We’ve been in Iceland for almost two weeks now and have seen a fair amount of its jaw-dropping landscape. More about that another time. I want to talk about what I expected of Iceland and what we’ve experienced so far. As someone who was born and has lived on a very different part of the planet looking at this small island out in the north Atlantic ocean my mind ran wild with expectations of what this place would be like. I assumed…
Cold,
Rainy,
Remote, and
Desolate.
Ok, those things are kind of true. But. This is a super modern place too. Electronic payments are accepted everywhere we’ve been. I pay for gas at unattended gas pumps with my watch. Some of the cities are big enough to have shopping malls. They have public transit, too. A lot of places even have charging ports for electric cars.
We’ve had some rain, but we’ve had a lot of dry days too. And a number of very sunny days. It was nice enough that we had lunch outside in Reykjavik last week.
I like to eat. And I love grocery stores. The stores in Iceland do not disappoint. The stores are as modern and well stocked as anything in the US. There are three big chains: Bónus, Kronan and Nettó.
I think that Bónus is kind of a discount chain but it makes me smile so much because their mascot is a giant pink pig! It fills me with irrational glee!
The stores have all of the variety you’d expect from a western supermarket. All kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables. Plenty of meats, cheeses, breads, cereal… I didn’t notice anything missing.
The most jarring thing for me about their supermarkets is their candy aisles — they have so many things that I’ve never seen before. Probably the most unusual thing that I’ve seen, and in multiple different forms, is chocolate-covered black licorice! It’s definitely unusual, but I’m kinda starting to dig it.
Of the things I’ve randomly bought the most, the most challenging thing was actually an accidental purchase. I bought what we thought was a bag of dates. I didn’t look that closely and didn’t consider that there were multiple words on the bag — I just went by a glance at the label on the bag.
Well, they were dates but… they were but not plain dates. They were Salted Black Licorice flavored dates! Chissy was the unfortunate victim. She opened them up thinking that she’d have a tasty date and when she popped it into her mouth… you could see from her face that things had gone horribly wrong. After gagging, choking, coughs and a lot of spitting, she gave her review:
“That is the nastiest thing I’ve ever put into my mouth!”
I did try some… and I was able to get a couple down but they are definitely not for the faint of heart.
I started writing this weeks ago and I’m finishing it up on our last day here. During our time here
As far as food goes, the most unusual non-candy that I ate here was one that I didn’t know was a food option. We stopped at a diner near our hotel in Hvolsvöllur and on the menu was multiple different steaks made of horse meat! I was just too curious not to find out, so I got a horse meat steak.
If I hadn’t been told what it was, I would have just assumed that it was a very tender steak. The flavor and texture was very much like beef. Out of curiosity I did some google searching about the history of eating horse meat here and it turns out that the tradition started with the vikings who originally inhabited this remote place. It was a matter of survival in the long winters but was also consumed as a part of some of their pagan religious celebrations. When Christianity arrived in around the year 1000, consuming horse meat was outlawed, mainly because of the pagan ties. The practice was reestablished about 300 years ago and currently horse meat consists of about 2% of the meat consumed in Iceland today.
The only other noteworthy thing that I sampled here was the dried fish. Dried fish has a long history here because the options for preserving animal protein 1000 years ago were limited and drying it out was the easiest. Years later, salt became easy to acquire and other preservation methods became more common. There are still places in Iceland where not only is the fish dried, but it’s dried in the traditional way which is left out in open air. The fish is gutted and strung up to cure naturally by bacteria in a similar way to cheese is produced.
I tried a grocery store brand, just to have tried it. It’s probably an acquired taste. To me, eating it felt like eating very, very, very dry beef jerky without any spices or flavor added. It was different from dried fish that I’ve had in Asian markets because its flavor is so mild. But I also really didn’t care for the texture.
Aside from those more unusual things we also had a lot of very ordinary things. The best of which was probably the fish and chips. I think that I had them three times from different locations and it was always great. The fresh cod here is a treat.
One other thing that I had here that I really enjoyed was Icelandic Meat Soup. It’s traditionally made with lamb. The version that I had was from a grocery store. I didn’t expect much aside from a quick meal but it was delicious. The soup looks unassuming. Kind of like chicken noodle (without the noodles) but the meaty broth with chunks of lamb, carrot and onions was so good. We got it again at another store later and they had rice in it which is a reasonable addition.
One other thing about Iceland. It’s digital. Surprisingly digital. Payments everywhere take Apple and Google pay. I paid for everything from groceries to petrol with my watch.
One of the cooler things that I experienced here was that one of the campgrounds that we checked into was unmanned. You make your booking online and provide your licence plate number. When you arrive at the grounds, a camera scans your licence plate, recognizes your reservation and opens the gate for you. I was impressed to see such a modern system in what felt like such a remote and natural place.
Something else that I was pleasantly surprised by was how consistent cell coverage was. I suspected that since we were driving around the whole island that we should expect to not have coverage over large parts, but that was never the case. Losing coverage was quite rare, really — some of the eastern highlands, and sometimes in the valleys of the Westfjords but never for very long distances. And we always had service in the towns and villages, no matter how small.
Oh and lastly, I was surprised by how many electric cars you see here. They have a lot of the common brands, Tesla, Polestar… electric versions from legacy makers like Volkswagen and Mercedes are also quite common. I was slightly more surprised at seeing the Chinese BYD (Build Your Dreams) cars quite frequently here. I would have expected that range anxiety in a place with such remote areas, and that it is also so cold for much of the year that electric cars would just be a novelty. But we saw them everywhere. Some of the small villages even had charging stations. The most surprising one to me was to see the charging station Djúpavík. That town has only had a road for like 50 years, and it’s already electrified.
I can only assume that the push for electricity here is largely driven by the fact that Iceland gets a sizable portion of its electricity from geothermal. After a quick google search I learned that not only is 25% of its electricity geothermal, the remaining 75% is hydro… so the country’s power grid is 100% renewable.
When I imagined this place I pictured a wild, remote and desolate place filled with natural wonders. And while that is true to an extent, it’s also quite modern where it needs to be. And is very easily accessible. We’ve had a wonderful stay and it’s surely worthy of a place in your bucket list.
