A Trip Down Memory Lane and A New Look At Old Things (Plus Some Bad News About Fishing)

the god of the mountain snaefells

We left our hostel and started driving to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. The ice capped mountain at the end is where the book "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is set. We stopped in the town of Arnarstapi to look at a monument to Jules Verne and also at a sculpture of the god of the mountain made of large rocks. Next we went to Djupalonssandur. Yes, it’s a long name, and no, I can’t say it. Basically, it’s the place where people were tested to see if they were strong enough to be Icelandic fishermen. There were four rocks in a clearing, Weakling, Half Carrier, Half-Strong, and Fully Strong. You had to be able to lift Half-Strong to be a fisherman. I, of course, zipped through this. I ended by spinning the Fully-Strong rock on my nose. I’m kidding. I couldn’t lift Weakling. No laughing- It weighed about 50 pounds. My dad could lift Weakling and Half-Carrier, but not Half-Strong, which weighed 220 pounds. The heaviest rock weighed 340 pounds 

We walked up the beach and saw the rusty remains of the Grimsby, a huge boat. 4 of the 19 crew members survived. The tide started to come in, and I had to run for it many times. Our good deed for the day was picking up starfish that had washed up onshore. After safely relocating them, we left for the Saga museum.

monument to jules verne in arnarstapi

A nice woman directed us through the turn of the century in Iceland. One of the rooms had a fishing boat where they had reels with 100 hooks. Another room showed what children played with using bones. They played farm with horse, cows, dogs, hens, and roosters. And the next room had a toy store. There were tops that was mounted on a pedestal, and wind-up animals that were shy sometimes, the Barbie origins, A plane yoyo, fake TV’s that played songs, a weeblewobble, which is an egg shaped toy that you set down tilted and it wobbles violently but doesn’t fall, and elephant that rides a tricycle, popguns, a toy train, and a horse that bucked with a rider on it. It was awesome. One of the best toy stores I’ve ever been in, but sadly, nothing was for sale.

snaefells

We left the museum and then went to the Library of Water. It is in Stykkisholmur, but it’s not a library of books, it is a library with columns of water. There are weather conditions and moods written in Icelandic and English on the floor. The columns filled with water have been collected from 25 different glaciers in Iceland. For each column, they needed 200 liters of ice to melt. One of the columns was from the glacier I went to!!! We wandered for a while, and then headed for the city camp in Stykkisholmur. And that’s where we are now. More pictures at: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAr4GbJ 

library of water in stykkisholmur