Things to do in Reykjavík

Get a hot dog, avoid the volcanoes

I am back from Iceland Noir and I am writing a newsletter because I need to force myself to stay awake so I can get back onto a regular sleeping schedule.

It’s now almost 10 p.m. on Sunday. I woke up in Reykjavík at 10 a.m., took off at 5 p.m., was on a plane for nearly six hours, and landed in Newark 6 p.m. This after spending several days in a city where the sun doesn’t rise until 10:30 a.m.

What is time, even? Some kind of conspiracy, I think.

I am very tired.

So Reykjavík is a very fun, very cold, very expensive place to visit. I loved it. Iceland Noir is a very fun festival—plenty of solid panels, but it allows a lot of free time to wander and sightsee. That picture up there is an actual volcano! I was very close to a volcano! Doesn’t seem safe but I did it!

What follows is a series of random thoughts and reflections on the trip. I wanted to write something with more of a narrative but my brain is not really capable of that right now.

The food is dope. I ate the fermented shark. It was very bad. I hated it. But I’m glad I tried it. Also, hot dogs are a thing. There’s a stand in the downtown area called Bæjarins Beztu, but you can also find them pretty much anywhere. It’s served with raw onions, fried onions, and a special kind of ketchup, as well as mustard and remoulade. I think I ate five, over the course of several days?

The water is weird. After arriving at the hotel I took a shower to scrub the six hour plane ride off me and was immediately hit with the smell of rotten eggs. Turns out water in Reykjavík is piped in from either glaciers and geothermal resevoirs. So the cold water is frigid and pure and delicious, and the hot water has a high sulphur content. It’s not dangerous to drink and it doesn’t leave any kind of lingering smell. Just, weird and fun!

That sun thing is also weird. It’s strange to be sitting in a cafe eating breakfast at 8 a.m. and it’s still pitch black out.

It is SO cold, and also expensive. It should not be surprising that an island full of glaciers within spitting distance of the Arctic Circle is cold. But it’s been unseasonably warm in New York the last few months and I haven’t had time to acclimate. The wind cuts. Also, Iceland is a very expensive place! In part because tipping isn’t a thing, because they haven’t been poisoned by capitalism the way we have, so living wages are built into the menu prices. Still, I am afraid to look at my credit card statement.

Sweaters are a thing there. Everyone sells sweaters, because 90 percent of their economy is souvenir shops. The sweaters are very nice but can easily run $200 or more and I’m just not a sweater guy. I did buy some fancy salts and a hot dog t-shirt.

All the tourism stuff is worth it. The Northern Lights? I mean, just look…

I took that with my phone! The lights do look a little more brilliant on camera than they do to the naked eye, and it can be a bit of an endurance test, standing in a rocky field, at night, in sub-freezing temperatures…

But it’s easy to look at the lights and understand why people form religious and spiritual beliefs around them. We got lucky (and I say lucky because I don’t think anyone got hurt) that there was also a volcano going off at the same time. You’d look at one part of the sky and see the lights, turn a little, and see the volcano…

I mean, c’mon.

Big kudos to the Northern Lights tour bus driver Arnie. He told us he was going to get us as close as he could to the volcano, but the cops didn’t want tour buses stopping on the shoulder of the road. I wondered if he was saying this to add an element of danger to the proceedings. Then, after he stopped and allowed us to take some pictures, he rushed us back onto the bus because the cops were coming. I appreciate his willingness to commit crimes for us.

The volcano didn’t impact the festival, but you could see it from town, and apparently the Blue Lagoon’s parking lot is currently under a whole bunch of lava. I booked Sky Lagoon, because someone warned me about the proximity of the volcano (as well as the fact that it’s more touristy).

Lagoons are awesome. There is something so cool about floating around in a hot spring while it’s freezing out. I was at the festival with my partner

Cyn Grace

, and we spent a lot of our time with KT Nguyen (You Know What You Did), Winnie Li (Dark Chapter, Complicit), and Deanna Fowler. The five of us did the Ritual, which involved steam baths and salt scrubs and a cold plunge that I got in up to my knees and hated. Loved Sky Lagoon, 10/10 would recommend, other than the cold plunge, which judged on its own is a -1,450/10. Cold plunges are stupid.

As festivals go, Iceland Noir is a good one. One of the challenges at conferences like Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime is that there’ll be five or six panels going on at any given time. And if you have a panel with someone like Lee Child or Charlaine Harris, everyone is going to be at that one, and you’re going to end up in an empty room. That’s the process. Not so at Iceland Noir, though!

There’s only one panel at a time, but the schedule is packed, and so are the rooms. I did a panel on spy thrillers with MJ Furtek (Beginner’s Luck) and Tim Glister (A Game of Deceit), which was brilliantly moderated by Jacky Collins. Plus someone brought a Dutch copy of Assassins Anonymous for me to sign! It is so cool seeing foreign editions out in the wild.

KT and Winnie were also part of a very excellent panel (and it was KT’s birthday on the last day of the festival so we got her a slice of Icelandic skyr cake to celebrate—if you see her, wish her a happy belated). I also got to see a panel on Vikings. Vikings are cool.

Festivals are just the best. I say this a lot, but, writing can be a very lonely endeavor. You spend so much of your time sitting in a room by yourself, wondering if the things you’re spending hours and days and weeks and months on is going to amount to anything. Festivals and conferences give you the chance to meet up with readers and fans, and make new friends, but it’s also a reminder that you’re not alone. Other people have chosen to follow this insane calling as well!

I did not see any puffins. This was my biggest disappointment. Apparently on the Westman Islands, in August and September, baby puffins get confused and fly into town and people have to collect them and throw them off cliffs. Which is fine! It teaches them to fly in the right direction, or something! I had hoped to steal one and sneak it home in my luggage. Probably better that I didn’t.

Anyway. I had fun. My laundry is almost done so I’m going to bed. Here are some pictures. Reykjavík is fun. You should go. Pack a warm coat.

And to close it out there is our little crew of frozen goofballs, as joined by Jacquetta Szathmari, who is currently living in Iceland and gave us some great insight into what it’s like to actually be there for more than a few days.

Oh also if you made it this far, Wisting is a very cool Norweigan police procedural TV show. I watched season 3 on the plane. Carrie-Anne Moss is in it!

That’s it! Time to go to bed!