I Love Water, My Kids Like to Buy Things, and The Legend of the Yule Cat (preview: think more Krampus than Santa)

Quick technical note: many of the photos on this blog are “sliders.”  They will have arrows on either side of the photo and you can click the arrows to go back and forth and see many more photos, like a slideshow. If on your phone, try swiping the photo with your finger to see if it is a slideshow as most are.

In case you didn’t know, Iceland, in July, has daylight 24 hours per day.  Ok, well, that is mostly true.  Iceland is typically cloudy so there isn’t a lot of direct sun, and the sun does technically “set” for three hours per day (though barely below the horizon so it is still what I would call “bright twilight”).  Point is, before we left the US, we spent time considering how to put ourselves in the best place to get good nights of sleep, even in Iceland.  We invested in quality eye masks for each of us, and bought three portable blackout curtains.  Thankfully, our apartment had great blackout shades in each room already, but the kids still opted to sleep in their eye masks.  It works quite well with the Icelandic situation.  We also decided to utilize the Icelandic daylight and mitigate the 4 hour time difference by shifting the kids bedtimes by 2-2.5 hours to about 10-10:30pm.  They got a much better night of sleep than the crazy late one the night before.

Better sleep made us ready to explore downtown Reykjavik.  Reykjavik is the capital of Iceland and holds about 1/3 of Iceland’s approximately 350,000 residents.  It is, however, definitely a small city.  It is very walkable and absolutely adorable as well.  Houses are painted many bright and different colors, which Valerie says is common in colder countries to keep spirits up in the deep winter times.  We also saw compost bins, as well as separate recycling bins in all public parks and other buildings…often multiple recycling bins separated for each type (this has continued throughout the country so far as well.)  It is a very clean and relaxed city.  

My kids, especially Naomi, like to buy things.  They also like to buy them right away.  We had excellent conversations about how we spend our money, what they can do with their money, and the benefit of looking around first, for both best price and largest variety, before making a purchase.  While I would not have bought what they bought, they did moderate their purchases somewhat well…though Naomi had some difficulty with it.  We strolled on the main street in downtown Reykjavik, looked in shops, took some detours, and got some truffles and candy at a lovely shop named Vineberid.  The man in the shop even gave the kids one free truffle each! The kids wanted their photos near every large promotional statue and stuffed animal left on the street to attract customers and we found a funny t-shirt shop.  Reykjavik also has cool street art and murals, which I love!

We finally ended that stroll on the famous rainbow street (which is just a single block…) and turned for the walk to Hallgrimskirkja, a church which is the most popular attraction in all of Iceland.  As we walked this route, we also came across a few interesting things!  Firstly, we found the oldest prison in Iceland, Hengningarhusid.  It was built in 1872 and was a working prison all the way until 2016.  We couldn’t go in, but it had a beautiful art installation in the windows, with an artist’s portrayal of individuals who had been incarcerated there.  Ezra also found a new type of Prime hydration drink: a partnership with Norwegian soccer star Erling Haaland.  Naturally he bought one and downed it, haha!  Finally, at the recommendation of our good friend, Joanna, we ate lunch at Cafe Loki, which is diagonal across the street from Hallgrimskirkja.  We had smoked sliced lamb, mashed fish gratin, and crepes.  All was pretty decent.  The star of the show, however, was the dessert.  They specialize in rye bread ice cream!  Now, yall know I cannot stand rye bread, but this type doesn’t have caraway seeds in it so it just tastes like a deeply-flavored brown bread.  The ice cream was fantastic and while Naomi didn’t like it, Valerie and Ezra agreed that it was special.

After lunch, we went in Hallgrimskirkja.  The church has a very cool looking facade that we agreed looked like the palace of an ice giant.  I have not seen a similar looking church.  It also has this incredible inlay on its front door, but as one side was propped open, I did not get a photo of it.  Inside, it is very stark and grey (much like, I imagine, the palace of an ice giant would be!)  The organ is absolutely incredible though, the most magnificent I have seen.  We did not get to come back for one of their summer organ concerts, as the next one was unfortunately at the same time as a soccer game Ezra and I would go to, but I would love to hear the organ played.  It has a total of 5,275 pipes and is the largest musical instrument in Iceland!  We also got to go up to the bell tower and above to see the incredible 360 degree view of the city.  The bells are said to be very loud.  We first heard them from the bell room itself (I got a video) and didn’t think they were quite so loud.  Then we accidentally heard them from the floor above while enjoying the view and boy did we jump.  They were indeed quite loud!

After Hallgrimskirkja, we walked over to Lake Tjornin, a decent sized lake in downtown Reykjavik where Reykjavik City Hall and the Icelandic Parliament are also located.  On the way, we wandered into an outdoor sculpture garden connected to one of the art museums and saw some extremely interesting sculptures.  The walk around the lake was wonderful.  There were a lot of ducks, geese, and other birds all around, as well as a lot of trees and colorful flowers, and some notable sculptures.  It also offers beautiful views of the city.  City Hall is a cool building that includes a large 3D model of Iceland and free bathrooms, haha! We did not go into the Parliament building.  It was smaller than I imagined (though Iceland is a small country), but we wanted to see it for reasons I will explain in the next post (it has to do with a fascination of Naomi’s from an Iceland historical video we showed.) Anyway, I love being near water, and while I prefer moving water, the walk around Lake Tjornin was delightful!

Finally, we walked back to the car, past some other murals and statues, and, much to Ezra’s delight, the Icelandic Phallological Museum.  We did not go in, but Ezra thought it was hysterical anyway.  They also had fun (and almost, but did not break anything) on a toddler playground!  Last, but not least…I paid for parking using one of the only parking machines I have seen that did not have a translation button.  Clearly my Icelandic must be getting good, haha!

Side note: we started to learn about Icelandic Fairy Tales.  They are very dark and include lots of trolls, elves, and witches.  Much like many old European fairy tales (before they were all basically Disney-ized by Hans Christian Anderson), they are focused on teaching kids “morality” lessons by demonstrating the horrible things that will happen to them if they go off the prescribed path.  Our “favorite” today was about the Yule Cat who goes around the day after Christmas and eats the children who weren’t given any new clothes for Christmas (so you better be good for goodness sake!).  Apparently, being poor in old Iceland was quite the hazard in more ways than one!?!

July 3, 2025 – Total Step Count 15,884 (mostly flat)