Woke up about 7 this morning and peeked outside to see yet another sunny day! Three for three!
Hopped into the shower and managed to not flood the bathroom today. There is not a lot of space in our room, so it’s like a game of Tetris trying to get ready and dressed, twisting and turning in order to avoid an elbow to the eye.
Eventually we got to the breakfast room, and I have to say, with all the restaurants we’ve been to, including this place, the coffee has been….horrible. Not just “bad”, but “really, really bad”. It’s exactly like very strong, and old, instant coffee. The dregs of the pot that sat on a campfire overnight. And this has been everywhere. And to make it worse, they don’t use cream, not even 10% or half & half. Just milk. I daren’t complain as I know “when in Rome” and all that, but still….coffee is a world wide thing and how can it go so wrong? But I sucked down a cup anyhow, just to get that caffeine.
We went out for our daily walk and I picked up a couple of tiny souvenirs, tiny being the operative word since we only travel with carry-ons, so not a lot of room for extras. I have a friend who collects fridge magnets and another who collects shot glasses, so you can’t get much tinier than that! Icelandic people are wild for black licorice, and it’s everywhere, and we love it too, so a few packages of different kinds of that for us, and a small container of hand harvested Icelandic flakey sea salt for me, and Boom!, shopping done. The Bonus (that’s the name of the main grocery chain) store was just up the street so we did our licorice hunting there, and there were shelves and shelves of it. Other country’s grocery stores are the best!
A little Icelandic info for you today. The population of the entire country is only about 390,000 and of that, 140,000 live in Reykjavik.There are 4 other major cities, one with a population of 40,000 and the other three with 20,000 (more or less). The remaining people live in small coastal villages. There are no settlements in the highlands and central area as the weather (the wind and rain) make it quite uninhabitable for the majority of the year.
About these little villages though, I found this quite fascinating. The government says a that all small towns, even with a population of less than 200, must have the essentials to live a content and complete life. That means a grocery store, an urgent care facility, a library, a school, a gas station, a post office and a liquor store. Every little town. This helps ensure that young people (well, all people I guess, but of course the young are the future) won’t move away, and everyone has a life they can enjoy. There is very little homelessness in Iceland, only 0.3% of the population and those that are homeless do not sleep on the streets, they have sufficient temporary shelters. Crime and drug use are also very minimal. In 2022 the homicide rate had doubled from 2021….from 2 to 4.
And tipping is not a thing. Many locals get incredibly offended by the practice of tipping as they make a decent living wage and they do not feel like they need “hand-outs” from strangers, particularly Americans. They consider it an abhorrent practice and it is simply not part of their culture. I didn’t realize how ingrained tipping was because I felt so cheap when I left a restaurant and didn’t tip.
Speaking of Americans though, there was a Starbucks on the shopping street, and much as I didn’t want to go there, the urge for a decent coffee was stronger than my dislike for Starbucks. A small $10 cappuccino was worth every penny. It was filled to the brim (coffee pun!) with tourists, most seemed to be North American, we do need our good coffee.
Back to our hotel to check out. We are catching a cruise ship today to continue our adventure.
These little guys were everywhere, but they eventually turn into the photo below.
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