Travels With Baby

All Good Things

Jolisa — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:40:00 GMT

On every holiday you should leave a few things undone, so you can come back again. So we didn’t visit every swimming pool in Reykjavík, just half of them. We didn’t travel much beyond the city and the Golden Circle. I didn't buy any Icelandic music, although I wish I had picked up something by the exquisite Ólöf Arnalds. I didn't venture into many of the tempting knick-knack shops and craft galleries, not because I didn’t want to, but because of my two artful dodgers and their octopus arms. I could have parked them outside the shop, I suppose, like the locals do.

It wasn't that I didn't trust the locals; I didn't quite trust my boys not to do a runner, and I'm not sure what the Icelandic is for "They were just here a moment ago."

This sleeping baby and its big brother sheltered quietly from the rain outside a kidswear boutique while their mother shopped:

James and I did pop into a gift shop on our last evening to buy a little snowglobe. I know schadenfreude means pleasure taken in another’s misfortune. But what is the word for the slightly smug sense of relief when something really expensive crashes to the floor and it wasn’t your kid that did it? We quickly bought our cheap plastic snowglobe and left the sheepish drunk Dutch guys to settle up for the ugly and costly porcelain Viking drinking horn that lay in pieces on the floor. Whoopsie-daisy!

What else didn’t we do? We didn’t eat any really fancy local cuisine. The really high-end stuff – fish delicacies, puffin cheeks, smoked lamb –is served in the sort of swanky places you’d only bring children to if you had a vendetta against the restaurant. The middle of the price spectrum seems to be occupied by all-you-can-eat fish buffets for the tourists; not such a bargain when two of your party will only eat seafood at the point of a harpoon. And the closest we came to tasting Icelandic lamb was some slightly dodgy Turkish takeaways. Maybe next time.

But beside the deferred pleasure of things left undone, there’s the reassuring delight of finding things to do again and again, like the scooter ramps in Ingólfstorg square. Twice we got burgers from the dinky little art-deco burger joint Hamborgarabúllan (pictured above). Just down the road from our lodgings, it offered decent value for the whole family and something for the mums: flirty guys behind the counter.

Of course we couldn’t get enough of the kökö mjölk, but there was also the beer-like (but alcohol-free) Maltextrakt. Bottoms up!

We also went back again and again for mixed lollies (watch out for the ultra-salty licorice ones!). In one little shop just down from Hallgrímskirkja, James must have sampled half a pound while filling his bag. He was indulgently egged on by the strikingly pretty woman behind the counter (whom I’m guessing was Miss Iceland 1995, but was probably only the third runner-up, so good-looking are the locals in general).

And on the last day we headed back out to Laugardalur for one final indulgence for everyone. It was raining -- not the sort of gentle drizzle that drifts away leaving rainbows in its wake, but proper rain. The best summer in 35 years couldn’t last forever. Karen and I went back to the spa for the massage we’d missed out on the other day, while the boys trudged manfully off to the Family Fun Park -- the third visit, if you're counting -- for some very damp fun. When honour was satisfied for both parties, we all met at Café Flora in the botanical gardens to warm up over soup.

James was grouchy about not getting one last swim at the Laugardalur pool, especially since we’d brought the swimming gear just in case. We bought him off with cocoa and cheesecake, and lingered over a second round of hot coffee. Soon enough we’d have to catch the bus back to town and pack our suitcases, but none of us was in a hurry to get going. The rain thundered on the roof, but it was tropical and lovely inside the greenhouse café. The kids watched the fish in the pond, and we chatted and watched the kids, especially when they were running up and over the Japanese bridge with no sides on it. It was a miracle that none of them fell in.

Until of course one of them did. Go on, guess which one.

I didn’t see it happen. I heard the splash, and the collective gasp from the entire café. First I looked for Toby – he’s a speedy, reckless little guy -- but he was dry. It must have been one of the cute little girls in the pink boots.

And then I looked at the pond and saw my big lad sitting there, up to his tummy in pond muck and not very happy about it at all.

What can you do? We hauled him out, poured the water out of his shoes, and scrambled for a towel - thank goodness we’d brought the swimming gear after all! He went home in a borrowed T-shirt, a spare jersey, swimming shorts, and bare feet, still unable to explain how he’d toppled in while patrolling the perimeter of the pond.

We ran uphill through the rain to catch the bus back to town, James piggybacked by his Dad. It was ridiculously exhilarating. We grinned all the way back in the bus, grinned as we told Thor (who kindly washed and dried the clothes in time for us to pack them), grinned as we re-enacted the event over dinner.

And we grinned again in the plane the next day, as we flew over Greenland, spotting icebergs and making plans to return.

The boy had asked for one last Icelandic swim, after all. As that great Scandinavian philosopher Pippi Longstocking once said, “Is there a law that children should always be dry?”

Perfect Day

Jolisa — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:42:00 GMT

There are days, traveling as a family, when the stars mysteriously align and tourism works for everyone. Our second to last day in Iceland was like that. I’d lined up an itinerary to cater to everyone’s tastes: the adults wanted to see more of the city and learn something about Iceland’s history, the kids were along for the ride as long as there was a swimming pool at the end of it and snacks along the way.

Our first stop was Perlan, the futuristic steel and glass dome on a hill outside Reykjavik. Pretty flash for a hot water tank, eh? It houses the state-of-the-art Saga Museum – if your art of choice is bloodcurdling life-sized dioramas of brutal historical events complete with soundtrack of shrieks and moans, then this is certainly the state-of-it.

I’d say it’s strictly for adults and older children, or seriously twisted younger ones. James balked at the realistic lava flow at the entrance, which was handy, because then I didn’t have to explain the fascinating but often ghastly tableaux inside. He settled for watching the “making of” film about how the watertank was converted into a museum and how the figures were modeled on living Icelanders.

Much more appealing – and free – was the artificial geyser that shoots up through the atrium inside the building, regular as clockwork. James was convinced it only worked if you threw 10 kronur in the pool and made a wish; we spent a couple of bucks fruitlessly trying to persuade him to test this theory scientifically. By the way, if you’re a budget traveler or just a very hungry one, you can really get your money’s worth from the bottomless soup and salad at the rooftop café, which is like a cross between a greenhouse and a spaceship. The view from the balcony was equally spectacular (and includes another artificial geyser outside).

Next stop was Árbæjarsafn, an open-air museum of historic buildings. Getting there was a bit dicey – the bus goes along the motorway and it’s not at all clear which stop to get off at, but by triangulating two different maps and following my nose, I led us safely to our destination.

It’s a quiet, beautiful, thought-provoking place, more than worth the effort to get there. Dozens of buildings have been carefully salvaged, transported, and reconstructed as a village, with geraniums on the windowsills and even teatowels hung up to dry.

The first thing you see is a small town green where old-fashioned toys were laid out. Wooden go-karts, stilts, small trucks and wagons, and a couple of see-saws. Toby had nodded off in the stroller, so we parked him in a shady corner. James and his dad headed for the toys, and my friend Karen and I poked around the old houses.

We spotted a wedding party having their photos taken. I’m not sure, but I think the child belongs to the bride and groom; apparently it’s pretty common here to not bother getting married until you have a child. It sure makes for a sweet wedding party.

One of my favourite buildings was the farmhouse composed of several connected structures, so you could walk from milking shed to dairy to stable to kitchen without going outside, which must have been handy in the long winters.

And the turf roofs, to keep things warm.

The one that really stuck with me, though, was a humble, minuscule house that had been inhabited by two families. You get the sense that until quite recently Iceland was, for most inhabitants, a very poor place. A family of five crowded into the ground floor, and a couple with a child lived in the tiny upstairs flat, reached by an almost vertical staircase. Unplumbed, of course, it was austere and yet cosy, with cheerful turquoise paint on walls and ceilings.

I thought of our studio at the guesthouse with its little kitchenette and tiny bathroom. And then I thought of our stuff strewn all over it. We travel light, but had still brought ten times more clothes than the downstairs family would have been able to hang in the simple wardrobe created by hanging a flowered curtain across a corner of the hall. And then I thought of all the stuff we hadn’t brought with us but had managed without for ten days. Be it ever so humble; definitely time to declutter when we got back.

And paint everything turquoise.

Our last stop of the day was the magical Árbæjarlaug swimming pool, where we would round out the day with a couple of blissful hours in the water. This was my favourite of the pools we visited; there’s a slide and bubbling hotpots and a gorgeous view. Following a handy tip from a friendly Icelandic blogger, instead of herding everyone onto yet another bus, I pointed us towards the path that winds its way to the pool along a beautiful river valley.

Technically it was dinnertime, but with the summer sun still high in the sky, who cared? We fortified the boys with muesli bars and set off. The smooth tarmac was just the thing for scootering on, so James raced ahead. A man and his labrador provided free entertainment for Toby in his stroller. Richard debriefed from the conference, and Karen and I admired the endless drifts of wildflowers under the blue, blue sky. Nobody whined, not once. For the twenty minutes or so we walked the river path, it felt as though time stood still.

A Cure for What Ails You

Jolisa — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:24:00 GMT

Látra-Björg was an 18th C Icelandic poet who ran away from her life as a housewife in order to wander around the country on a sort of endless tea party. She brought gossip and left amusing poems, and was thus welcome wherever she went. Tempted to ditch it all and try the wand’ring minstrel lifestyle? Best bite your tongue. As Látra-Björg’s poems grew blunter and less flattering, the good people of rural Iceland started hiding behind the curtains and ignoring the doorbell.

At least, that’s what I gathered from this nifty art installation in her honour at the National Museum of Iceland, in the thirty seconds or so before the boys dragged me away in search of something less terminally boring.

If there is anything more delightful than traveling with kids, it’s traveling without them. I’d had fun exploring Reykjavík with the boys, but as soon as Richard was finished with his conference, I handed over the reins and ran for the hills. And when I say hills, I mean day spa. Like an endless tea party, but with saunas.

This was my first such treat in a looong while – in fact, ever -- so I organized it with military precision. First, I persuaded my old school-friend Karen to fly over from London. Then Icelandair came to the party with a special offer: a day at the Laugar Spa for only seven bucks. If you’ve been following along, you know that’s in the same complex as the swimming pool with the great slide, and a mere saunter from the famous Family Fun Park, so that would take care of the boys.

The physicists closed up shop at 12.30 and less than an hour later, we were all on the bus to our respective Valhallas. I found it surprisingly hard to wave the boys goodbye after my week in the driver’s seat; I swear there was a velcro-like ripping sound as Karen dragged me off the bus and in the direction of the spa. How would they manage without me? Clearly, it would take several hours of utter decadence to cure the vaguely downtrodden aspect that comes from wiping other people’s bums and cleaning up after their tiny wayward willies.

But look what greeted us at the entrance to the spa. It’s a… well, I guess you’d call it a tower of bums. A looming, phallic tower. Of bums. They glistened prettily in the misty rain, but you know what? It wasn’t my job to wipe them.

Inside the building, we waved our free passes and demanded the works. Unfortunately, it turned out you had to book in advance for any of the treatments. For today, we would have to be content with enjoying the communal spa rooms -- just as soon as we “entered the system.”

This was a Bladerunner-esque procedure involving an eye-recognition machine. You stare into a lens and wait for the beep, whereupon the machine utters a soothing phrase, in a calm female voice: Identification is completed. Entry to the changing room involves eyeballing another camera, and the same mechanical response.

Ah, now this is the life: sleek, chic décor; fluffy white robes and towels. We have to shower first, in the Icelandic fashion, and put on our swimsuits as it’s a unisex facility. Then it’s into a bleak corridor for another eye-to-eye with the identity robot. A door opens and we find ourselves in a steamy, dimly lit room. A citrus-scented waterfall tumbles from the ceiling into a shallow pool, illuminated by red and green lights. Stop or go? I venture in. It’s colder than expected. I’ve been showered with cool orange juice before, but only at the breakfast table. This luxury version is silly, and weirdly agreeable.

It’s just the first of several hot and cold delights. For the brave, there’s an icy plunge pool in a giant barrel that you reach by climbing up a ladder. There are steam rooms of varying temperatures and designs. The one that becomes our favourite is tiled in tiny squares of orange, red, and yellow, with contoured Barbapapa benches that conform exactly to the shape of my tired back, neck, and legs. Blue lights in the ceiling threaten to beam us up.

We oscillate between this womb-like space and a salty bubbling pool lit by pulsing underwater lights that constantly change colour. I’m sitting on a conveniently placed bench, enjoying the bubble jets and idly fondling the oddly shaped seat, when I register that it’s a cousin of the anatomical monument outside. Nothing like a bronzed underwater butt-crack to make you feel, uh, pampered. Then Karen points out the decorative bas-relief tiles on the walls, featuring what can only be described as giant, wiggly sperm. Wait. I thought I came here to get away from all that!

Motherhood is all about monkey-mind, yes, but also monkey-body. It takes me quite a while to stop fretting about how the boys are getting on in the Fun Park in the rain. But it takes even longer to just sit still. I realize I’m constantly on physical red alert, in case somebody needs something fixed, opened, picked up or handed over. Gradually I give myself over to the sensation of having my hands and mind to myself, and enjoy the unfamiliar rhythm of uninterrupted conversation.

Karen and I go back twenty-mumble years. She’s Patsy to my Edina, glamorous, brilliant and inexplicably single (the men of London have rocks in their heads). We gossip about life, work, gardening, the cities we’ve lived in, friends, family, gardening, schooldays, cats, and more gardening. It's so good to catch up with each other. Later that weekend, as we speed-chat and speed-drink in a swanky coffee-shop that turns into a bar at night, I realize in a moment of drunken wisdom that getting older doesn’t so much slow you down as hurry you up. So much to do and say; so little time.

The spa has a tiny restaurant where you can order macrobiotic food, but we just drink the iced water and flip through Icelandic gossip magazines. You can come and go as you please to the gym upstairs and the open-air main pool, where we look for the boys but don’t find them. We find our way to the ultimate chill-out room, or warm-up room, with leather loungers arranged in a concentric circle around a blazing woodstove, and ambient music to really flatten out the brainwaves, as we natter about life, work, and greenhouses.

I want to stay here forever, but we must rendezvous as promised with the menfolk in the cafeteria upstairs. So it’s back through the eye-recognition machine to the changing room for a brisk shower, the ritual borrowing of each other’s cosmetics, and some quick girly business with the hairdryer and the straightening iron. I feel pretty, and incredibly tranquil, and about fourteen.

Upstairs, though, we’re greeted by two tired boys and a frazzled spouse, all of them at the end of their ropes. Briefly, I want to flee -- surely someone, somewhere, would enjoy my company in exchange for some witty poems? Instead, I do my best to cling to the sense of calm and well-being the way the citrus scent clings to my hair, as I sink like a soufflé back into my busy life. Identification is completed.

Coming Attractions

Jolisa — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:17:00 GMT

What did the mother volcano say to the baby volcano? “I lava you!” Well, I thought it was funny. But for my older boy, vulcanism is no joking matter and lava is the stuff of nightmares. James is both obsessed with volcanoes and terrified by them. Naturally this meant we had to go and see the Volcano Show, one of Reykjavik’s more eccentric attractions.

It’s run by a very droll fellow named Villi Knudsen, who shows films of his volcano-filming expeditions in order to raise money to make more expeditions to film volcanoes. We crowded into his tiny, home-made theatre along with dozens of other tourists. Mr Knudsen himself manned the ticket booth. There are multiple showings of two films in various languages, all day long, and you can buy videos and DVDs of the films. By my rough calculations, he must be absolutely coining it.

As we waited for the show to start, James was both excited and terribly nervous. He kept glancing at the exit. Toby took the cosy darkness as a cue to nurse, but as soon as the film started he was transfixed, watching with one eye and gesturing with his free hand. Ten minutes in, he was upright on my lap, pointing out all the cars, planes and helicopters and amplifying the soundtrack with his own explosion noises. His running commentary -- “Hot! Hot! Boom! Wow! Hot!” -- culminated in a very loud “Uh-oh!” when the houses on Heimaey fell victim to a giant red-hot lava flow.

Big brother, by that point, was gripping my arm and urgently whispering “We have to leave the movie theatre NOW and Iceland TOMORROW after one more visit to the Family Fun Park!” “Don’t worry,” I reassured him, “they have plenty of notice about these things.” Right on cue, the voiceover chimed in: “In 1973, an unexpected eruption…”

To grown-up eyes, the film was both a labour of love and a bit of a mish-mash. Whipping forwards and backwards in time, it was full of ponderous set-ups, ominous yet unfulfilled foreshadowings, and a vast number of near misses and anti-climaxes - "There was to be no eruption that day" - redeemed by the occasional explosive money-shot, all fire and ice. I am glad nobody died in the Heimaey eruption; it was by far the visual highlight of the film.

But the utterly deadpan narration, by Knudsen himself, added a welcome satirical edge to the less eventful stretches. As a group of avid volcano-stalkers trudged up a snowy hill, for example, the voiceover intoned mournfully “It was the kind of journey that seemed exciting only long afterwards.”

I think the film worked that way for James, too. By the end, Toby had advanced to the front row and was standing mere feet from the screen and gesticulating in admiration, while James still clung to me, hiding his eyes. But when the narration mentioned that the whole of Iceland was formed volcanically, he sprang to life: “You mean we’re sitting on a seat, in a building, on top of cold lava? That’s AMAZING! Isn’t that AMAZING??”

Aha, a breakthrough! Hot lava, bad. Cold and exceedingly ancient lava, amazing.

Mr Knudsen seemed a genial sort, with the air of a vaguely preoccupied whirlwind and the heart of a genuine amateur. He loves what he does, and he has been doing it since boyhood, when he accompanied his late father on eruption-spotting expeditions. Tall, bearded, and gingery, he dashed between the projection room, the front desk, and the sacred editing suite where he was no doubt splicing together more footage of volcano stake-outs. He did pause, briefly, to answer the question that James had been burning to ask.

“So, um, how close did you get to the lava?”
“Very,” was the laconic reply.
“Very?!” repeated James, both awed and dubious.
“Very... close.”

That seemed to satisfy my ambivalent little thrill-seeker.

Our review in a nutshell? The Volcano Show took care of a rainy afternoon, and satisfied our diverse genre requirements: action, horror, documentary, and comedy. Two tiny thumbs way up, two bigger hands clapped firmly over eyes, and one very large maternal grain of salt.

A Whale of a Time

Jolisa — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:21:00 GMT

If I were a whale, I’d swim away, fast, from any boat sporting the Icelandic flag. Iceland’s decision to resume whaling last year scandalized right-thinking mammals everywhere and flummoxed the tourist industry, which had just started to earn a decent wedge from harpoon-free cetacean-chasing.

But then I’m not a minke whale. These small baleen fellows, common in Icelandic waters, are notoriously curious. Stupidly curious. Which was a boon for earlier generations of whale hunters -- the young minkes would swim right up to the boat and all but administer the mortal blow themselves. They haven’t gotten the message about the end of the whaling embargo, so they’re still popping up to delight boatloads of visitors.

Except us...

We’d been at sea for two and a half hours, and seen only distant glimpses of fins that promptly disappeared as the boat roared towards them.

The boys were doing well, though -- managing much better than the family of four that lay prostrate and miserable on the deck, victims of a ghastly combination of jetlag and seasickness.

For safety reasons, all children on board had to wear what Ásdis, our guide, called “wests.” James saw this as a great honour. He strode about the deck occasionally checking the strap between his legs, the crucial part of the whole assemblage: without that, he reminded us, if he fell in the water, the west would float up and off and he would sink into the briny deep. Call him Ishmael, Jr.

Toby took exception to the west. He preferred the prospect of sleeping with the fishes to wearing a lifejacket, even one with stars on it. After a failed Houdini-like escape, he roared, then fell asleep in his father’s arms.

Whale-watching is a curious pastime. It’s sort of like bird-watching crossed with cow-tipping, but not quite so hands-on. You’re stalking animals the size of a bus, in order to – what? Photograph them, if you’re quick on the draw, but then you’re not really seeing them if you’re fumbling with a camera, so why bother?

Some years ago, I’d gone whale-watching off the South Island of New Zealand, in a small inflatable boat with an outboard motor. Out there, the local whales are mostly teenaged male sperm whales who’ve been exiled from the pod to get their testosterone yayas out. They spend their days tooling around in coastal waters, hunting for food and playing chicken with each other. We had spotted three or four big specimens floating on the surface; as we approached them, they would spout and then dive under with a dramatically slow flick of their giant flukes, flipping the bird but making for an excellent photo opportunity. For anything livelier, you had to cross your fingers for dolphins, who are the unpaid Cirque du Soleil of the sea world.

But these Icelandic guys were stealthy. All we saw was other whale-watching boats. As we scanned the waves of Faxaflói Bay looking for minkes and coming up empty, one tourist joked to his friend, “Makes you kind of miss Puffin Island, huh?”

Puffin Island had been our first stop. It was, as promised, hopping with the perky little birds (which are also on the menu at many an Icelandic restaurant). Thousands more flickered erratically above and around the boat like cheerful, portly bats. James was chuffed to see one of his favourite cereals come to life, while I was impressed by the helpful puffin facts dispensed by our guide.

Each parent bird takes turns guarding their single, solitary puffling, while the other parent heads out to sea to collect sand-eels, the skinny fish that are their preferred treat (check it out). Apparently puffins’ beaks have handy hooks inside for holding onto the fish; the record number of sand-eels ferried on one trip by a single puffin was sixty-two. Having spent a week pushing a stroller all over Reykjavík with swimming gear, changes of clothes, snacks, drinks, and occasionally a crash-helmet and folded-up scooter looped over its handles, I felt a wave of fellow-feeling.

I was missing Puffin Island. But still, it’s exhilarating to be out on the ocean, the freezing salty wind slapping you awake. The steep escarpments of the Snaefellsnes peninsula were patchworked with sharp-edged shadows by the clouds scudding overhead. Richard sat in a sheltered corner holding a sleeping Toby, and James got his sea-legs by making repeat trips down the steep ladder into the hold to buy muffins. He and I also spent a lot of time at the front of the boat enjoying what he called the “natural rollercoaster” as we crossed the swells; and hanging out at the back of the boat admiring the wake.

Still no whales, and the trip was nearly over. Toby woke up, still disgruntled by the life vest but keen to nurse. I wandered the deck at the back of the boat with him in my arms, our only company a handful of elderly passengers who had been glued to their seats for the whole trip. Everyone else had answered the call “Twelve o’clock! Twelve o’clock,” and rushed up to the bows to squint at the latest potential sighting.

Suddenly, a little way off the back of the boat, two minkes appeared. They raced along, side by side, carving through the water in graceful arcs and then disappearing. Our little gang smiled at each other in delight. None of us thought to holler “Six o’clock!” We were too busy enjoying the sight.

Toby and I wandered up to tell the others about our brief good fortune. Just as I was stepping gingerly over the seasick family, a movement in the ocean caught my eye. Something black and grey rolled over in the waves, perhaps a hundred feet from the boat. As I gasped and pointed it out to Toby, a giant whale reared up -- and then suddenly leapt clear out of the water.

There is nothing quite like seeing an animal the size of a station-wagon defying gravity so blatantly. As Ásdis the guide whooped from her perch on top of the boat, “Nine o’clock! Oh my god!”, the whale – a large minke -- jumped again.

“Minkes never do this!” Ásdis spluttered. “We never see them jump so close!” And then as everyone on the boat watched, the whale hurled itself out of the water a definitive third time.

Then it was gone.

Before the leaping behemoth, I’d been getting all philosophical about how, quite by accident, the grannies and the nursing mother had most likely seen the best whales of the day, while the eager paparazzi crowd at the front of the boat waited in vain.

Perhaps it’s not about what you look for, I'd been musing, it’s about what you see... and then at the last minute, we’d all seen it. In the wake of the encounter we were exultant, grinning ear to ear.

It had seemed absolutely beside the point to reach for a camera. The next day James drew a picture that showed the minke’s grooved throat markings in great detail, as it burst out of a rainbow-coloured sea -- a more evocative record than any blurry snap we might have managed in the excitement of the moment.

Icelandic Wonders

Jolisa — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:12:00 GMT

Iceland’s entire fleet of rental cars was spoken for, so the full-day excursion was our one chance to get out of the city and see the countryside. The boys and I were there on sufferance -- originally, the outing was only for the scientists. I’d like to thank the senior physicists who quietly rioted when first told that their spouses wouldn’t be allowed to tag along. Especially since I’m not sure they realized they were signing up to share a bus with a loquacious five year old and a one year old with big opinions and even bigger lungs.

Geysir was our first stop, and also where our status as second-class-citizens first paid off. While the scientists ploughed through their fancy three-course lunch, we scarfed hotdogs from the gift shop café and got to watch the geyser do its thing at least three times. The original Geysir has run out of puff (the theory goes that it was accidentally sabotaged by eager tourists trying to make it perform more often), but neighbouring Strokkur does a bang-up job roughly every ten minutes, and teensy Litli Geysir (at right) bubbles away photogenically. Adding to the thrill factor for parents of small kids is the fact that these seething cauldrons of boiling water are roped off with nothing more than, well, a rope.

After the glacier adventure (see previous post), both boys dozed off on the way to Gulfoss, the Golden Waterfall. A fellow traveler kindly offered to stay on the bus and keep an eye on them, so Richard and I grabbed coffees from the gift shop and ran all the way down to the waterfall. It was beautiful, thundering away into the gorge with the sun striking photogenic rainbows into the cloud of spray. A local farmer's daughter once threatened to throw herself into the falls, to save them from being turned into a hydro-electric dam. Brave Sigrí∂ur Tómasdóttir! (If you're picturing a buxom Icelandic Ophelia, rest assured she never acted on her threat and lived to a ripe old age, if the hatchet-faced likeness on the monument is anything to go by).

Having speed-dated down the path, we guilt-tripped our way back up and found the boys awake. So it was back down to the gorge, where I hung back with Toby while Richard took James up to the head of the falls. This meant I had an excellent view of my heedless husband snapping photos while his first-born ambled away towards the edge of a sheer drop -- see the ant-like people on the rocky outcrop in the photo above? -- held back only by one of those token ropes Icelanders are so fond of. Bloody hell. I’d delivered them from the crevasses of Langjökull, only to watch them do a Sigrí∂ur Tómasdóttir at Gulfoss? Of course they were fine; and an hour or two later, so was I.

Look at the daredevils, minutes after I hurtled down the path to rescue them from a watery debacle. Butter wouldn't melt:
Back on the bus, Toby was in a state of simmering outrage at having to be strapped into his seat. We mostly kept it at bay by spotting handsome Icelandic horses out the window. These gorgeous creatures roam free and are absolutely everywhere. Which is good, for it is a lucky linguistic fact that a child cannot click his tongue to indicate “horsie” and scream at the same time.

Meanwhile, the physicists on the bus were going blah blah blah, all over town, or at least all over South Iceland. They’d been chivvied into discussion groups, the idea being that the day's exposure to magnificent scenery would stimulate novel approaches to old problems. James positioned himself at the heart of one group and shyly offered some equations of his own (e.g. Earth divided by small kind of ants = infinity). Then he and the inventor of a large chunk of modern cosmology fell asleep on each other. Aaah, kids and scientists; a cockle-warming sight that runs a close second to those black and white posters of muscled men holding newborns. It felt rude to snap a photo, but I can assure you it was almost as cute as the time a two year old James nearly went under the wheels of Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair.

The last stop of the day was the small coastal town of Stokkseyri, where the physicists were scheduled to have a lobster feast at Vi∂ Fjörubor∂i∂, a seaside restaurant famous for, well, lobsters. People book well in advance, and travel all the way from Reykjavík and beyond for their special lobstery night out. I figured the boys and I would wing it once we got there, maybe grab some fish and chips at a handy chippy.

Well. Stokkseyri is a tiny town. There was the lobster restaurant, nestled against the rocky breakwater, and off in the distance a wee convenience store. My endurance feat on the glacier? A mere preamble to the main act: dinner. Richard headed off with the other physicists to the brazier-lit banquet hall for the all-expenses-paid lobster feast. I ferried two hungry exhausted boys into the flash restaurant. It was solidly booked but the maître-d' squeezed us in, with the unspoken understanding: “Eat fast.” We sat next to a disgruntled-looking family group -- escapees from a travelling circus, I guessed, given the limber way they managed to give us the hairy eyeball and the cold shoulder at the very same time.

Up to the challenge, I ordered at speed. 1 bowl lobster soup, 2 chix nuggets and chips. "And drinks, madam?" I scrabbled for the menu: 2 apple juice, 1 Viking beer. (Hey, I’d earned it.) In the ten minutes it took the bread basket to arrive, the boys behaved impeccably, while I aged ten years under the frosty glares of the party of four to our right. We were down to just crumbs, and things were beginning to look dicey when the real food finally turned up. I sat poised with a napkin in each fist, ready to deal with meltdown and spillage. You know what they say, she who seeks peace must prepare for war. My astonishing offspring took turns hoovering up the delicious and expensive lobster soup, without spilling a drop. (At $29 for the bowl, the mouthful I managed to get was worth every krona). “More?” inquired Toby as James delicately slurped the last spoonful. Crikey. I was dining with Little Lord Fauntleroy and his long-lost baby brother, Oliver Twist.

The whole time, my disapproving neighbours -- who had still not addressed one word to each other -- clucked and sighed and shot daggers at us, while perusing their guidebooks and cracking open lobster claws without much enthusiasm. I nibbled blamelessly on a chicken nugget and complimented my lads on their phenomenal table manners. When Toby finally hit his well overdue limit and slid under the table in a boneless heap, I pounced on a waitress, who sweetly offered to pack up the last of the chicken and chips for us. Suddenly the Grimm family came to life, exchanging actual remarks as well as nudges and eye-rolls. Our gluttonous foreign ways turned out to be the icebreaker they had been waiting for all evening! Miss Manners would have been so proud of us.

With the scientists still only halfway through their banquet, we had to amuse ourselves for an hour or so before it was time to head back to the big city. Unfortunately, the Icelandic Wonders exhibit next door -- which boasts elves, trolls, a chunk of glacier and some faux northern lights! -- had just closed for the evening, as had the gruesome Ghost Centre upstairs. The local family fun park -- with its ominous-sounding “jumping bladder,” where the "adventure do happen" -- was also long shut, as was the Museum of Hunting, a taxidermical delight. So we zipped on our jackets and went to make our own fun in a playground over the road.

It wasn’t much: tire swings and a decrepit climbing frame, but we did our best. Then a local boy appeared with a soccer ball, and he and James negotiated a game of pick-up footie. David, who turned out to be thirteen, was a very sporting fellow. He kindly lowered his game to accommodate this overconfident and under-skilled young visitor. By now it was getting on for ten p.m. Hopping up and down to keep warm, Toby and I cheered the two big boys up and down the little fenced soccer pitch, as the sun finally started to think about drifting down the sky. It wasn’t on the day's official itinerary, and it didn’t involve ice, water (boiling or otherwise), sheer cliffs, or lobsters, but for James, this impromptu small-town soccer international was an Icelandic wonder all the same.

A Glacial Pace

Jolisa — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:48:00 GMT

There must be plenty of ways to amuse yourself if you’re stranded for two long hours in a lonely ski hut at the foot of an Icelandic glacier with a handsome young French tour-guide. I was too busy to think of any. I was trying to stop Toby from hurling himself off the dilapidated balcony onto the portapotties perched among the sharp volcanic rocks below.

The glacier was just one item in the day-long excursion, sandwiched in between lunch at the geyser and afternoon tea at the waterfall: Scootering on Langjökull. It was free for the scientists, but upwards of a couple of hundred dollars for any family members who wanted to join in. Apart from wondering satirically whether James would get a discount for bringing his own wee scooter, we hadn’t really given it a second thought. I assumed there’d be options for non-participating spouses, or failing that, we’d find some clever way to entertain ourselves. That’s usually how these things work, and I’m a good sport.

Before we left Geysir, I double-checked with the Icelandic tour guide about the wisdom of tagging along. Geysir had a geothermal swimming pool, we had brought our swimming gear, mightn’t it be better for the boys and me to stay put? The bus could pick us up on the way back through.

“Oh, you should not miss this!” said the guide. “Magnificent views. Extremely desolate landscape.”

He mused for a bit. “You can perhaps walk to the glacier, very healthy walk. Sometimes they have a small glass-walled carriage to pull behind, for the little ones, although I cannot guarantee,” he added doubtfully.

I raised my eyebrows, keen for more reassurance than this. “Yes, extremely desolate landscape,” he repeated, as if to seal the deal.

So, eyes wide open, we went along for the ride.

The tour bus turned off the main road onto an unpaved track so fearsomely bumpy that the older boy threatened to re-enact the geyser we’d just visited. Soothing views of scrubby vegetation and doe-eyed Icelandic horses were replaced by a panorama of unforgiving bleakness, cinders and rocks as far as the eye could see. I got the picture: the boys and I would be left to our own devices in this blasted wilderness while their father roared off on a snowmobile with the other scientists.

OK. I could handle it. It would only be an hour, max, and there must be some amenities. A bathroom, at least, perhaps a coffee urn. Surely?

Forty jiggly, jostling minutes later, we found ourselves not merely in the middle of nowhere, but at its absolute outer rim. Red and grey rocks stretched out on either side, under a vivid blue sky. A string of jagged mountains and the glittering grey snout of the glacier lay ahead of us, with the distant cone of the still-active Mt Hekla visible to the southeast. It was like being inside a snowglobe from Mars.

There was a decrepit ski hut clinging to a wall of rock, and a large truck containing the snowsuits, helmets and boots in a range of sizes. The bad news: no glass-walled carriage for mothers and babies. The good, nay, mind-blowing news: James would be allowed to accompany his father on the snowmobile onto what turned out to be the actual glacier on which the actual Iron Giant comes back to life in the film of the same name!

He’s not one to look a gift ski-doo in the mouth. As the scientists wriggled into the waterproof gear provided, he speedily zipped himself into the smallest snowsuit on offer, and wedged the smallest available helmet onto his head, with two woolly hats underneath as stuffing to make it stay on.

“Come back alive!” I joked nervously, as Toby and I waved our menfolk onto a smaller, stronger bus that would drive them the last mile to the glacier itself. The pre-flight talk had warned of the dangers of crevasses and the importance of following the leader. My guys are constitutionally contrary, the sort of jokers who go in the out door on bloody-minded principle. Now I wished I’d kitted them out in bespoke fishermen's jerseys, the better to identify their mangled remains after they worked their way down the glacier fifty years from now.

Our bus drivers retreated to their vehicles, and two non-scootering types headed off to explore the terrain on foot. So there we were, the bored French youth, his cellphone, his iPod, my toddler, and me. Toby was well overdue for a nap; with any luck, I could nurse him to sleep and then get stuck into, if not the Gallic guide, at least the copy of Harry Potter and The Last Hurrah that I’d dropped forty dollars on in Reykjavik.

Was it that my milk was all shook up by the rocky road, or was it the invigorating air and the brilliant sunshine? Whatever it was, Toby was not buying the idea of an alpine snooze. He preferred to bolt from one end of the decrepit balcony to the other, then climb down and clamber over the basalt lava like a post-apocalyptic Heidi.

If this holiday was my parenting Outward Bound, this two-hour segment was my Overnight Solo, stranded in a harsh, unforgiving environment with no tools save my own wits and a water bottle. Toby and I were unwilling extras in a director’s cut of Quest for Fire, or perhaps Beyond Thunderdome, without even Tina Turner for company. Time slowed to a crawl as the wind whipped around us and the French kid dozed in a deck-chair.

We sat among the rocks and dismantled small cairns left by previous visitors evidently unaccompanied by small vandalistic sidekicks, then clumsily rebuilt them. We played hide and seek, to the degree possible in a place where there are no hiding places. After we figured out by leaning on the door that the hut was unlocked, we inspected its non-working toilet, then counted each and every deer on the plastic tablecloths that covered the abandoned tables. (It would have been a lovely spot for a café, except for the access issues and the small matter of the defunct plumbing).

Back out on the balcony, we rolled a water-bottle back and forth, a surprisingly absorbing game. This sparked the first signs of animation from notre ami in the deck-chair, who prognosticated a fine future in football. While I can do chit-chat in several languages, the Esperanto of sport is not one of them, a fact that was rubbed in by the arrival of a Taiwanese-Icelandic guide with the next party of glacier tourists. He and the French guy launched into a debate in fluent English that spanned several countries and a dozen sporting codes. I could only make out the words “Yao Ming” and “Madrid Réal.”

Meanwhile, Toby leaned on an unsecured railing that tilted perilously out into the void, and I snatched him back to safety by the collar of his little woolly jacket. That was close. I was reaching the absolute vertical limit of my wrangling skills when an angel appeared in the form of a gentle fellow from Taiwan.

He was tired of waiting on the bus for the tardy physicists to return from the glacier, so he wandered up onto the balcony with his teenagers. We managed about six words of conversation, but he saw the whites of my eyes and spoke the universal language of parents in extremis. For a happy quarter of an hour, he defended the crumbling, unfenced end of the balcony while I blocked the perilous stairway, and Toby hurtled back and forth between us, claiming hugs and chuckling like a drain.

The end of my ordeal was in sight. Surely all this high-altitude exercise and fresh air – for by now a blustering gale was taking the edge off the sunshine and whipping tears from my eyes -- had worn him out? As if. So it was back to stacking rocks and rolling bottles, as the minutes crawled by.

When at long last an ant-like line of snowmobiles made its stately way down the far-off glacier, I perked up, but still Toby did not perk down. Half an hour later, when his sun-and-wind-burned father and brother stepped down from the 4WD bus as exhilarated and exhausted as astronauts returning to earth, he was still happily wide awake to greet them. Then he conked out on the bus as we lurched our way back to the main road.

Later, Richard confided that scootering on the glacier had been an odd mix of the sublime and the ridiculous, much tamer than expected. Rumbling across the ice while inhaling exhaust fumes wasn’t exactly his idea of fun, but the father-son snowball fight on the magnificent, silent glacier was worth the trip.

It sounded exciting, but I think we both knew who had spent the afternoon performing the real extreme sport.

Blah Lagoon

Jolisa — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:27:00 GMT

All the guidebooks and everyone who’d ever been to or thought about going to Iceland were unanimous on one point: we simply had to visit the Blue Lagoon.

Nothing to do with a pre-pubescent Brooke Shields in a fig-leaf bikini. The Blue Lagoon (or Bláá Loni∂ in the local lingo) is the most dramatic open-air hot pool you’ll ever see. It sits in the middle of a field of black volcanic rock, in the lee of a geothermal power plant that constantly belches clouds of steam. It’s also a convenient half hour from Keflavík Airport, which makes it the perfect stopover treat for people who are just passing through.

If the guidebooks are unanimous on one other point, it is that the Blue Lagoon is blue. But not just any blue. An ethereal, cerulean blue. A glimmering, magical, haunting blue. A brilliant, fluorescent blue, all thanks to a curious mixture of silica and algae in the water. My favourite description said it was “like swimming in melted Play-doh.”

And so it was… if the Play-doh at your house has, like mine, been squished together into a sort of khaki amalgam. I don’t know if it was a trick of the weather or the cumulative effect of all those sweaty tourists, but on the day we visited the lagoon looked pretty darn muddy.

I arrived with the boys around lunchtime. The scientists had headed out earlier in the morning, to spend the whole day there, most of it in a conference room but some of it in the water. Some sixth sense told me to arrange our own transport, on the off-chance that this much-touted wonderland might fail to entertain two small boys for longer than a couple of hours.

We rode in a small bus with two sets of honeymooners. James noshed on mixed lollies from the corner shop (weeding out the salty licorice ones for me) while Toby indulged in an uncharacteristic screaming fit that caused the honeymooners to give us the hairy eyeball. The magic boob saved my ears and for all I know their marriages, although they’d probably double up on contraception later that night to make absolutely sure.

As the lava fields raced past, we spotted occasional outcroppings, tall cairns that looked very much like trolls doing whatever it is that trolls do. Patrolling the horizon? It’s easy to feel you’re being watched, under the influence of that uncanny landscape. I told James that some people thought the rocks came to life.

“Well, everything has feelings, even rocks, even metal,” he said.

“Uh-huh? What does rock think about?”

“About what sort of shape it will be next.”

High school geography: igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. Ancient history to me, and brand new and completely obvious to him.

When you arrive at the Blue Lagoon, more troll-sentinels line the path to the entrance, which is framed by some genuinely blue lagoons to whet your appetite:

Inside the building, we discover the scientists still at lunch. They are sunk in discussion about whether or not the fundamental constants of the universe change over time, and how you’d notice. Well, one fundamental constant of the universe I live in is that small boys need to eat, so we snagged a quick bowl of soup before heading off into the changing rooms. Richard and his colleagues would join us once they’d nailed down a few more fundamentals.

Happily, through the windows of the café you get your first glimpse of the baths themselves. Under a veil of steam, tourists paddle slowly around in the jade-coloured water. A squeegee crew was working its way along the windows. All that silica must be a real bugger to keep at bay.

Ah, Blue Lagoon. So spectacular. And ultimately, so disappointing. Where did it start to go wrong? Was it in the changing rooms, where it took us ten minutes to figure out the locker system? Or in the showers, when Toby slipped twice on the ridiculously slick tiles, and although everybody gasped in horror, not one person lent a hand?

We dutifully coated our hair with conditioner, having been warned that the mineral-rich water can lead to a bad hair week (note to self: is that how the young Icelanders get their hair to look so freaky-cool?). I fitted Toby with a pair of complimentary water-wings. And then we headed out into the pool, a steaming pea-green soup under a glorious blue sky.

At first, it’s marvelous, a gorgeous reward for all that hassle in the changing rooms, and well worth the $30 entrance fee (the boys are free). The water is warm, silky, salty, and incredibly buoyant. Then, barely two minutes into our swim, we are hailed by an attendant. “How old is your boy?”

At first I’m gratified that somebody has got Toby’s gender right first time. Then I start to panic. Are they going to kick us out for sanitary reasons - no babies in the pool? James will flip out, and what will we do until it’s time to catch the return bus?

“He's eighteen months,” I say.

“No, the other one.”

"Um, six," I exaggerate, although he can pass for eight. We are informed that all children under the age of ten must wear the neon orange water-wings. (The website says it is "advised," but we were advised that it was compulsory).

Now, this is a plausible safety rule, given the depth of the water – and one I am grateful for a short while later when we paddle around the vent that pours hot water into the pool, and James temporarily vanishes in a cloud of steam. But it is a mortal blow to the self-respect of the Best Child Swimmer on the Eastern Seaboard. Poor James. With the floaties on, he can’t actually swim. He paddles in tiny ineffectual circles, getting angrier and angrier.

By way of distraction I tow him (and Toby) over to the buckets of white silica mud. You’re meant to smear this over your face so as to emerge from the water ten years younger. James begs off, on the logical grounds that this would make him negative four and a bit. I do it for the entertainment value, and quickly wish I hadn’t, as my skin starts itching like crazy. With my toes I pick up some of the squishy white mud from the floor of the pool and examine it closely. It’s got hair in it. I try not to calculate how many tourists shed here in a given week, or what other greeblies might be floating around, even if fresh hot water is constantly flushed through the pool.

We swim under a bridge and over to a waterfall that provides a free, thundering back massage. Or at least it would if I had someone to hand Toby to. We swim through a little cave with white silica handprints on the ceiling, and pretend we are cave-people. This part is fun, and James takes his floaties off now that the lifeguards can't see him.

But there’s an ominous twinge in my back, from bending to pick up Toby in the showers, and suddenly it develops into a full-blown muscle spasm. I try to climb up the steps out of the water, but simply cannot do it. My only hope is to stay in the water until it wears off, but how long might that be?

So I tow the boys over to the glass-walled restaurant, and we wave at the scientists until one of them summons Richard. He waves cheerfully. I grimace and gesture. He waves again. I grimace some more, and he seems to get it. Not long afterwards, he appears in the pool and takes the boys off my hands while I try to fix my back in the steam room and under the waterfall. There are also tiny hot-pools where you can have luxurious floating massage treatments, if you’ve booked in advance, but of course I haven’t. Ouch. This is bad. We gather in the cave, en famille, to make a plan.

There’s no way around it. The boys’ gear is in the locker in the women’s changing room, and you can’t get to the lockers without going through the showers and drying off. For once I curse the showering rigmarole, as I stoop and wince my way through rinsing off the salty water, peeling wet togs off two squirming children, making sure Toby only slips on the tiles once (again, many horrified gasps, but nobody lends a hand - what is wrong with these people?).

I towel all of us off, under the stern gaze of the ladies who police the drips. Then it’s back to the locker room, hobbling like a crone, where I dress all three of us under protest from one lower back and two cranky boys. The miracle waters have not cured me one bit. And as we pass the mirrors, where women are admiring the ten-years-younger effect and touching it up with make-up, one glance tells me everything I need to know. I’m pale with pain under the rash from the mud, the boys are red-faced and grouchy, and our hair is so stiff with silica the brush wouldn’t go through it. Collectively, we look insane.

To add insult to injury, the stroller won’t open. Apparently I jammed it shut on the latest Harry Potter (purchased at ruinous expense our first day in Iceland). So I drag the useless thing behind me like a broken wing, with Toby on one awkwardly hitched hip and James grumbling at my side. As I lurch, Igor-like, to the cafeteria, it sinks in that I am also about to commit the cardinal sin of a conference spouse: dragging one’s mate away from the proceedings on the basis of a suspiciously convenient malady. Oh the shame, although everyone seems very understanding about it.

Would it be different visiting without children? Probably, although my single friend who visited that same week also found it overcrowded and a tad overrated. In the bus on the way back to the city, despite the random rainbows that lit up the sky, I felt a new kinship with the post-pubescent, post-partum Brooke Shields. Yes ma'am, I got those pea-green, mashed-up play-doh, back-wrenching Blue Lagoon Blues.

Swim Fans

Jolisa — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:15:00 GMT

We got really, really wet in Iceland. Not because of the weather -- in fact, apart from some drizzle on the first and last days, we were lucky enough to enjoy what locals swore was the best summer in 35 years. Nope, we got wet on purpose.

Hot pools are a way of life here. There’s one in practically every neighbourhood or tiny town, open all year round, and cheap as anything thanks to the endless supply of geothermal hot water. Like pubs in England or cafés in France, they’re where you go to unwind after a hard day and catch up with friends. A place to debrief in more ways than one.

There are even hot pools for horses.

If bathing is the national religion, we were instant converts. (But modesty and steam meant we couldn't easily take photos, so you'll have to make do with links and hand-drawn reminiscences.)

Our baptismal font, if you will, was the huge Laugardalslaug complex next to the Family Fun Park.

The boys and I were on a roll that day. The fun park closes at six but the pools are open till late, and there were hours of daylight ahead of us. We trekked what felt like several miles to the pool -- does all that sunlight mess up your sense of distance, like white-out in the winter? -- where I stuffed them with muffins from the snack bar in lieu of dinner. Then we headed straight for the changing rooms, to experience the pre-swim rigmarole.

First you leave your shoes on the shelf outside the changing room. (At one pool we visited, the signs recommended in several languages that you put "any expensive shoes" in your locker. Of course the French translation merely said "vos chaussures," because clearly all shoes worn by Frenchwomen are haute couture.) Then it's time to strip off and scrub down. The pool water is barely chlorinated, if at all, so it's obligatory to wash before you swim. Luckily there are helpful and hilarious signs instructing you about what and how and where to wash.

We obediently showered and shampooed amid a steaming communal lather of naked women and children. Well, mostly naked. A pair of very glamorous Russian-speaking dames managed to wash almost all of the prescribed places without removing their fancy bikinis, disturbing their elaborate blonde coiffures, or smudging the tiniest smidgen of their full and impressive make-up. Such finesse was beyond me. I went for the drowned rat look, with my hands full of two small boys who had helped themselves to the soap dispenser until they were as slippery as eels. (I did notice later that there were small plastic baths for the tiny babies, as well as bumbos for the next size up and plastic highchairs for the most recalcitrant toddlers).

I'd heard that lackadaisical tourists have been marched back to the showers to complete the job by the fierce old ladies who monitor these things. To avoid the walk of shame, we showered for what felt like hours before finally deeming ourselves clean enough to wriggle into our swimsuits.

Toby was outraged! He thought the showers were the whole deal. So he bellowed his lungs out when I dragged him out from under the water to squeeze his damp little bum into his togs. He would quite happily have spent all night standing under the hot shower, rinsing his tummy and chirping “Mama!” every time a new pair of boobs swung into view.

But when we went through the door to the swimming pools, and he saw the big heated pool full of pool toys, and the little bubbling hotpots, and the giant waterslide, and the little waterslide, and the steam wafting up into the cool evening air, he very nearly exploded with delight. In fact he crowed like a rooster. For the next hour, the three of us paddled and slid and swam and soaked and bubbled, eavesdropping on the conversations all around us, nursing in the hot pool, and soaking up a cultural phenomenon. Big brother went down the tall waterslide a dozen times or more, and Toby bobbed around in the big pool like a cork, wearing a pair of water-wings supplied for free.

It was such a triumphant way to end my first full day of solo kid-wrangling in this unfamiliar city: with exhausted, squeaky-clean children who slumped against me on the bus and then fell into bed without a murmur of protest.

Later in the week, in the even better-appointed changing rooms at Arbaejarlaug on the outskirts of the city (pictured at top), I’d see mothers going one better. They toweled their children off, let them play naked on the monkey-bars in the adjacent courtyard, and then, in a stroke of genius, funneled them straight into their pajamas. And so to bed!

Still More Family Fun!

Jolisa — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:55:00 GMT

James quickly got the hang of this driving business -- “If you don’t want to stop, just keep your foot on the pedal” -- and proceeded at a stately pace around the course, which has working traffic lights, a gas station (very popular in spite of the shocking price of petrol!), and even a meandering one-way street.

Another kid drove at snail’s pace the wrong way down the one-way street, prompting my upright citizen to ask whether there were any police cars in which he might pursue the scofflaw. What can I say, his great-grandpa was an Irish copper.

I waved at my little driver as he puttered nobly past, then settled down on a nearby bench to soak up the sun while Toby napped. The bored teenage attendants had the same idea, except they lay flat on the ground. Icelandic summers are short; you have to make the most of them.

The family fun park more than lived up to its name: it was full of families having, well, fun. And even though we were there on a summer Sunday, it wasn’t crowded at all. No queues, no cranky kids. No food stands either, or hawkers of balloons and trinkets, just places where kids could have good old-fashioned free fun - once you pay the entrance fee, it's up to you to get your money's worth. Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the cars and sampled the other delights, which were fun for big and small kids alike.

There's a tall tower with a great view. A raft that you can pull Huck Finn style across a shallow lake. Bumper boats on the lake. A flying fox and a bouncy tire swing. A fabulous pirate ship for climbing on, and an oddly neglected-looking Viking boat. A little village of playhouses. A huge sandpit with real powered diggers. Pedal powered go-karts, and wee pedal cars for toddlers. A little wheeled train that drives tired toddlers from one end of the joint to the other, pony rides to pirate ship, and back. Short of actual kid-sized propellor-powered aeroplanes, it's safe to say that no vehicular play option has been neglected.

And the best thing was, most of it you don’t even need tickets for. We used ours up on the carousel and a couple of carnival-style rides that appeared to have been trucked in for the summer, like a swinging tugboat and an airpowered tennis-ball gun. And then it was back to the cars again. We just couldn't get enough of them. Even I had a go - by this time the teenagers weren't even bothering to pretend to be in charge - and managed to jackknife my truck-trailer across the road (immortalised at right by the policeman's great-grandson and his speed camera). Honestly officer, I have a license.

It was a wholesome wonderland, a children's paradise. I loved it, and the boys loved it. Would it be eye-rollingly boring for older kids, or those who’ve been raised on Disneyland and Six Flags? Yeah, maybe – but send them cartwheeling in their socks across this giant inflated trampoline for five minutes and let me know if they change their minds!

Meanwhile, the on-again off-again drizzle had stopped, the sun had come out, and as we left the park, rainbows arced across the rolling clouds. I'd take those over Cinderella's castle, any day.

Now here's how to get there, if you’re using this blog as a guidebook. The #14 bus doesn’t leave from Laekjartorg Square as such, but Laekjargata, the road that runs alongside the square. The bus runs in a loop, so be sure to catch one that is heading south, away from the water, unless you fancy a scenic detour back through the old harbour area.

The bus may be brand spanking new, but the stops themselves are neither labeled nor announced, which makes things exciting. I followed carefully along on the map as we zoomed around the ring road, passed the shining dome of Perlan with its artificial geyser steaming away, then swung out into the eastern suburbs of the city. Eventually you’ll come to the Laugardalslaug swimming complex, a vast concrete edifice to your right that is worth a visit in its own right. Several visits, in fact. In Iceland, basking in thermal pools is not just a way of life but a religion, and I'm a zealous convert - but more of that next week.

Here's the thing. Smart tourists will hop off the bus at the swimming pool, ask for directions, and take a leisurely fifteen minute walk past the soccer stadium and the ice-skating rink, down to the Botanic Gardens, and thence to the Zoo and Family Fun Park. I bet it’s probably even signposted. Smart-alecs, on the other hand, may opt to stay on the bus because it looks like you can get a smidgen closer to the Family Fun Park from the other end of the valley.

Yeeees, technically you can, but this option is not for wimps. The bus will veer off into deepest suburbia while you placate the offspring and hyperventilate at the thought of doing the entire loop again. Hop off at Sunnutorg - ask the driver for help if you don't trust your map - back up ten feet or so, and head down the hill past the YMCA and a small school. At the bottom of the hill, take the unmarked leafy lane to your right, which will lead you through the Botanic Gardens and eventually to the Zoo entrance.

Do not miss the turnoff into the gardens! If you do, you’ll find yourself circumnavigating the entire complex, tormented by the happy squeals of children from the Fun Park behind the fence, and the unhappy squeals of your own children who don’t appreciate your spectacularly failed attempt to shave a few hundred feet off the walk.

Your reward, however, if you successfully navigate this back route: this eye-catching monument to extended nursing, aka Asmundur Sveinsson’s 1936 sculpture “Mother Earth”. Toby's not much of an art critic, but he knows what he likes. He found it exceptionally affecting. At least I think that's what he was mooing about as he clambered over my head.

Family Fun Park, Family Fun!

Jolisa — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:56:00 GMT

As far as James was concerned, from our very first google forays into the subject of “Iceland with kids,” the holy grail of this trip was the Family Fun Park. There, it was rumoured, kids could drive real, albeit kid-sized cars, on real roads. By themselves.

This wondrous place – aka the Fjölskyldu-og-húsdyragar∂urinn -- is attached to the Reykjavík Zoo, which is out in the Laugardalur Valley, further from downtown than one might manage on a scooter or in a stroller. So it was time to brave the bus system.

According to the guidebooks, getting there is a doddle: all you do is catch Bus #14 and Bob’s your uncle. Exact change please, and kids ride for free, unless you’re smart enough to buy a Reykjavík Tourist Pass, in which case you all ride free.

Look, I’m a navigational whiz and fearless user of public transport, but by the time we’d missed one bus, waited twenty minutes for the next, gotten off, gotten lost, and circumnavigated the park before finally locating the gate of the well-hidden Family Fun Park & Zoo, even I was wishing we’d forked out fifty bucks for a taxi. (We did eventually get the hang of the route; I’ll post more detailed instructions in the next instalment for anyone who’s intrepid enough to use this blog as a guidebook).

Entry was ISK550 for me and 450 for James - one of the few times we had to pay for him, as kids are usually free up until the age of 12. We bought ride tickets as well, 1500 for ten, assuming we'd need 'em for the cars. But you can’t get to the cars without going through the zoo, so that’s where we started. It's a humble, domestic affair, showcasing common Icelandic animals, which is to say mainly livestock. There’s a dapper little reindeer with an impressive rack (that's him - or her? - on the left), a few unhappy seals in a too-small tank, and a whole farm’s worth of small, edible creatures: sheep, chickens, bunnies.

We watched a mother cow trying to have a quiet lie-down while her enormous calf clambered over her head, pestering her to stand up for one more feed.

Look at the poor dear. I know how she feels.

We ventured into a shed that housed a dozen snoring piglets and their exhausted mother. I know how she feels too, but at least the lucky sow had a stall to herself. (Sensing a theme? Why no, I was having a fine old time ferrying two boys and all of their gear - two umbrellas, the folded-up-scooter, everyone's coats, drinks, and spare snacks - around the zoo, although if I had spotted the Icelandic horses in time I would have drafted one as a pack-pony).

These little piggies had a curious feature on the wall of their shed. It was labelled “Snudduhorn,” and appeared to be a set of reindeer antlers garlanded with pacifiers. It looked very festive, like something from a Japanese shrine, but what is it for? I’d guess public renunciation of the habit, like a binky fairy but a tad more pagan. Toby was impressed. He thought it was a dispenser.

(Aha! Worked it out via google and some translation software. Apparently, children on the verge of giving up pacifiers are encouraged to donate their used dummies to the baby reindeer who might, you know, "need" them. A painless and happy ritual for many kids. For others, no doubt, the beginning of a lifelong fear of zoos. And reindeer).

We sheltered from a rain shower in a small tent of science exhibits – a giant bubble maker, a chair with a seat of nails – and then rode a small carousel decorated with terrifying scenes from the sagas. The cars were still further on, past a small café, where I persuaded James that we should really stop and fortify ourselves before getting behind the wheel.

A burger, a grilled cheese sandwich, one coffee and two kökö mjölks set us back $25 and twenty five minutes as we waited for the food to arrive. I’m all for slow food, but were they making the burger from scratch -- from that pesky calf, maybe? Lunch arrived on the dot of half an hour, to highly skeptical looks from the boys. The burger had no fries, and the cheese toastie was a curious object, warm ham and melted cheese miraculously welded together between two slices of soft white bread, garnished with sweet brown mustard. Toby refused it absolutely. I ate it on principle, having paid good money for it, but a toasted ten dollar bill would have been tastier...

At last it was time to go and find the cars. By this point James was practically levitating with excitement. The fun park proper is over a little bridge from the zoo, and as we crossed the bridge into big brother heaven, little brother conveniently conked out in the stroller. And there were the cars. Not just cars, but trucks! A filling station! Working traffic lights!

And how many tickets will it cost us to drive? None! Zero! Zip! And is there a time limit? No! You can drive as long as you want to?? Hours of excruciating patience rewarded in an instant. He was behind the wheel before I could even park the stroller...

Friendly Planet

Jolisa — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:47:00 GMT

You know those big fat guidebooks? Totally useless when you’re traveling with small kids. Unless you run short of wipes, although even then the pages are too shiny to be truly effective. The endless listings of the latest nightclubs and little shops full of desirable and breakable trinkets just mock the parents among us, and there’s usually exactly one page on the subject of children, remarking on the local tolerance (or lack thereof) for children in restaurants, and referring you to the zoo. Cheers, thanks a lot.

Guides to Iceland get off to a good start by raving about what a kid-friendly place it is, although they also note that the many cliffs and hotsprings and geysers and waterfalls and ravines and crevasses are not always roped off -- clearly not a place for the fainthearted. In its children's section, the Footprint Guide to Reykjavík – which became my favourite for its legible maps and handy list of family activities – suggested reading Egil’s Saga, not so much for literary inspiration but for reassurance that your kids are relative angels: “Egil was a problem child who at the age of six killed another boy who was better than him at football.” With an axe. Appropriately enough, Iceland's major soft-drink manufacturer is named after this fizzy fellow. Drink up, kids!

The Footprint Guide also featured a tantalizing reference to the Reykjavík Pre-School Service, where you can leave your 2-6 year old for an hour or so of supervised play at various playgrounds around the city, for a cool ISK100 (about $2). We never did manage to track down this Xanadu-like proposition. If we’d found it, I might have been able to use the pages of shopping information after all.

But really, someone needs to write a series of parent-focused guides to the major cities of Europe. A sort of "Friendly Planet" imprint, if you will. Sure, the spectacular Blue Lagoon is the biggest tourist attraction in Iceland, but how does it play to the under six crowd? (As it turned out, badly). Yes, the state of the art Saga Museum features, as our hostelier Thor put it, “figures made of a nylon stuff, that look exactly like humans,” but is it perchance too blood-curdling for a kindergartner? (As it turned out, hell yes). Where is the cheapest place in town to buy those damn fine diapers I wrote about last time? And where can you change them when you’re caught short? Plus, how about a map of the coolest playgrounds in town?

Luckily, we have the blogosphere. Maria from Iceland Eyes was a great resource – it was she who tipped us off to the fact that, supervised or not, it was fine to use the preschool playgrounds after hours, and that there was a nice one at the southern end of the Tjörnin. So on the evening of the first day, while Richard was off schmoozing with the scientists at the Saga Hotel, the boys and I went on a post-prandial expedition.

First we had to make the compulsory detour through Ingólfstorg square, a city square that functions as a de facto skate park, complete with ice cream stand and a hot dog vendor. Ingólfstorg is right next to the tourist information office, just down the hill from our accommodation, and thus directly on the way to and from everything. Twice a day at least, James would sail down the long ramp on his scooter, one foot extended behind him in balletic grace, aiming straight through the mysterious columns that belched geothermal steam at the far end of the square. Then he'd loop around - dodging the other scooter-kids and leather-clad bikies -- to do it all over again. Meanwhile, Toby would play with the little waterfall that ran down either side of the longest ramp. Urban design with kids in mind! Bravo, Reykjavík!

Then we set off around the lake. By now it was officially getting on for bedtime, but the boys had energy (and mac and cheese) to burn. As we scootered along the paved path, they kept an eye out for ducklings and I admired the town against the evening sky, and beyond it in the distance, the mountainous, looming Snaefellsnes peninsula. Forgive me this string of picture postcard shots, but it really was ineffably gorgeous.

Then, behind a tall fence, we saw the big preschool building and its playground. We snuck in through the gate, just like in The Secret Garden. Now this is tourism kid-style: staying up late and going down the slide a hundred times. They played in the sandpit, swung on the swings, drove the wooden train, and romped on the jungle gym, no other kids to compete with.

The climbing structure was refreshingly dangerous, but things nearly came to a sticky end when James raced down the steps and lost his footing, landing with a painful thud on his tailbone. Maternal forensic examination determined that the exceedingly narrow steps had been built with fairy-footed toddlers in mind, not the clodhoppers of hulking great nearly-six-year-olds. I was impressed that two and three year olds got to climb on an edifice that would be banned outright in most US preschools, but that didn’t soothe the bruised bottom any.

A small ginger kitten cheered us up by prancing into the playground and leaping at midges in the evening air, then wandered off down to the lake to stalk the noisy geese. As the sun ambled towards the horizon, Toby had to be pried off the slide, and then again off the springy rocking horse.

The nifty basketball hoop in the background, a common fixture in the city's preschools, appears to have been brought to you by the Icelandic Basketball Association in concert with the local dairymen’s union. Yes, indeed, mjölk er go∂! (But of course everyone knows that kökö mjölk er better).

The boys were pretty hopped up rather than worn out by the playground, so in an attempt to run James into the ground, I took us the long way home, via a full circumnavigation of the lake. He scootered along as if propelled by small invisible jet engines. Must have been all the fresh air. On our first day we'd conquered the supermarket, discovered the playgrounds, scoffed at jetlag, and mastered the map. Reykjavík was our oyster. Tomorrow we would brave the bus system and attempt to find its pearl, at least as far as the junior set was concerned: the legendary Family Fun Park, where, it was rumoured, children could Drive Real Cars...

Getting to the Bottom of Things

Jolisa — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:13:00 GMT

What’s that sulphurous smell in the bathroom? A small price to pay for an unlimited hot shower, that's what. Like any self-respecting geothermal wonderland, Iceland has an inexhaustible supply of hot water, piped directly into every house for heating, showering, washing, and channeled under city streets for melting snow in the winter. I rather liked the whiff of rotten egg that clung to us long after our ablutions; it brought back happy childhood memories of holidays in Rotorua.

We'd slept till lunchtime that first day, but no worries; at least ten hours of daylight lay between us and bedtime. We would get around to the sights and sounds after sampling the smells and tastes. Thor had stocked up the mini-kitchenette with a few breakfast supplies: ham, cheese, some fine local muesli, wholesome wholemeal bread, and blueberries flown in at great expense from somewhere else. Also, several tasty examples of one of Iceland’s local treats: skyr.

You don’t grow up in New Zealand without developing a healthy appreciation for dairy products, as well as a patriotic conviction that yours are better than anyone else’s. But this was divine: a super-creamy yoghurt, somewhere between fromage frais and quark. Plus, the name alone: skyr. Skeeeeerrrrrrrr! Even a baby could pronounce that with relish, although ours was too busy shovelling it into his mouth to even try.

Because Iceland is horribly expensive -- up there with Tokyo and Hawai’i -- I’d come over all prudent, and crammed our luggage with random consumables, like Trader Joe's macaroni and cheese, dried fruit, muesli bars, and more diapers than one small bottom could possibly get through in a week and a half. But the boys hoovered up the supply of skyr and demanded more. It was time to get our wheels on and reconnoitre a local supermarket.

I know. Shopping. For groceries. On holiday. Once upon a time (i.e. before children), we'd have launched ourselves out into the first morning with a cafe breakfast at a people-watching spot, followed by a day of hitting the must-see museums and cultural attractions. But if you’re domestically inclined, or small and hungry, a grocery shop can be at least as much fun as a museum.

We did dutifully stop in at one museum on the way -- the brand new Reykjavík 871 +/- 2, which preserves the remains of a settlement-era Viking longhouse accidentally unearthed a few years ago. (Reykjavík's settlement is dated to 871, give or take a couple of years, hence the museum's pedantic name). It's pretty minimalist: what you see is what you get, and what you see is - surprise! - the remains of a settlement-era Viking longhouse, carefully preserved in a darkened room, with a few explanatory displays. I found the scenes on the walls, inset with ghostly moving images of the earliest settlers, more affecting and illuminating than the ruins themselves. Meanwhile, the kids got their money's worth out of the glass-walled circular elevator.

Back up at street level, we made our way towards Laugarvegur, the main shopping street. But first we helped a local man shepherd a lost mother duck and her ducklings through the cobbled streets and towards the Tjörnin, the lake at the heart of the city. As we approached the lake, James impulsively reached out to touch a duckling, wondering what they might feel like. The old chap who had superintended the ducks' progress murmured "Nej, nej," in the most gentle tones imaginable, thus preserving both the tiny ducklings and James's feelings (more evidence of Icelandic kindness towards children - I had expected a brisk scolding). The birds looked very glad to be back in the water after running the gauntlet of cars, bikes, scooters, tourists with cameras, and curious children trying to cop a feel.

What a kind town this is - and a tiny one! Laugarvegur turns out to be a cobbled one-way street, lined with small shops, swanky boutiques, and coffeehouses that turn into bars after dark. Halfway along, in a small market called Bonus –- whose emblem is a preposterously fat and happy pig -- we find everything we’re looking for, and more. In the dairy section we discover that skyr comes in many flavours, including drinkable. And as well as milk, or mjölk, there is kökö mjölk, which becomes an addiction during our stay. It’s not that different from the chocolate milk at home, except not as sweet, and the muscled soccer-playing cat on the package has such a goofy, irresistible charm that he’s been immortalized in graffiti.

The local icecream brand is Emmessis, which must seem a sour joke to anyone who has groaned her way through a case of hyper-emesis (debilitating morning sickness). But James is thrilled to discover they make a bar named after his current cartoon craze: only here, the cat and mouse are named Tommi og Jenni.

Manoeuvring around the tiny shop, we find what we need, and price-wise it's no worse than New York or Tokyo. Perhaps I was too hasty with my smuggled hoard of consumer goods. It’s in the baby aisle that I really regret my frugal packing. Behold, Libero diapers, made in the Netherlands. My eye is first caught by the groovy Euro-kiddos on the packaging. That denim cap on the swingin' guy at left is Donovan at his Mellowest Yellowest. And the healthy-looking child on the right is positively an advertisement for socialized medicine and a bicycle-based lifestyle -- note also that unlike most American diaper models, s/he is both gender ambiguous and fully clad.

But an even closer look reveals the true excellence of these diapers. These are no ordinary nappies, but the Limited Edition Spring Collection. With three mind-blowingly cool designs! Which will it be this morning, young sir: the gold buttons, very Versace, very Admiral of the Fleet? The mad, bad, and dangerous studded leather belt? Or the lurid Make Love Not War badge at crotch level? More importantly, can I sell my suitcase of cheesy Cookie Monster-bedecked American diapers on the black market to drum up enough cash for a box of these babies?

Twilight Arrival

Jolisa — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:08:00 GMT

Iceland is so close to the Arctic Circle that in midsummer you get, if not white nights, then certainly very pale ones. It was after midnight, and yet the sun had barely dipped below the horizon. The taxi ride from the airport to the city takes about forty minutes, through a twilight that is not especially eerie until you realize that unlike a usual sunset, the quality of the light hasn't changed in all that time. The sea is a dark and glimmering turquoise, and the rocky moonscape of the Reykjanes peninsula is clearly visible in the crepuscular light.

Soon we are within the orbit of the city, the swooping steeple of Hallgrímmskirkja instantly recognizable against the glowing sky. It is Friday night but the streets are quiet, with few signs yet of the infamous weekend "runtúr" -- when young Icelanders religiously pub-crawl and cruise their way through the city in the wee small hours, leaving a high-tide mark of smashed glass and good cheer the next morning -- except for a tiny car jammed full of teenagers, thudding with music and high spirits, that draws level with us at one point. They peel off in another direction; we're headed for the old harbour, obviously the more sedate end of Reykjavík.

When we pull up outside the Three Sisters Guesthouse, our host – a gentle chap in his sixties, named Thor -- is waiting up to let us in. Thor greets a sleepy Toby with courteous formality, as if he were a grown-up (the general absence of cooing sentimentalism towards children was refreshing, an Icelandic signature that we came to like). Then he looks James in the eye, shakes him gravely by the hand, and escorts him across the road to the studio apartment that will be home for the next ten days.

Richard and I wrestle the toddler, the two suitcases, the stroller, and the scooter out of the taxi. It's now only just bedtime by East Coast time, but between the drive to Boston and the flight, we’ve been traveling all day. We’ll need to break out the Benadryl for the kids and Bailey’s for the grown-ups if we are to close our eyes before the sun peeks through our windows in only a few short hours.

James pops back out of the house, dragging Thor by the hand, to check that we are following and that we have the precious scooter. The town might be sleeping, but our big boy is buzzing with the thrill of arrival in his first really foreign land.

“I love this place!” he bursts out, grinning up at us and at his new protector. Does he mean the house of Thor, the slumbering city, or the laid-back country that let him glide across its threshold on two speedy little wheels? I don’t know, but it looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.