Last night when we were planning for the day, we were feeling optimistic. “We’ll get an early start and beat the rain” we said. We woke up to more rain. We like to redecorate our own reality, so we headed out anyway. We lasted 15 minutes and drove back to the hotel.

One thing we did know with complete certainty….was where to find Happy Marriage Cake #9. So we set out for lunch with desert already planned.

We ordered desert and Mark made the mistake of asking for ice cream to accompany his blueberry pie. What he received was a long dissertation along the lines of “ice cream is for gas stations, real whipped cream is what Icelanders eat….it’s classier” (those are my words not hers). Whipped cream it is! And not just one token plop, but two big plops. Enough for Peter to put a plop in the afternoon coffee he shouldn’t have had.

I had mentioned to the server I was doing a taste test of HMC throughout the Westfjords. As we were leaving, she wanted to know where their cake ranked. I said something ambiguous like “it was in the top”. Her reply, “you are not leaving until I have a number”. She was smaller than me, but very intimidating. I made up a white lie just to make sure we got out of there without any broken limbs.

At the restaurant they were playing classic American rock ‘n roll. We’ve noticed this quite a bit; we walk into almost any place and that is the music we hear. When did classic rock ‘n roll become a substitute for easy listening music throughout an entire country? I feel like I hear enough of it on our long road trips. In our car the driver gets to choose the music, and it always seems that Peter is the driver.

I went to the only retail store in town that didn’t sell groceries or liquor . The store’s name is Skrida. It’s a book store and publishing house, but not like what you imagine. The owner is a young woman. She has a sweet dog who will follow you around with a ball in her mouth whining so you will succumb and go out and play. If it wasn’t raining, I would have cajoled Peter out of the car to go play with her. Mama needs to shop!

The store is also her work space. There are large machines and tables piled with unbound printed books. She makes plainly covered books and binds the scrap paper for drawing and journals. Her goal is to support literature and arts in the region and she operates as a nonprofit. I admire her passion and commitment to the arts and sustainability. I did wonder who is buying all these books at $30 each.

I thought I would give you a taste of the Icelandic language, which I have successfully muddled on not 1 trip but 2. Because Peter does not like the way I drive, I am in the co-pilot seat navigating. It can be a challenge when I encounter a road name, like this one today: Örlygshafnarvegur. It’s a crap shoot that I spelled that correctly. After being eliminated during Round #1 of the elementary school spelling bee I’ve pretty much given up trying to spell things correctly. Yes, things that happen in grade school can traumatize you for life.

Back to the street name. Icelandic words are typically a composite of multiple words. We learned early that Foss = Waterfall. This is similar to the first thing Peter does when he enters a foreign country, he learns the word for lamb. This is so he knows what to order at dinner….or lunch…and if he could breakfast.

I thought I would put today’s most challenging road name into Google Translate. I started at the end of the word, deleting 1 letter at a time to try figure out what the composite words were. I was delusional. I think I ended up with one Swedish derivative, and many sub-word variations depending on what additional letters you include. Here is my worksheet for illustration.

I thought this would be fun and simple illustration that turned into a 22-minute fruitless project. I may not be able to say this word, but I now know why I see “vegur” all the time on maps.