Iceland

All right, first forget what you've heard. It's cold. Well, actually, it's warmer than New York in the winter. It's expensive. Well, actually, the plane fare from Boston or New York is less than that to Chicago. You'll hear a lot of Björk there. Well, actually, you're more likely to hear Shania Twain or the Backstreet Boys on the relentlessly top-40-oriented radio stations there. It's a land of contrasts, with algid glaciers and blazing volcanos, long winter nights and endless summer days. True, but this reviewer will attempt to avoid further lapses into florid prose.

On the other hand, you can only get so far by spurning the conventional wisdom. It is remote, as you can see from this picture of a bus out in the middle of nowhere.

A bus in the middle of nowhere, in Iceland.

Its place names do tend to be more dramatic than concise — Hraunhafnartangi and Kirkjubæjarklaustur spring to mind. (Or, rather, they don't.) Microsoft is in fact "disgustingly arrogant" — about providing support for the Icelandic language, that is, at least according to Andrés Magnússon, who maintains a site devoted to the Icelandic special characters. And there are, in fact, nude women pictured on their currency.

This review of Iceland should not, by the way, be mistaken for the Iceland Review, a fine publication whose recent headlines have included "Left, right gain in polls" and "Concern over nude dancers and mail-order brides." It was through the Iceland Review that I learned, shortly before my departure, that "the campaign to rid Reykjavík of stray cats has been a complete failure. Thus far not one stray has been captured."

I did not see any stray cats in Reykjavík, which, at a population of 108,351, is about the same size as my current home city of Cambridge. Human crime is apparently not much of a problem either; an Icelander told me that "there are only five exhibitionists [in Reykjavík], and the police know who all of them are." Most of the guidebooks I'd read included specific caveats about the behavior of drunk Icelanders — "bars get crowded and Icelanders get 'lively'," ran a typical one — but most of the Reykjavík club kids I saw seemed more intent on languid poses than roaring inebriation.

So, we've covered crime and intoxication — oh, yes, shopping. There is indeed a mall in Reykjavík. The only store you're likely to recognize from its U.S. counterparts, however, is the Body Shop — no Gap or Abercrombie here. Their major chain of grocery stores, 1011, sells cards like this one:

which translates approximately to "Congratulations on your day," at least according to Valdimar, the store's clerk.

Food in Iceland is eclectic and generally high in quality, with haddock and tiny, buttery potatoes being mainstays. But I would be remiss if I failed to mention that, according to the Iceland Review, "putrefied skate has gained a near cult status in Iceland...the quality of the meal [is] judged by the strength of the ammonia stench." Also, stay away from the little packages which read "Cheese Spread" and display a picture of a giant shrimp. The list of ingredients — "ostur, smjör, rækjur, bræðslusalt, rotvarnarefni, kælivara" — does little to reassure, nor does the fatty, pink-flecked appearance of the substance contained within.

Finally, there is the Blue Lagoon, which involves bathing in 105-degree water on what, in my case, happened to be a 15-degree day. Ice forms on the surface of your face, and all you can see, for miles, is sun and snow and igneous rock. This water has many reputed powers, including the power to turn your hair into a snarled strawlike mass for the next week, while you search for increasingly harsh remedies. But when you hold out a strand in front of you (which is not easy because it is sticking to all of the other strands) and twirl it around, instead of cursing your fate, you smile and murmur, "Ah, Iceland."

Oh, and there are see-saws there.

— Julia Lipman (julia@flakmag.com)