I'm in hot water now, or soon anyway...

Blog three, still day two.

The city bus system (still in Reykjavik) is actually easy to understand. As long as I don't forget that the number 14 is the one that goes in front of the Hostel. The bus is 280 Ikr each ride- I think there is a transfer available, but I was not sure what it said on the tag so...All the buses go to their main station, and from there you hop on or off to get to the bus you want that goes to where you want. You can of course do that along the line, but what makes the station nice is you can buy the bus cards there.
Got the “Welcome” card for 24 hours. It lets me take the bus, unlimited trips, get into several museums, get discounts in some of the shops, AND take a ferry over and back to one of the islands in the harbor! The one day was 1600Ikr. Considering th3e two museums I went to today would have been about that in admission, and then the 4 additional bus rides, a good thing to have. Also it means you don't have to carry a ton of change for the bus. Exact change of course, and that means 2 each of the 100 kr, and then a 50 kr, and three 10 kr to get the bus fare.
Tip trip for next time, bring along a badge holder and clip for things like the buss pass, and even the room key!
Museums today: The Culture house, and the Early settlement display. Both downtown, about five blocks apart, (bus stops nearby).
The culture house features some of the early saga manuscripts, though they are loaned out form time to time and replicas or large presentation book duplicates are used then, like today. Sure same luck I had in Toronto with the shoe museum. No pictures allowed form inside the Culture house, so you will have to sue your imagination. In addition to the manuscript hall, there is a rather nice display of photos taken by a local man of families in Iceland. Most of them are rural and show them in their homes and work. Makes one stop and think about all the stuff we have in our lives back home, and how these folks are still pretty basic when you get right down to it. Much of the baggage we drag along in our lives is out of desire, not need. Icelanders do not appear to waste too much of anything. The images included farmers; young ladies who work cleaning fish in the harbor; a Seal hunter and his family; an older farmer who went form fox hunting to tourist guide as his economy changed, an older man who still hunts foxes; and two brothers, self educated scientists brothers who live near the volcano that recently erupted. Alas I do not know if they had difficulties form the eruption or not. Interesting to get a glimpse into the homes and lives of the people of this land. I also had lunch at the Culture house. There is a soup and bread with coffee lunch for 1000Ikr, and you can refill the soup and bread. Sou[p choice was a vegetable, very tasty, and a mushroom. The bread was a very good fresh made roll (actually more of a mini loaf) I started with a bowl of the vegetable, and thought to have a second bowl to try the mushroom, but strange as it seems, I was just right after the single bowl and bread.

Fortified and ready for more museums, I went outside to catch the bus tot he settlement house. The bus driver did not laugh at me out loud, but he did look surprised when I pointed on the bus map where I wanted to go. He looked at me and pointed like “It's just over there, why don't you walk it?!”
I tried to tell him that I have no idea where “over there” is, so he shrugged and took me to the nearest stop to where I wanted to be. It was still a bit of a task finding the signs and going the right direction to get there, oh, and still a two block meander more or less to find it. The bonus? Getting to see an area of Reykjavik I might not have, I think I passes a casino with slot machines, and possibly a leather bar, but hard to tell with everything in a language I cannot read very well.
So the story goes that they were moving an older house, or trying to, in order to relocate it for another museum type place, in order to build a hotel and parking garage. Back in about 2001. They found the foundation outline and bits of artifacts form a longhouse of the settlement era. The museum staff estimate that there are more than a few of these under many of the buildings in Reykjavik. Newspaper accounts wee, one hears, rather hot and heavy with the fight over halting the garage, or saving the history. They opted for the history, built a frame and building over the site after stabilizing things, and additional building above that. I would guess that a clever engineer might have found a way to have the lowermost level of a multi-story garage be the history set aside, but what do I know!
Anyway, they have a few artifact fragments, and a nice layout of the foundation, post-holes, and layout of the site. Pictures were allowed, though the lighting and layout of the foundation make it hard to get anything good from that.. A most interesting place to see, at least from a re-enactor perspective.
I did stop into a number of gift stores while I was downtown, but nothing really jumped out at me, except the sealskin goodies, and the arctic fox, but I don't want it captured at customs for cities violations. There were rather large candles in the shape of the Great Auk, but I considered the logistics of safe travel for them and passed. What sort of things to bring home for people.....still looking!
Made it back to the hostel on the buses safely, still amazed at being able to ride the bus alone!
So, it is now about 8:30 in the evening, and i am going to go soak in the pool just up the street, it comes with the bus pass admissions, which expires at ten or so in the morning. Seems a shame to waste it, and my feet hurt form all that walking today...THAT'S my story and i am sticking to it. The swimming pool has adjascent small pools where the water is hotter by degrees, the whole thing is heated form the geothermal source......ooo i get to become volcano stew!
next post in the morning after the soak and sleep! Have a good day back home, we reached about 68f degrees today in Reykjavik, it got a little bit warm!
I need a soak NOW!