This is our last morning at Biggi's parent's cabin, so I wanted to get some pictures of the view. The rock face across from the cabin has some interesting images hidden in it.... can you see the three elephants on the left? (The left-most two are facing us, the right-hand one is facing away.) Toward the right we could see a bride and groom taking their "first dance", but I can barely make them out in this picture. The other thing to look for is the fisherman in the stream just above and to the right of the left-most fence post. There were four people out fishing yesterday afternoon, and they returned this morning. We never got to see them land a fish, but they walked away with at least one.
The cabin was beautifully landscaped, and you can see the flowers in the planters on the deck here. You can also see another fisherman standing on the rocks at the bend in the river.
Goodbye! A parting picture of the cabin as we head out to Reykjavik. We're spending tonight at Biggi's house in downtown Reykjavik, and today is our day for some souvenir shopping and wandering around downtown!
One of our first stops was at "The Pearl", a tourist spot on a hill just outside Reykjavik. It has a man-made geyser that we wanted to see, but which wasn't working. Inside there is a fake geyser (just pumps cold water into the air) that we got to see, and up above is this observation deck. This place is built on top of a group of four (five?) big water-tanks that supply water to the city, and you can see the circular form of the two of them below Paige and Biggi in this picture. Out in the distance is downtown Reykjavik. The closest tall building is a church.
After this excursion we headed back to Biggi's house, then we took the 10 minute (at most!) walk into downtown Reykjavik in search of "Icelandic Sweaters" and souvenirs. We also kept our eyes open for some earrings for Paige ;-) We finally bought sweaters at the Handknitter's Guild store (I think?) and stopped at a bar for some coffee and to soak up the atmosphere. On the way home we stopped at Biggi's favorite hot-dog stand down by the wharf for some *awesome* hot-dogs: David made a definite mistake in only ordering one!
After our excursion we decided to try another swimming pool, so we headed to a swimming pool in a suburb of Reykjavik. This time we found a great pool with lots of families out for a swim before dinner, and the hot-tubs were definitely up to temperature!
This evening was the time for the Women's Wold Cup Soccer final game: US vs. China, so of course Paige wanted to watch it if possible. Biggi called up a "Sports Bar" which said they would have it on one of their TVs, so we headed there for dinner. In the room that was supposed to be showing it we found several other Americans trying to see it, but unfortunately it wasn't showing on the channel that it was supposed to be, so we watched some other soccer. One of the other Americans there said her brother would be watching it from her house in Minnesota, and she thought about trying to find a pay-phone, but Biggi let her use his cell-phone to call home and we found out that the game was tied 0-0 in the last 10 minutes. She called back again and got the final score and a short synopsis of the way the US won!
We finally decided to head home around midnight, and after the dark interior of the bar we were surprised by the daylight still prevailing outside. Reykjavik definitely seemed to wake up this evening... there were lots of cars and pedestrians all around as we strolled home for the night.