Our street

Sunday, August 05/10:45pm: It is dusk. West coast cool sea damp feel. Lovely here. Scandinavia simplified. Deep primary colors of many buildings against the undecorated concrete of others. Teresa and I live in the AR Guesthouse, small clean quiet backpacker haven. The electricity just went out but a staff was here to fix it quickly and upon request supplied a fan for the white noise Teresa and I so treasure.

Happiness is being places. Here. Reykjavik. Settling into our digs in late morning after a ($100) ride from the airport. Showers and determination not to give the day over to sleep. Meeting Bob for a late lunch of traditional Icelandic food: beef burger with mushroom gravy and Skyr with blueberries, cream and sugar. An elderly gentleman played ancient favorites on the accordion while we dined.

All Icelandic music is not Bjork.

Pleasure is wandering about a refreshingly cloudy and invitingly low key, clean and accommodating small city that could be said to have an opposite vibe from the pulsating energy of Lagos for example. Reykjavik doesn’t feel intense like big important cities; it feels human but not at all bland. More like a primary color city: simple, straightforward with that old Viking essence of bold.

Contentment is a first day in an almost new place that lets you acclimatize without pushing and shoving and insisting you pay attention right now. Less exciting maybe, more humane surely.

Delight is a caramel muffin so moist and delicious as to warrant a food group all its own, streets full of eclectic restaurants and souvenir shops with tasty and excellent quality stuff, surrounded by a green rocky treeless countryside, with glaciers and mountains in the distance—where we will venture tomorrow.

Marj, Bob and Teresa LOVE Iceland.