I had the most comfortable sleep last night at Grand Hotel
Reykjavik, like I said earlier in my first posting, I got this swank
ass room on accident due to a booking error in the computer. SCORE !
anyway, I'm not staying there tonight, I am staying at my friend
Hafsteinn's apartment in downtown Reykjavik.
Let me rewind
to last night: After my initial posting I went out to grab a beer,
yanno, and I open up my laptop and read a message from someone on
RealJock.com, that someone being my new friend Hafsteinn, he wrote me a
message saying "hey I think I just saw you walking as I drove by".
Well I checked out his pic, and wrote him back asking if he wanted to
meet me out for a beer, but I had to run back to my hotel first so I
could recharge my laptop and then I would run back out to meet him. So
I did and we met at the giant church with the Leif Erickson statue and
proceeded from there to grab a beer.
We get to the
place and sat down, had a very nice chat over Viking brand beer, which
by the way is pretty damn strong, I was buzzed after a few sips. We
talked about music mostly because he is a musician himself, composer,
singer/songwriter, choral singer, and overall a very pleasant person to
be around. So long story short we have many things in common, and plus
he's a pretty cool dude to talk to. He mentioned that he knows the
vocalist of Sigur Ros quite well, and has been to Bjork's house
parties, I'm impressed ! He invited me back to his apartment to listen
to some music, mostly Icelandic music that he is familiar with, all of
which was quite beautiful. He also showed me his own compositions and
his vocal talent, this guy is VERY talented at what he does and will go
far with style :-)
So back on to today, Day 2. I left the hotel to go meet up with Haf at the church Hallgrimskirkja where he was rehearsing with his fellow choir members because I really wanted to hear him sing with the group. (check out the photos) The acoustics in that place is so out of this world, ethereal even, I was amazed..I really liked the music that they were rehearsing. When all that was done and over with, Haf and had a coffee at a cute and cozy coffee bar called Babalu. We were there for a while, I talked to a girl named Kelly who overheard my conversation about the organic farming that I'm involved in, she is also from NY but had just arrived to Reykjavik a few days prior to me. She was very interesting, had a lot to say and even recommended a few places in Europe to visit. Haf also introduced me to his Finland friend (I forget his name) who is also a music savant, musician, and producer of sorts.
Haf and I had planned on visiting the pool today so we could go swimming so we did that right after our coffee break at Babalu. We get there and the place had a giant blue waterslide, a separate pool to swim laps, another pool for general swimming, a side pool that was super heated with steam rising up from it, and a few hot pots to the side with extremely hot water for just sitting. Haf had met his swim team there and I was also introduced to his Icelandic friends, none of whom I could nearly remember how to pronounce their names, but they seemed nice ! We were in the water for a good hour and a half, took a couple turns on the giant water slide, which by the way was awesome because as you slid through, part of the tube was opaque and you couldn't see shit in front of your eyes, and another part of the tube had cool twinkly lights inside the tubing which made it seem very cosmic. I felt like I was 12 years old again WOOHOO! I'll miss that place, everybody there is so beautiful ugh..
We grabbed dinner at some seafood place by the water, again I don't know the name of it but I did snap some photos of the whale meat on skewers. The place reminded me of a cozy New England seafood shack but the best part of it all was trying the whale meat on a skewer with peppers !!! I've never had whale meat before and I've gotta tell you it tastes just like red beef with a slight salty ocean flavor to it, I really really enjoyed it ! We also ordered two cups of Lobster chowder, a skewer of scallops and a skewer of potatoes. Man that was a delicious dinner, I'd do it again.
It was kind of rainy but that didn't stop us from driving around the town to check out the coast line and talk about some of the history in Iceland. After that we went back to his apartment in Reykjavik and listened to music for hours, chatted, checked each others music tastes out, watched some funny Youtube videos and that was that. I am now sitting here in the guest bed / couch and writing this blog. I am about to upload some new photos, and videos if they allow it on here.
Tomorrow I embark on the magical trip to Fljótsdalshérað,Iceland.
Godt natt !
