Local foods we have eaten

Joe has commented that this is the most un-foreign country we've visited. Strange for a European country, huh? Most people here speak English as a second language and everything here is modern. Our hotel room, although small by American standard, is comfortable and incredibly clean. The bathroom has a towel warmer, which I quite enjoy. So far we've had the comforts of home during mealtimes, including fried chicken and pizza, but we've enjoyed the local foods too.


The most popular hotdog joint in town serves a beef/lamb/pork hotdog with fried onions, mustard and a remoulade of some kind. It's good! Last night we had boiled haddock, potatoes, peas, and red cabbage. All served with sweet rye bread. Seems bland but you slather everything in a rich Icelandic butter and you are all set. One delicacy we've quickly latched onto is Skyr (skeer). The process to make skyr is similar to cheese making, but it tastes and looks like yogurt. It's high in protein and is eaten at all times of day- bfast, dessert, snack, etc.- with cream and fruit.
We've been dared to eat boiled sheep's head and fermented shark meat. Uh...we have not gone there yet though. It's intimidating so far but perhaps we'll get brave during our stay.

FAQs

Break out your maps, you may be surprised that Iceland is only a 5 hour flight away, similar to a flight from Baltimore to LA or Philly to Barbados. Iceland is on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.
Currency is the kronur. USD 1 = ISK 117.
Temperature is strangely similar to York, high around 41 and low of 31, sunny with occasional snow shower.
The sun rises and sets almost at the same time in York too. The only difference is that it takes a lot longer for the sun to rise and set so it's like twilight for hours and hours.

Day 1

Location: 64*8'39" N, 22*55'48"W
Reykjavik, Iceland

Babalu Coffeeshop
We left Logan Int'l at 8:35 pm on Saturday and landed at 6:40 am on Sunday at Keflavik Airport. It's a short 5 hour flight overnight, and Kathy and Axel were so kind to pick us up at the airport. After a quick nap to re-calibrate, Kathy and Axel picked us up for our introduction to Iceland.
We visited Thingvellir, where the first Parliament met. There's a continental divide here and I guess it is constantly moving. Like a few inches a day. The visitor center is built exactly the width of 1000 years movement.


We also saw a geyser, or shall I say, the Geysir. Apparently geysers are named after this particular geyser named Geysir. The Icelandic word for geyser is actually some other word. Other things we saw: big waterfall called Gullfoss ("golden falls"), a big dormant volcano crater, and oh yeah! Axel's family cave. He apparently has ancestor's who apparently lived or were born in a cave out in the country. Strange thing, we found a geocache hidden in the family cave. So in case you are geocacher, there's one in Iceland!

Welcome Back

Oh hey, guys. Welcome back to our travel blog. We started packing our bags last night and leave for Iceland tomorrow! We will try to post as often as we can (whenever we find wifi access) about our trip and share our adventures with you. In the meantime, please enjoy our previous travels to Barbados and Vietnam in 2010 and 2008 (choose from the menu on the right).

Save water drink beer.

The beer of Barbados is Banks, missed out on a tour of the brewery when they didn't respond to my calls or emails for reservations. Anyway, Banks is a special kind of place filled with imported hops and barley. Their beer is great, thanks to the awesome water which they use to brew. The fresh water supply has been naturally filtered through coral, and although slightly hard, it is good for brewing. An interesting thing about Banks is that they have license from Guinness to brew Foreign Extra, a 7.5% Stout, rich in hops bitterness. I love Guinness and this is very different from what we have state side.

That same water makes a great pizza dough. We ate some really good thin crust at Mama Mia's west of Accra along the coastal road.

The Rum

Our Island Safari tour guide told us that if something seemed backwards here on the island, you can blame it on the rum. I guess anything is a good idea when your drinking rum- like agreeing to paint your house pink =)

Sugarcane farming/rum distillery is probably the second biggest industry here next to tourism. And they don't play. The rum here is serious. The very first day here we went to a popular Friday night hangout- Oistins Fish Fry. They have open air craft stalls, food stalls, music stage, and people- lots of people. I got knocked on my ass by the rum punch. And it wasn't even a properly made rum punch, but just the stuff from a mix. I skipped my usual drunk phases and went straight to the head-on-the-table phase. I was sweating like a crazed maniac and all of the sudden I decided I should go to the bathroom to break the seal. On the way to the bathroom a strange thing happened. My vision suddenly turned negative. Like, remember those old photo negatives you got with your one-hour prints? Yeah, like that. Black was green and white was red. It was the weirdest thing, but not to worry, after a trip to the bathroom I was totally back to normal.


Those rum punches are clever. They don't taste strong but they are. Cocktails made here in the states would probably taste and smell like liquor and burn the whole way down your throat. Not the case here. I don't know if it's the warm weather or some kind of island magic, but it seriously could be all rum and just a splash of juice and still taste like Hawaiian punch from start to finish. One drink is worth two here in the states, so take caution or else you'll be seeing in negative and painting your houses pink too!

RUM PUNCH
amber rum
lime juice
simple syrup
orange juice
Angostura bitters
grated nutmeg

Mix and serve on ice.

Beach Culture

Beaches in Barbados are varied- from calm waters great for swimming to big waves for surfing.

Accra Beach is on the south shore and is said to be the most popular with tourists and locals alike. It has very calm and clear water almost as if you are standing in a pool. The water is so comfortable, I could have spent hours wading and playing in the ocean. This probably surprises many people who know that I don't like to be more than knee high at the New Jersey shore! You can't see more than a few inches deep in NJ, but in the Caribbean I could be neck deep and still see my toes. You can rent lounge chairs and umbrellas for a very small fee and there are food/drink/craft kiosks right on the beach. There are also restaurants and stores across the street to give relief from the hot sun.


We also took a full day trip to the Malibu Beach Club and Visitor Centre. You get about a 5 hour visit for $40US per person and includes a rum distillery tour, lunch, full use of the beach and amenities, 5 complimentary drinks, and shuttle service. Strangely enough, they don't make Malibu rum at this distillery (even though it's branded Malibu), instead they make Cockspur rum. But we'll get into the rum in a later post. The distillery happens to be at Brighton Beach- which is on the west coast. The water is still calm and clear and there are a lot of jet skiers and boats of all kinds passing by. We even saw horses taking a walk on the beach. There are some vendors selling crafts and dudes selling trinkets or finding riders on their jet skis. But the nice part is that they don't harass you like you would expect. If you kindly tell them no, they say that it's a nice day for whatever you do and leave you alone for the rest of the day.


As a side note, the rum distillery has a quality control laboratory that tests for the purity of the rum. When the tour guide embarassingly fumbled through the words "gas chromatograph", Joe and I took some sideways glances. He's got job options on a tropical island!


Our hotel stay was at Silver Sands beach which is on the southeast coast. Tour books recommend this beach more for the watersports and not so much for the swimming. The water here is more like Jersey, a little choppier and the sand gets whirled around from the waves. You definitely get sand in your shorts if you swim here! Some dude named Brian "DeAction" Talma owns the beach shop on the shore and offers kite surfing and wind surfing rentals and instruction. We watched all the surfers catch air from our cabana and soaked in the lively action.