First time being chased out of a museum

We thought we would start the day with a morning stroll around the town. Hrisey only has 100 inhabitants so it wasn’t going to take long, we only saw 3 people the entre time we were on the Island, and one of them was caretaker of the holiday home. He greeted us on our stroll and handed us some dried fish that he was eating on his walk. Ali took some an instantly regretted it. Apparently it was really fishy and the taste lingered a very long time.

We walked through a very snowy town, through very colourful houses. A few of the houses has mini replica houses in the garden, I wondered if they were for elves possibly. I also liked the bins and washing lines attached to very heavy weights. We caught the ferry back to the mainland and drove to Akureyri which felt bustling and the first traffic we have seen for a while.

Our first stop was to Akureyri church. Our arrival coincided with the lunchtime service, so we stood in the foyer for a while and was then invited in to join the service. It was all in Icelandic, but we understood the Lords Prayer and the prayers for people who are poorly. It was strangely very moving, even though we couldn’t understand the words. We also got to listen to the gigantic organ playing. The service involved nine women only and after the tourists were allowed in to take pictures. The stained glass is stunning, one from Coventry Cathedral and a replica reconciliation statue that I’ve seen in Coventry Cathedral before.

After lunch, we visited the Akureyri Museum. It houses an exhibit of very old maps, exhibit of old Akureyri and an exhibition on Vigdis Finnbogadottir, first ever female president. The exhibit was full of her dresses, including a wool election dress, her traditional dress, wool coats and her power suits from the eighties. It also included her honours, including the Order of Bath, a gift from our Queen. We watched a fascinating video interview with her, talking about women in politics and how women are constantly having their clothes commented on. She talked about the national women day off day in 1975, where the country ground to a halt. Proving what would happen without equality. I just wish we could have stayed to the end of the video, but the gentleman told us that we had all of 2 minutes left. We hadn’t even got to the maps or the Akureyri rooms yet! We were literally chased out of the museum. This was a first.

It’s been a whole day since the last hot tub, so off we went to the local swimming pool, tipped as being one of the finest in Iceland. It was great. A huge pool, huge training pool with the local swimming club doing laps with their coaching shouting orders, lots of hot tubs of varying temperatures. We didn’t dare go into the 43 degree hot tub, 38 degrees was our limit. One of the hot tubs had a jet stream and I had to have a go. I should have known what would happen because I’ve never been in a hot tub with a waist strap before but the jet was so strong, it would have pushed me out of the tub! Instead, it pummelled my back. I’m still not quite sure whether I liked it or not, nor am I used to the whole naked changing room thing. What I am getting used to is the leaving your boots outside the pool and drying in separate areas to changing rooms. The result is clean changing rooms. Gosh I hope Icelanders never visit pools in the UK.