Vacation Observations.

[njac]

He's coming from West Virginia. He practically needs a passport to enter the Republic of California, we'd probably quarantine him for a week, too.

They let me in even though I lived in WV for a whole 1 year and 18 days!!

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[WVUPharm2007]

Image #2...

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I am from the podiatry board but I happen to saw this out of curiosity and I have got to say this has to be one of the funniest threads ever. hyundai. siberian winter in texas. lmao

did you ever go to California for a vacation? if you think Texas is funny (which I'm guessing you went to) then California is an entire league of its own in terms of weirdness (I am longtime CA resident)

good stuff

You should hear about the time my car caught on fire...or I wound up living in a shack for 6 weeks...

 

[PharmDstudent]

Your pic is too hard!

 

[WVUPharm2007]

 

[confettiflyer]

Is Fred Armisen running around?

 

[wucool33]

Portland? But why?

 

[awval999]

Love Portland. Lots of microbrews. Check out Pearl Street.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I'm in Tillamook right now. The drive out here through Tillamook State Forest is breathtaking. Spiri would be like a kid in a candy store out there.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Portland? But why?

Why? Because I go to cool places. So far, this town is up there with Toronto and Austin. It's like the climate of England with the friendliness of West Virginia and the weirdness of Austin. I can dig it.

 

[confettiflyer]

I love Portland...if anything, for all the hipster food joints and being way cheaper than SF.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

So I went to Reykjavik for a week. I rented this thing called a Renault Megane. I've never seen this one before:

WTF?!?!?!?!

This thing literally sounded like a weedeater.

 

[297point1]

I've been waiting for this trip report...don't disappoint!

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Ok...so...Iceland. Where to begin. Iceland is so ****ing weird. Part 1.

So I get off the plane. Icelandic border control is FANTASTIC. These two women are in a booth. You just get in line. One looks at you, another stamps you. They asked zero questions. ZERO. If you remotely look like the person in the photo, you're good. They said not a single word. It was hand passport over -->look at picture--->slide it to other lady---> stamp ---> slide back to you through other little window hole. It couldn't have been more than like 4 seconds. The ENTIRE PLANE was through in about 8 minutes. I've had Homeland Security people at the US/Canada border take 3 minutes on just me.

They are some trusting people.

So we go through the duty free store, get the bags, go to the "rental pickup area." Apparently, only one company is allowed to set up shop in terminal and they charge like twice as much as everyone off site. So what you see are a ****ton of ragtag locals renting out cars. There was a dude with a torn off piece of cardboard with a dude's name on it and "Econocab Keflavik" written overtop of it. I thought I was in Bulgaria or some ****. But thankfully, that was the most trifling thing I saw the entire trip. My shuttle driver was a 100lbs blonde haired teenage girl who wasn't even considering helping us with our luggage. But that's fine. We went and got this Renault Megane. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to turn it on with the weird keycard thing they got going on. It had no power. None. I think I could have gotten out and ran faster than this thing merging onto the highway. But I'll be damned if it doesn't get what had to be like 50-60 MPG. I used like 5 gallons of gas the entire week.

Then what. I got in at 5AM and I couldn't get into the condo until 2PM, so I wasted some time downtown walking the town. I don't even know how to properly describe this town. There are cats everywhere. They just roam. People feed them. But I stumbled upon this weird park filled with statues. Check this **** out:

Yes, that's a guy sucking the milk out of a cow. Apparently, its the creation story in the Nordic myths. Yeah, don't ask me. It is what it is.

But one thing that just sticks out is that they LOVE graffiti. They actively encourage the youth to tag the town up. Some of it is pretty good, some is lame and in broken english.

...and its ALL OVER town. There must be 200 murals like the above around. Hell, maybe more. Its really a part of their urban culture.

..........

I'll add more later.

 

[y0ssarian87]

Ok...so...Iceland. Where to begin. Iceland is so ****ing weird. Part 1.

So I get off the plane. Icelandic border control is FANTASTIC. These two women are in a booth. You just get in line. One looks at you, another stamps you. They asked zero questions. ZERO. If you remotely look like the person in the photo, you're good. They said not a single word. It was hand passport over -->look at picture--->slide it to other lady---> stamp ---> slide back to you through other little window hole. It couldn't have been more than like 4 seconds. The ENTIRE PLANE was through in about 8 minutes. I've had Homeland Security people at the US/Canada border take 3 minutes on just me.

They are some trusting people.

So we go through the duty free store, get the bags, go to the "rental pickup area." Apparently, only one company is allowed to set up shop in terminal and they charge like twice as much as everyone off site. So what you see are a ****ton of ragtag locals renting out cars. There was a dude with a torn off piece of cardboard with a dude's name on it and "Econocab Keflavik" written overtop of it. I thought I was in Bulgaria or some ****. But thankfully, that was the most trifling thing I saw the entire trip. My shuttle driver was a 100lbs blonde haired teenage girl who wasn't even considering helping us with our luggage. But that's fine. We went and got this Renault Megane. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to turn it on with the weird keycard thing they got going on. It had no power. None. I think I could have gotten out and ran faster than this thing merging onto the highway. But I'll be damned if it doesn't get what had to be like 50-60 MPG. I used like 5 gallons of gas the entire week.

Then what. I got in at 5AM and I couldn't get into the condo until 2PM, so I wasted some time downtown walking the town. I don't even know how to properly describe this town. There are cats everywhere. They just roam. People feed them. But I stumbled upon this weird park filled with statues. Check this **** out:

Yes, that's a guy sucking the milk out of a cow. Apparently, its the creation story in the Nordic myths. Yeah, don't ask me. It is what it is.

But one thing that just sticks out is that they LOVE graffiti. They actively encourage the youth to tag the town up. Some of it is pretty good, some is lame and in broken english.

...and its ALL OVER town. There must be 200 murals like the above around. Hell, maybe more. Its really a part of their urban culture.

..........

I'll add more later.

Good beginning post! I'll be headed to Reykjavik in March with some classmates. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest.

 

[Digsbe]

Never really thought about going to Iceland, my grandfather was there decades ago with the military. Seems strange but maybe worth the trip.

 

[accordman83]

Man this dude gets around...

 

[fewaopi]

Hope you get a chance to eat some hakarl

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Hope you get a chance to eat some hakarl

Fudge no. The locals straight up told me they feed that to tourists for their own amusement and that none of them actually eat that nasty stuff.

 

[ldiot]

The parking lot at school is full of Hyundai, Toyota, and second hand BMWs. What trash

 

[WVUPharm2007]

So the oddest thing about Reykjavik is that there are no Icelanders in the historic downtown core. None. If you walk around, all you'll see are Americans, British, Germans, and a **** ton of asian tourists.

The Asian tourists are the best. The best. They have this thing called the Icelandic Phallological Museum. Yes, kids, its a museum about penises. The asian tourists had a BALL inside this thing. They'd take obnoxious selfies of themselves fellating an elephant dong. They'd bend over in front of the blue whale dong and pretend its about to penetrate them. They'd take the penis-handle bottle opener and run around with it acting like it was their penis. They had me rolling. (The penis museum is a must visit just for the gift shop.)

We went to a national treasure of Iceland called Geysir. As you might guess, its a geyser. Some idiotic Korean guy scolded himself by stepping inside one of the smaller, boiling, geothermic water holes. They had to rush him to the hospital an hour away. Making fun of tourists seriously injuring themselves due to not respecting nature is apparently one of the Icelander's favorite pastimes. This poor Korean dude was on the news and everything.

But back to my original point, I saw more Chinese downtown than Icelanders. Everyone was speaking English. I was very confused. Turns out that the locals avoid the downtown areas Sun-Thu at all costs to avoid the tourists. So if you want to interact with actual Icelanders, hit up the suburbs.

As it just so happened, I rented an AirBnB outside the downtown core. (It's actually hilarious to call it that because Reykjavik is shockingly small compared to US cities) Once you get out of town, man, no tourists ANYWHERE. The tourists REALLY DO all stick to a small little area near the church downtown.

So the first thing I do when I go to a new country is plop my luggage down and go to a grocery store. You can tell a lot about a people by what their grocery stores are like. Canadians are the type of people that will go out of their way to invent new kitchen aides. Hence, they buy their milk in a thin plastic bag. Ergo, it necessitates a thing called a milk pitcher to exist.

So I drive to the nearest store. It's called "Bonus." They have the cutest little logo. The bags are adorable:

But inside? I thought I was in the Eastern Bloc. (To be fair, I later found out that this was the "crap" Bonus.) There were three aisles and zero refrigerators. You had to walk inside a giant refrigerated room in order to buy cold items. Very odd. And you had your choice of maybe 2 of each products. The selection is pretty bad. The food in Iceland is the most ridiculously priced I've ever seen in my life. A package of bacon cost 24,49 ISK. That's about $20. This explains why bacon is seen as luxurious food and the bacon cheeseburger cost 500ISK more than the ones with just beef. I thought it was sort of odd how if an item contained bacon it was front and center on the advertisement. Now I know. What I found really odd is that they had a wide selection of US BBQ sauces. Hunts, Jack Daniels, KC Masterpiece...but no Sweet Baby Ray's. I feel bad for those people. They get our stepped on sauces, but not the Sweet Baby. Sad.

Because its Europe, they make you bag your own groceries and pay for any and all bags that you use. I paid...just because I wanted one of those adorable little piggy bags. Tee hee.

Part 3 later.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

So let's talk about driving in Iceland. Thankfully, the Iceland travel bureau released one of my all-time favorite videos ever about the subject. This is seriously a must watch:


I love their sense of humor.

And Elfis wasn't lying. The weather effing changes every 15 minutes. And the gravel roads come out of nowhere. And livestock is everywhere.

But I'll tell you what he doesn't tell you.

A) ICELANDERS ARE THE MOST ALOOF DRIVERS EVER. They make Boston and New Jersey drivers look like driving school instructors. I damn near got run off the road 4 times in a week by someone just merging into my lane on the highways around Reykjavik. They really don't consider the thought that other drivers exist. They REALLY suck at driving. Which brings me to the scariest thing on the planet...

B) These people LOVE their damned roundabouts and they aren't very good at them. Every intersection is a roundabout. All of them. You'll be on a highway outside of Reykjavik and instead of an exit ramp, they throw roundabouts at you. Its seriously ****ing weird. You have to slow down, go a half circle, get back up to highway speeds. Outside of the old downtown in Reykjavik that existed before cars did, its roundabout hell. Now, I know what you are thinking. We have a few roundabouts in my town, I know how they work, I'll be fine. NO. NO YOU WILL NOT. Because you aren't considering the above. These people do not give. a. ****. If you are in the circle, they will pull out in front of you like its nothing. And they don't use blinkers. Ever. I saw like 4 people use a turn signal while I was there. So when they abruptly turn into your lane while driving 6 yards ahead of you in the other lane, there is zero warning. Be vigilant and willing to jerk the car into the median or shoulder at a moment's notice.

C) Your US chip card doesn't work at the pump. (Minor point, but I thought I'd throw it in there.) You just walk in and pay.
------------
Minor comments:
Best burger: Roadhouse in Reykjavik.
Best hot dog: The little stand inside the 24 hr Hagkaup department store right outside Reykjavik. I hit that mug up a few times at 11PM and it was delicious.
The nightlife scene is epic and goes until 6AM Fri and Sat nights.
They all like Bernie Sanders a lot and they will tell you to vote for him.

 

[bacillus1]

So let's talk about driving in Iceland. Thankfully, the Iceland travel bureau released one of my all-time favorite videos ever about the subject. This is seriously a must watch:


I love their sense of humor.

And Elfis wasn't lying. The weather effing changes every 15 minutes. And the gravel roads come out of nowhere. And livestock is everywhere.

But I'll tell you what he doesn't tell you.

A) ICELANDERS ARE THE MOST ALOOF DRIVERS EVER. They make Boston and New Jersey drivers look like driving school instructors. I damn near got run off the road 4 times in a week by someone just merging into my lane on the highways around Reykjavik. They really don't consider the thought that other drivers exist. They REALLY suck at driving. Which brings me to the scariest thing on the planet...

B) These people LOVE their damned roundabouts and they aren't very good at them. Every intersection is a roundabout. All of them. You'll be on a highway outside of Reykjavik and instead of an exit ramp, they throw roundabouts at you. Its seriously ****ing weird. You have to slow down, go a half circle, get back up to highway speeds. Outside of the old downtown in Reykjavik that existed before cars did, its roundabout hell. Now, I know what you are thinking. We have a few roundabouts in my town, I know how they work, I'll be fine. NO. NO YOU WILL NOT. Because you aren't considering the above. These people do not give. a. ****. If you are in the circle, they will pull out in front of you like its nothing. And they don't use blinkers. Ever. I saw like 4 people use a turn signal while I was there. So when they abruptly turn into your lane while driving 6 yards ahead of you in the other lane, there is zero warning. Be vigilant and willing to jerk the car into the median or shoulder at a moment's notice.

C) Your US chip card doesn't work at the pump. (Minor point, but I thought I'd throw it in there.) You just walk in and pay.
------------
Minor comments:
Best burger: Roadhouse in Reykjavik.
Best hot dog: The little stand inside the 24 hr Hagkaup department store right outside Reykjavik. I hit that mug up a few times at 11PM and it was delicious.
The nightlife scene is epic and goes until 6AM Fri and Sat nights.
They all like Bernie Sanders a lot and they will tell you to vote for him.

I've wanted to go to Iceland for a while. Now not sure with all this crazy stuff about driving there.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I've wanted to go to Iceland for a while. Now not sure with all this crazy stuff about driving there.

They "strongly suggest" you get insurance when you rent. They claim its due to the weather. Its really because they can't effing drive.

The good news is that you can actually get around without a car pretty well if you want. There are countless buses, vans, and cars that travel from the airport to downtown for a reasonable fee. (Why they don't build light rail between KEF and Reykjavik I don't quite understand.) And every nature tour has an option to bus in from Reykjavik. You can go just about anywhere with either a bus or a private van tour.