Here in 930 they founded their first parliament (the Althing) at Thingvellir. Interestly this is also the divide between the geologic continents of America and Eurasia and the only place above water you can see it. You can walk between these two masses through the narrow canyon shown below. The rest of the valley is marked by cracks and fissure where the two plates are pulling the country apart like a fresh brownie. The country fills them in with pools of clear water.
The prime minister keeps a summer cottage in the valley. The adjoining church is appropriately modest with blue and green walls and small last suppper. A grave outside told another story of a man born a jew and died a christian.
We didn't make it back to Reyk until evening. We were treated to great hospitality and some delicious shrimp appeitizers by the former Consul General of Iceland to the U.S. and his wife. They corrected (and gently teased) our mispronounced Icelandic place names, answered dozens of historical questions, and overall made us feel like welcome citizens. We couldn't have had more perfect sendoff to the trip.
For dinner we elected the local Indian restaurant due to its blue plate specials. When the $10 beers began to put us over budget, we headed out into the streets to explore. After a pint at a typical Irish pub (they're as internationally portable as a mcdonalds), it seemed fair to call it a night until we wandered into PRIKID (the perch a rooster sits on). The oldest coffee shop in Reyk, recently converted into a youthful bar. The upstairs seemed quieter, so we chose that as our roost. Within an hour (about 11:30pm) the place was packed. As we exited at dawn (last photo), there was a line to get in and the streets were filled with party.
It's dawn by any reasonable definition. We're about to go to bed. Someone is compelled to play with their new GPS toy. We started the trip, in earnest, at 10:30am the next morning.
