Days 11 & 12 - Life in Reykjavik

After an aggressive 10 days of "doing everything" it was time to kick back, do laundry, and get some rest.  I still woke at my normal 4AM - George and Bobbie slept in,  It started raining pretty hard during the night and well into the day, so we opted to stay inside, catch up on some reading, and get all of the laundry done.  Humorously
, we all realized that with the amount of clothing we had brought, we could easily go another week without washing.

Laundromats are non-existent in Reykjavik, pretty much like the rest of Europe, and our place does not have a washer or dryer.  There is a hostel that advertised laundry services and a cafe downtown that has coin washers and dryers in the basement...both at $5-7 per wash and per dry, so it was into the kitchen sink with lots of thermally heated water and dish soap.  Bobbie washed, George wrung and hung, first outside (there was a glimmer of sun for a while) and then quickly restrung and hung indoors.  We all got a good laugh at the way the place looked...thankfully the landlord has kept to herself...she would probably have shit her pants if she saw what we did.

Following our laundry task we headed out to the grocery store to restock for the rest of our stay.  Grocery shopping is always a pleasure as we get to see what the locals buy, meet folks in the store, and it's always fun to come up with interesting meal plans that fit into the budget.  The Bonus grocery store chain makes this easy with fair prices and a great selection.  George opted to treat us to some really fine steaks one night and he made a special trip to a specialty meat market on the way home.  We did not ask him what he paid...although we assumed dearly...ah, such a good guy.

I did some online searching and found a site that had US news streaming at a low bandwidth rate our host's router could handle and we settled in for the balance of the day catching up on news from back home, reading and napping.

The next day we opted to have a museum day and visited the National Museum and Custom House, took a stroll through the quaint downtown, dodging throngs of tourists, and returned home to a pasta dinner.  We watched a bit of TV before retiring early.  Tomorrow will be another long drive into the highlands in search of volcanoes and waterfalls.

 A very modern updated building and superb displays, all in English made for an enjoyable and informative visit.

The Culture House is an eclectic mix of art, history, and literature.  The manuscript area was interesting with many old books and letters.  Unfortunately we had no idea of what we were seeing. It is an magnificent building nonetheless and we enjoyed our visit.  One of the most unique things we saw, and got to touch, was a four horned sheep skull.  This mutation occurs occasionally and was fascinating.