Upon arriving in Iceland, a country that is known to drink heavily,
finding and affording alcohol was quite difficult. Tuesday afternoon we
decided a trip to the packy was needed so we could experience the nights
in Reykjavik. After doing some research, it turns out that beer was
prohibited in Iceland until 1989 (crazy!) and you can only buy alcohol
in state owned liquor stores and they are rare.
A can of cheap beer in the store is around 300 krona ($2.50) and buying in bulk saves you nothing. So we grab a selection of Icelandic and dutch beers as well as Brennevin, famous Icelandic schnapps that came about during prohibition. Thursday night we decided to see what was going on downtown. Kirstjan told us about a hostel that had a bar in it called kex so we thought we'd try it out. It was a cute little bar, with a lot of character. After a couple beers we checked out the menu, which had a lot of bizarre food and for some reason decided to get 'bone marrow on toast'. It was a bone cut in half and grilled. We scooped out the marrow and spread it on crackers. it was pretty gross, just tasted like pure fat, but it was interesting, and now I can say I've eaten bone marrow.
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| The pearl with the hot steam blowing out of the ground |
After a long day exploring the country on Friday, I was excited to see
what a night in Reykjavik was like. We heard that because drinking at
the bars is so expensive the locals don't go out until 1 or 2 am and the
bars/clubs don't close until 6am. So we drank the brennevin in our
hostel (the flavor is growing on me, it's like nothing you've ever
tasted before and pretty nasty, but it goes down easy) and took the last
bus downtown around 11. We found a cute and cheap bar to hang out in
until the city got more lively. Then we went to the English Pub for a
beer, they have a wheel that you pay $12 to spin and you can win upto 6
beers and 6 shots or you could get nothing (I'll have to try it out
before going home). At this point it was just starting to become dusk
out and was still pretty light out. We wandered around a found a bar
with a DJ called Vegamont. We had a good time dancing and drinking the
night away. When we decided to move on to a new location, the sun was
already rising! Now i understand the reason they can stay out so late is
because it never gets dark out. The city square has food trucks, which
is the best idea ever. One has hamburgers (which are not like our
hamburgers) and the other has waffles. Not bad options for drunk
munchies. One the way home, Jeremy and I somehow convinced the taxi
driver to drop us off at a place near our hotel called the pearl. It is a
series of tanks where the hot water is stored for the city and it was
turned into a tourist attraction by plopping a revolving glass dome
restaurant on top. Because it was 4:30am it was closed, but we found a
way to climb to the observation deck and watch the sunrise over the
city.
Not a bad way to end our first night out in the city.
A can of cheap beer in the store is around 300 krona ($2.50) and buying in bulk saves you nothing. So we grab a selection of Icelandic and dutch beers as well as Brennevin, famous Icelandic schnapps that came about during prohibition. Thursday night we decided to see what was going on downtown. Kirstjan told us about a hostel that had a bar in it called kex so we thought we'd try it out. It was a cute little bar, with a lot of character. After a couple beers we checked out the menu, which had a lot of bizarre food and for some reason decided to get 'bone marrow on toast'. It was a bone cut in half and grilled. We scooped out the marrow and spread it on crackers. it was pretty gross, just tasted like pure fat, but it was interesting, and now I can say I've eaten bone marrow.
Not a bad way to end our first night out in the city.
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