Iceland: Day Three

We got up at 7:30am this morning so we could eat breakfast and go to Mass.  We only had one tour today and it didn't start until 7:00pm so we had a free day mostly.

We attended 9:00am Mass in icelandic.  It was a long Mass and I think I may have fallen asleep once or twice.  The Wife said that the Mass felt very Polish.  There is a large Polish contingent in Iceland and most of the Catholic institutions here have eastern European influences.

Christ the King Cathedral all lit up at 9:00am.

After Mass we made our way back to the harbour area where, a couple days ago, a burger joint had been pointed out to the Wife ("Best burgers in Iceland" according to one of our Whale Watching crew).  On the way we stopped at a shop the Wife had read about.  It was run by ten women artists.   A bowl made of Radish Paper (i.e. razor thin slices of colored radishes) caught the Wife's eye.  A music box carved from local wood caught mine.  Both were rather expensive so we decided to think on it for a bit.

A statue outside the Geysir Bistro.

We ate lunch at the burger joint: Hamborgarabúlla Tómasar (Tommi's Burger Joint).  Two cheese burgers, two orders of fires, a small soda for me, and a shake for the Wife cost us around $40.  The burgers were good and the Wife loved her shake.  The cost of the lunch is just one example of Icelandic prices.  Everything is expensive here.  I knew this when we planned this trip but I was still surprised by some of the prices.

As the morning progressed the weather got worse.  A mix of drizzle, sleet, and snow came down all day.  When we left the burger place and headed to the shopping district we were plastered with rain and snow blown by Iceland's never ending wind until we put some buildings between us and the open ocean.

We walked up the main shopping street and purchased our magnets, gifts, and souvenirs.  On the way back to the hotel we went back to the store and bought the bowl and music box.  The music box I liked the most was no longer there so I got my second choice.  You snooze ... you lose.

The statue of the Unknown Bureaucrat.

Back at the hotel I called to confirm our tour and got the answer that I expected.  The tour was the Northern Lights Deluxe tour which would have taken us out in the countryside for nearly eight hours to watch the northern lights.  The weather we experienced all day was apparently Iceland-wide.  The tour was canceled.  The aurora we saw on our first night in Iceland was going to be the only aurora we would see in Iceland.

We ate our one and only sit down dinner outside of our hotel.  The food at the Geysir Bistro was good and we beat the rush by about an hour.

We walked around a bit.  Did some more shopping, taking pictures, and returned back to the hotel sometime after 8:00pm.  Even though we didn't have a tour today it felt like a full day.    Our tour tomorrow was relatively early for us so we went to bed at a reasonable hour so we could have a great tour and New Year's Eve tomorrow.

Pictures can be found in my 2018-2019 Iceland Google Photos album.