A VISIT TO ICELAND PART VI: REYKJAVIK

No matter how much I yearn for nature and long for escapes in the woods after a while I need to see a city again. It’s not that the clean air, the tranquility or the sights have worn out their welcome, but I do need to see signs of human life and the comforts of modernity. This is especially true in a place like Iceland where nature yields many through its strongest intensity. When arriving from the hills (charmingly decorated with troll houses, a tradition started perhaps as a celebration of local folklore and continued for photographers) and sheep farms, Reykjavík seems, as the counterpart to grassy knolls and waterfalls, the prototype of a city; busier, louder and always bustling. But on closer inspection its charms and character come to light. The roads are narrow and not always the easiest to drive through, but I am a Boston driver, after all. The shops and cafes are neatly tied in rows and one of the first I visited was a bookshop. Here I found some volumes on Icelandic legends and then, leaving the car in an underground garage, made my way around town. Many of the buildings have opted for a modernist look in recent years but one particular that caught my eye was none other than H&M a clothing store common on both side of the Atlantic. Yet in Reykjavík, to my surprise, along with clothing the chain also stocks furniture. I was reminded of Vince Vega’s line in Pulp Fiction, describing the options he saw in Amsterdam, “It's the little differences. I mean, they got the same sh*t over there that we got here, but it's just...it's just, there it's a little different.” Reykjavík has a surprisingly diverse restaurant scene and there are two I regret not visiting. The first was Kasbah Café, for Moroccan cuisine, and the other was American Style, a burger joint that I was more curious about than anything. However, burgers are very popular in Iceland and Icelanders are proud of their own spin, hence McDonald’s did not survive the recession and disappeared from Iceland in 2009. By the end of the journey I was burger-ed out and as much as I wanted to get a load of American Style I just couldn’t take another burger on this trip. Its gimmick is to name its culinary creations after icons of American popculture, offerings include “The Kevin Bacon”, “The Peter Griffin” (apparently discontinued), “Vegan Fox” (a pun) and “El Gringo”. Instead, I found a little hole in the wall place called Le Kock. Its logo is literally the silhouette of a rooster (a cock), but the double entendre is the point. Once inside, the underground vibe of the place makes no secret what it’s about. It’s hip, with graffiti walls and techno with risqué images everywhere that feel right at home in a city hosting a penis museum. It was a fitting place to spend my last night in Iceland for Reykjavík, despite its quaintness, presents the classical counterpart that cities traditionally play against the country. In a journey in which sheep farms and rustic restaurants were the extent of development, Reykjavík was a place of noise, a beat and unrestrained diversion.

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