shop and we ran to the Red Rock Cinema  for the volcano show on Hellusund 6A, which is not far from the museum. When we arrived there, the show had already started. However, we still couldn't decide if we should take the 1-hour or 2-hour program (1-hour program 1200 ISK, 2-hour 1500 ISK). The ticket seller therefore suggested us to buy the ticket for 1-hour program and to pay more after the first hour if we want to continue the second hour. 

When entering the theater, Villi Knudsen was telling about his story of filming volcanos at different locations around Iceland. His joked at the end of his talk that if there was any earthquake during the film he would let us know (there was an earthquake 2 days ago somewhere in Rekjanes). Part one of the volcano show was actually called Villi Knudsen's Volcano Adventures. The film showed eruptions in Iceland since 1947, for example, Mt. Helka eruptions in 1947-1948, 1970, 1980, 1981, 1991 and 2000; Askja eruption in 1961; Surtsey eruption in 1963-1967; Heimaey eruption in 1973; Lake Myvatn eruptions in 1975-1984; and Vatnajökull Glacier eruptions in 1983, 1996 and 1998. Knudsen has been fascinated with volcanic eruptions since he was a boy and followed his father Osvaldur Knudsen who was a volcano film maker to film volcanos around the country.

The film was interesting but had bad editing. Time and places were jumpy and that made it difficult to follow. We decided not to continue to Part 2. We chatted a bit with Villi before we left.  

Then we returned to the National Gallery in order to check the installation which we hadn't seen yet. It was now 4.30 p.m. and there was no queue. I went to the exhibition room first. The labyrinth in the dark room played with light at the end of each wall that misled the visitor to the wrong direction. The path was quite long; however, after the first time I was fooled by the light, I could walk towards the right direct all the way until it path ended at the entrance/exit door. The was one point where the path became narrower and narrower, and then too narrow to go through. This was the point to make the visitor made a turn and walked back the same path. It was fun to go there actually although the idea wasn't so new in my opinion. 

After this, we went to have dinner at Saegreifinn by the harbor on Verbud 8. It was actually a fish shop where they grill and serve the catch of the day. We order 2 kinds of white fish in barbecue sticks (1500 ISK each). We ordered them although we had no idea what kinds of fish they were. The other kinds of fish available were whale that both of us don't eat, catfish that TT doesn't like and salmon that we thought it too ordinary. I also order the famous lobster soup (800 ISK) and later bought a small package of dry fish (250 ISK). The food tasted truly fresh. The soup was very tasty but too little portion.

Walking from the fish shop to the residence wasn't far. The weather turned to be windy in the evening. So, we didn't go anywhere anymore, just relaxed and went to bed early...

  

Day 30 (26 July): Recovery Day

Surprisingly, we didn't get up much later than the usual time... TT left to return the car around 8.30 a.m. without breakfast.

I uploaded photos taken during the last few days while waitng for TT to get back from the city. I thought I would try to take it easy today.

After breakfast, I thought that I could visit a few museums and galleries I hadn't yet been and go for a swim at the swimming pool in Seltjarnanes. So, we left the residence for this plan a bit after noon.

We first visited the ASI Art Museum on Freyjugata 41. It was said to be a "contemporary art" museum, focusing on lesser-known Icelandic artists who were fond of the avant-garde and the proletariat. However, what I experienced was a collection of art in the beginning of the 20th century. The museum was housed in the former studio of sculptor Asmundur Sveinsson.


From the ASI Art Museum, I would like to continue to the Living Art Museum on laugavegur 26. On the way (not far from the ASI) TT noticed a traffic lamp pole which wasn't stand 90 degrees to the ground and took the funny photo below.

The entrance of the Living Art Museum was rather hidden. I was actually on Grettisgata. The museum seemed to be "living" just like its name suggests, because it seemed to be under construction with piles of wood and other things around. The exhibition at the moment was the bookworks from the 1950s to the 1990s of Dieter Roth, a Swiss artist who had an Icelandic wife and had lived a few months in Iceland every year during his life time. All of his books in the exhibition seemed experimental. Some were his notebooks with his handwriting, while some other played with topography. There was a man in rainbow-colour jumper came to explain about the history of the museum as well as Roth's work. He also mentioned that the museum was currently organizing its collection of artworks, all of which were given to the museum by the artists. The museum had never done the system of sorting out artworks before. Basically, they had just put boxes of artworks in the storage. After 30 years, the collection had grown with no record of what artworks were actually there. By the way, we also met Julia there. I thought that she was collection some info of the museum for an article that she would write for a magazine in Germany.

It was around 3 p.m. when we became hungry. We went to a cafe on Skollavörgustigur to eat. The cafe painted a wall very nicely as the photo below.... We sat on the terrace on the second floor. It was somehow nice although there was no nice view... I had soup of the day (vaggie soup with sausages, 750 ISK) and TT had pasta of the day (pasta with weird sweet creamy sauce, 1050 ISK). The cafe was very "retro" (even the waitress dressed like she would have come from the 70s). The atmosphere reminded me of the movie "Pleasantville"


Then, we walked to the swiming pool in Seltjarnanes which we wasn't sure if it really existed, because it wasn't on the list of swimming pools of Reykjavik city. It was really far to walk (the unsure feeling made it even farther). We were happy to see it open. However, the pool wasn't brand new as we supposed. It was just newly renovation but old elements were still visible. We went to different hot pots and the hot steam room.  The pool was quite crowded, perhaps because it was a sunny and rather warm day. We left the swimming pool around 7 p.m.

Having come back to the residence, I cooked eggplant lasagna and started to work again with the tree.

The picture below was taken from the kitchen window at 11.20 p.m. The colors of the sky appeared impressive.  

I extended the height of the tree, so that it became the maximum height that could still fit the box. I worked until 12.10 a.m...

  

Day 29 (25 July): Yaris on Inland Road Day

We got up at 6.15 a.m. Our luggage was little as we planned to return to Reykjavik tonight. I asl packed some food (sanwishes and Skyr) for the trip.

We arrived at the 4th Floor hotel on Laugavegur 101 a bit after 8 a.m., the time we were supposed to get the car. The hotel seemed to have rental cars just for attracting the hotel's customer as they have an offer of room+car at only 14000 ISK. As they were quite an amateur in car-rental business, they didn't charge an extra fee for the second driver and didn't have a restriction of driving a car on the inland route as other companies. Well, this was good for us...

We took Road 36 to the direction of Thingvillir via Mosfellsbaer. As TT did seem intereted in the oldest parliament of the world in Thingvellir, we did go there but turned to Road 365 which was a graveled road...

We stopped to check a cave at Laugarvatnshellir (the picture below) which was used to be a home for many familied in the 19th century. A man built a house in the cave where we lived with his family.


Then, we stopped at Geysir to see the hot springs although I had visited it already. This was because hot spring was among a few things TT was interested to see in Iceland...

The photos below show Strokkur before and after eruption...


Hot spring flowing over the lava-stone ground had nice color combination.


After Geysir, we continued to Gullfoss and was there quite briefly. I took care of the driving after Gullfoss. On the map (scale 1:750000), the road would be a straight gravel road. However, it was a sealed road but very curvy, so that the speed limit was only 50 km/hour. I drove until the road condition became unsealed, meaning the real inland road of Kjölur route (F 35) started. The Kjörlur route lies between the Langjökull glacier in the west and Hofsjökull glacier in the east, the glacier river Hvita in the south and tiver Seydisa in the north. We once tried an unpaved road with no bridge to see how deep water could be. We realized that it was surely impossible for our Yaris.

One centimeter on the map would be 7.5 kilometers which shouldn't take long time if the road was sealed. With this graveled road, it was impossible to speed up, meaning a centimeter was really counted...

The panoramic view from this route was perfect on the clear day like today. We stopped every once a while to photograph the landscape.

The picture below shows Geldingafell (796 m), behind it is Langjökull.


Many rivers could be seen along the road...


Blafell (or blue mountain: 12o4 m) is claimed to look blue from a distance. However, I didn't get that impression when passing by it.


The land along both sides of the road had no vegetation, only empty land really...


A view of Hvitarvatn glacier lagoon and Langjökull...


After about 60 km which took us nearly 2 hours, we stopped at the turn to Road F347 to the glacier and hot spring area of Kerlingarfjöll and thought it we should go there. To go there and return meant adding 20 more kilometers or about an hour. At the same time we stopped at the turn-off, two Dutch bikers came from the oppisite direction and made a stop as well. We chatted a little bit with one of them. He said that they had cycled in Iceland for already 3 weeks and still one week to go. I was really impressed by their toughness. We also asked about the condition of the road northward, he said that it after 5 kilometers from Hveravellir, the road was better.

Without going to Kerlingarfjöll, our journey then continued to the north. Our next stop was at the beautiful panoramic spot between Langjökull and Hofsjökull.


This was our Yaris...


Arriving at Hveravillir where we thought of having a break, we would take a bath in the hot spring ang relax ourselves. Before bathing, we went to the office of the campsite to have coffee and a donut. In the house, shop, office or whatever I should call it I noticed a handmade piping system, as shown in the picture below. Its messy arrangement looked interesting to me.


Then, we walked on a wooden walkway around the geothermal area and went to the hot pool. This outdoor bathing pool with a small waterfall was built in 1938. It was covered in silica precipitate. Two separate pipes: one ice cold and another super hot brought water to the pool. The pool didn't look 100% clean. However, I felt relaxed after being dipped in the pool.


After bathing, we had our sandwishes which I packed from Reykjavik along the water stream. We decided to continue to the north and take the ring road back to Reykajvik instead of taking the same route, which we had experienced how bad the road surface was.

The Road number 35 then approached the milky-green lagoon of Blöndulon. This manmade lake was the result of damming the Blanda River a decade ago for the Blanda power station. We stopped at a lookout point to see out over the lake.


We then took the shortest route to the ring road without passing Blöndos. I actually would have liked to pass Blöndos to visit the Textile Museum if it would be before 5 p.m. However, it was already 6 p.m. when we merged the road number 1.

After turning to the ring road, many farmlands and houses with greeny valley and steep mountains were the main view. Having been in the no man's land for the whole day, this was the place of the day where I thought I could live... I suggested TT to make a detour to do seal watching in the peninsula of Vatnsnes. So, we turned to Road 717 which later merged with Road 711. The road was as bad, curvy and hilly as the inland road actually, meaning driving over 70 km per hour was difficult.

The clouds were extremely low, nearly covering the mountains completely. I had never seen such clouds before. They looked somehow mysterious.


While passing Osar, I noticed a youth hostel which was mentioned in my guidebook. As it was already about 8 p.m., I thought perhaps we could stay overnight. We stopped and asked for availabilty. There was still rooms available. However, after seeing a room in one of the separate houses from the main house, TT didn't like it. So, we continued...

We stopped several times and walked from the road to the sea with the attempt to spot seals. At different places, I noticed something moving on the rocks. We believed that they must be seals. However, as we didn't have a telescope, we couldn't be 100% sure that they were seals...


We became quite hungry anand thirsty while having no food and water left. I checked on my guidebook and found that there should be a few restaurants in Hvammstangi, the largest town in Vatnsnes.

However, as we drove through and around this town, we didn't find any restaurant mentioned on the guidebook. I dropped by at a small shop in the gas station and bought a muffin, a large bootle of water and a package of cookies. We also asked the woman whether there was any restaurant nearby. She told us that there was one a kilometer away. So, we drove there and found that it was the restaurant of Hotel Edda whose building looked like a haunted school. Regardless of how hungry we were, the weird place couldn't make us stop.

We continued with our empty stomachs for a while until we noticed a gas station that had also a restaurant. It was already 10 p.m. The restaurant seemed to be local and rather crowded. We were happy to find the right place to eat. I had soup and lamb stew which together costed 1650 ISK. The lamb was really good.

Having been filled with good food, we were happier and in a good shape to continue the long journey. The rain became heavier and heavier and the visibility was lower and lower. After Borgarnes, I felt asleep. TT drove like hell... I woke up breifly when I felt that the car was slowing down. It was in Akranes when TT had to pay the toll (700 ISK) for the tunnel.

We finally arrived at the residence around 2 a.m. When trying to get myself out of the car, Clair was arriving at the same time. She just came back from a bar where others were still continuing the night. I felt really tired as if I was really drunk... We went to bed right away...