Iceland Oddities
Ann and I are somewhat experienced travelers. Not the most experienced by far, but between living in Europe and my time spent in Iraq and Liberia, I fully understand and accept that not everywhere is like the US. In fact, most places aren’t. That’s what makes being there so interesting. Iceland is a very western country and not too different from most of the places we’ve visited in Europe. Face it, they even have a Costco. Still, when you’re overseas every once in a while something makes you think a bit, causes you to do a double take, or leaves you just scratching your head. Iceland certainly had plenty of those for us.
One of the most typical differences are roadways and driving, so why not start there. You don’t have to be in a place long to realize that the rules of the road are officially or unofficially quite different in a new land. Don’t get me started on driving in Liberia or Iraq (thank goodness I didn’t do a lot of it). Some of Iceland’s official rules of the road are unique to Iceland. I will tell you, I love my traffic circles, especially Dutch traffic circles. Two lane circles, not so much, but still, they’re much more efficient than stop signs. Iceland is the only country where, at all times, in a two lane circle the vehicle in the inside of the circle has the right of way. Which means that if you’re in the outside lane of the circle, you better be prepared for the car to your left might to just cut in front of you to make a right turn you’re about to pass by. I saw it happen a couple of times to the dismay of the obvious rental car driver. I’d even go to the center circle in the bimobil if it was an unfamiliar circle just to enforce my ROW (it was strange how nobody did that to me when I was on the outside lane of a two lane circle - was I lucky or the bimobil just so big it scared them off?).
Another oddity in Iceland is 1-lane bridges. Yeah, a bridge that is only one lane wide! Take, for example, the bridge below.
Now understand, this is on the Ring Road - the only highway that circles the country! And there are quite a few of these one-lane bridges. Most people seem to get the protocol for who gets to go first, but not everyone. There was that one guy’s eyes bug out who was flying down the road only to see me half-way across the bridge. I suspect most of these folks (like me) were tourists. Again, it helped having a huge vehicle - nobody wanted to mess with us.
But the 1-lane bridges are not nearly as eerie as the 1-lane tunnels. Yes, one lane for both directions!
When all is going well, it looks like this.
You then realize that you’ll see periodic pull outs on either your right or left side (they will always be on only one side).
If the pull outs are on your left side, and you see headlights ahead of you, you go and stop just before the next pull out. That way, the car approaching you can pull into the pull out, and then you drive on. If the pull out is on your right . . .
yeah, the guy above was waiting for me to pull over.
It seems that Icelanders like themselves a big American car. We saw several of them driving around. And then there was this Cadillac and Buick reminiscent of my childhood. They almost made the bimobil look small. They didn’t call them road yachts for nothing.
And then there are the Icelandic busses. I’m not talking your average city busses, I’m talking the off-road busses with huge tires that you run into while you’re driving down an F-road.
We saw three of them on our F-road journeys, to include one on the out-and-back F899.
Think about it, the bus in the photograph above had to go down and up the hill below.
Imagine driving up that hill only to see a bus wanting to come down it?
Now the oddities weren’t just about road rules or vehicles. In Reykjavik we came across this . . . well, just read the sign.
Do you get a haircut first and then have a beer, or have a beer while you’re getting your hair cut and then finish it off with a whiskey? I didn’t need a hair cut so I didn’t find out.
Speaking about Reykjavik, we not-so-accidentally ran across a rather unusual museum.
If the stone sculpture by the entrance way didn’t give you a heads-up, that is the Icelandic Phallological Museum.
And no, we decided to bypass lunch at the cafe.
Changing topics slightly, nearing the end of our trip I did take advantage of trying some Floki Icelandic Whiskey. John had bought a bottle of their single malt at the airport duty-free shop and it was quite tasty. Later on I tried their smoked reserve - smoked with sheep’s dung. It was not-so-suprisingly good.
But not everything unusual is so odd. In Europe, one tends to leave one’s shoes at the front door and walk around in socks or slippers. So when this laundromat at Lake Myvatn said to leave your shoes at the door and offered slippers, well, it almost felt like home.
So there you have it. Yes, Iceland is a very western country, but it does have its oddities.