Hail to the Hammer!!

Work this week has progressed as it usually does; cleaning, photographing, mapping and removing the contexts. Nothing too demanding. There was an upheaval on Wednesday when people moved house, but it all soon settled down. On the way home from work on Thursday evening it began snowing. It was a dry and cold day and it began to settle until it was laid thick over Reykjavik. The snow was still on the ground the next day and half of the site was covered. Practically everyone was moved inside the tent and the day was broken up with the occasional violent snowball fight. It was a little like Njal’s saga but with snow instead of swords. Davið provided the best target as he pretty much stood still and took the bombardment.

There was still a lot of snow and ice on the ground on Friday evening and there was a discussion about whether it would be safe to go into to town with the inebriated walk back being a potential death trap. Jo had been housebound for three days after burning her eye with a piece of ash from her fag and was gasping to get out, so that swayed the opinion and we set off into town. This was the first night the Northern Lights had been visible and their shimmering shapes accompanied us on the walk to town. We first went into Kofi Tómasar Frænda, I hadn’t been in this bar yet, but was very glad to do so. It is a really nice little coffee shop that turns into a bar later on. A very cozy little place indeed. After a cheeky sherbet we headed down to the Celtic Cross, after I forbid going in Kaffibarinn, the place owned by Damon Alburn. Jo, Duncan and I had already been in here before and it was full of pretentious wankers then and probably would be now, so I said a firm NO. In the event, it would have been better to be surrounded by pretentious wankers than surrounded by the fart that someone let off in the Celtic Cross, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. After meeting Angelos here, we all de-camped to Grand Rokk, next door. This was full of men and Jo’s idea of an Icelandic fisherman didn’t really live up to reality when she was chatted up by a fisherman who looked like he had a family of Polish Immigrants living in his face. Duncan and Roz went home and Jo, Angelos and I pressed on into further drinking oblivion. We ended up in some bar were Jo was goosed and chatted up by a bloke singing ‘Take a walk on the wild side’.

On Saturday morning Vala loaned us her car for the weekend and we planned a road trip to see some of Iceland’s beauty. The idea was to head up to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula and have a look at Snæfellsjökull, the massive glacier sitting on top of a mountain. On the side of the road we saw a crater and turned off to go and have a closer look, the road didn’t go anywhere near the crater, but brought close to a field full of tiny Icelandic horses. Roz attempted to tempt them with apples, but the first one wasn’t having any of it and turned its massive nose up at the offered treat. After driving for a couple of hours North of Reykjavik we got onto the peninsular proper and turned up the road by the side of the glacier. On top of the plateau was a frozen lake, which we stopped at and Duncan and I attempted to break the ice by throwing massive stones at it. Jo and Roz looked on in disapproval. We headed on and arrived in the tiny town of Olafsvik where we had a meal in a Hobbit inspired restraint/café. This appeared to be the only place open in Olafsvik, besides a discount clothes store with the surliest staff in the world. You’d think that if you lived in a place like Olafsvik and owned a store that the only regular customers were local teenage girls, the arrival of four foreigners may cause quite a stir of excitement. But, no, Olafsvik seemed to have sapped the life out of the staff and they remained nonplussed at our arrival. I bought a shirt for Becky’s wedding and we left. Leaving the desolation of Olafsvik behind we drove on the North coast of the Peninsular to see if we could get a better view of the Glacier. Before we left the town that time forgot we made an attempt at driving up the 4X4 track that led right by the side of the glacier. After several hairy bends and with the girl’s pleas to turn back we accepted defeat and turned the car round to the metalled road proper. The view from the road as we rounded the tip of the peninsular was fucking mind blowing. The lava fields in front of the mountain range made the whole place look like the Plains of Gorgoroth, eerily shaped rock formations jutted from the ground to add a strange and disturbing sense to the beauty of the glacier. We stopped at the crater Saxholl and climbed to the top for an even greater view of Snæfellsjökull. The vastness and intense immenseness of the glacier made everything in life seem so little and insignificant that it was quite a refreshing experience to gaze on it. The sun was setting as we headed back around the glacier and made tracks for home. Hopes to see the Northern lights were dashed as clouds moved in and obscured the sky.

Back at the flat in Reykjavik I readied myself for another evening out on the tiles. This time it was for a purpose. I had been planning all week to see Tyr, the Faroese Viking Metal band on their mini tour of Iceland. They were playing in Nasa in Reykjavik with four other bands. I hadn’t been in Nasa before and had only stood in the queue for a few minutes, so to actually go in the place was another first for me. I met Hrafnkell and Stephan during the first band’s (Perla) rather boring Prog Metal set. The next band, Dark Harvest were OK, they used to be an instrumental only band (Hrafnkell told me) although tonight they had a singer, but they played some of their older instrumental songs which were by far the better songs in their set. After Dark Harvest had cleared the stage Mammút played, Stephan told me he had done a review of their CD for the newspaper 24 Hours and gave it a four out of five. I said why wasn’t it a five out of five? He said, then they have something to work for on their next album… The average age of Mammút was 17 and they were mainly girls. Their performance was a bit lackluster, but maybe this was more to do with the placing of an Indiepop band in an otherwise very METAL line up. They had a few good tunes but weren’t really to my taste. The last of the support acts was Severed Crotch, who’s name led to a discussion between myself and Hrafnkell about stupid band names. Despite their name, they were the best band on the bill that night. Totally brutal death metal, which really got the moshpit whipped up into a fury. It was like the glory days of the Queen’s Hall in Bradford back in the early nineties all over again… Tyr came on and did their thing, and did it very well, but… I still don’t like them. I have been trying to like Tyr for years, ever since their first album came out. They have everything that I should like: They are Pagan, they sing about Vikings, they are from a Norse heritage, they are named after the Viking God of War, they have epic songs infused with Faroese folk songs and are TOTALLY METAL! But try as I might, I just don’t like them. It’s something about the guitar squeals and diddly diddly solos that I find most nauseating. The three of us left together and headed for Hrafnkell’s car where we gave Stephan a lift to the next road over (go figure, it would have been quicker for him to walk to the next bar than have us drive him there, but he took the lift…). Hrafnkell and I went for the now obligatory Klukingerburger and he dropped me off home. I was wanting an early night as Duncan, Roz, Jo and I planned on leaving early in the morning to get the most out of the car, so I was home by three…
After what seemed like two hours sleep my alarm woke me up and we hit the road in Vala’s car. This trip was to go see the Volcano Hekla. This majestic beast has the name ‘the Hooded One’ as it is always shrouded in clouds. It has blown its top several times in recorded history and most of the time it is fucking disastrous for Iceland. She takes no prisoners and one of the eruptions was so bad that the Danish government considered moving the surviving Icelandic population to Zealand rather than try to reclaim the land. Luckily for us, she remained dormant throughout the day and we didn’t have to do anything as extreme as relocating to Denmark. We headed north of Hekla and sought out the farmstead oat Stöng, which was buried by one of Hekla’s eruptions in 1104. It was also Iceland’s first archaeological excavation carried out in the 1930’s. The road to the site is almost non existent and the volcanic ash that covers the area makes it feel like a post-apocalyptic environment. It’s like the Hills Have Eyes and you expect to round the corner to find groups of mutants breaking open human femurs to suck the marrow out. I think we were lucky to get out of there without our heads being stuck on spikes like some grisly trophy for a wandering band of Mad Max style land pirates. The site is covered with a building and preserved with the addition of modern turf walls. The farmstead is surprisingly large inside and would have been rather cozy, with the six foot wide turf walls in place. Roz mistook the pantry for the toilet and this led to a long discussion about the idiot boy Olaf shitting in the butter.

Over the main road and down a better made road was the reconstruction of the farmstead building and the little chapel at Þóðveldisbærinn (try saying that when you’re sober…). Unfortunately it was closed for the winter and we couldn’t get inside, despite banging on the front door for five minutes. Maybe the idiot boy Olaf had lost his keys. After this short excursion we headed down the road towards the hot springs at Reykholt. We had been led to believe it would be a natural rock pool with cascading hot water flowing freely as you sit and marvel at the spectacle of the Northern Lights. The reality was rather disappointing. What awaited us at the end of the road was a grotty swimming pool that was closed for the winter. We broke in and had a look around, then decided it would better to leave and head back to Reykjavik. Stopping at Hveragerði for the worst and most expensive burger in the history of burgers we decided to head down to the Blue Lagoon as Jo and I haven’t been there yet. The place is quite expensive but worth it, in my opinion. It’s a state of the art swimming experience of the highest caliber. It’s quite something to swim in a pool, look down and not be able to see your body because of the thickness of the nutrients in the water. After nearly two hours of being battered by the wind and rain, covering ourselves in some white substance that is supposed to knock years off and sweating it out with Germans in the sauna, we headed back home all dead beat but satisfied. Here endeth the lesson.