Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.11.2011, Side 26

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KEFLAVÍK
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STYKKISHÓLMUR
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DRANGAJÖKULL
FLATEY
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ÍSAFJÖRÐUR
VOPNAFJÖRÐUR
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GRÍMSEY
KULUSUK
Greenland
Blue Lagoon
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ILULISSAT
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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 17 — 2011 The trip was provided by Reykjavík Excursions. The trip with a complete Golden Circle tour can be booked at
www.re.is (but note that the vodka and sheep are not included!). The spa portion of this trip was provided by
Fontanta Baths. It can be booked that at www.fontana.is.
Travel | Grapevine on the road Words by Rebecca Louder, photos by Skari
For us, the lead up to the Iceland Airwaves festival
is a couple of whirlwind weeks of trying to talk to as
many performers as we can, especially the interna-
tional acts setting foot on this rocky clump of land
for the first time. They usually tell us the same thing:
they really want to get out of town and see some real
Icelandic shit but don’t have a lot of time and aren’t
sure how or where to go. And for all the guaranteed
fun that the festival provides though, there is always
a sense that we could have done something else,
something new.
We finally came to the logical conclusion that it
was time we organise a road trip. After all, we know
music, we know travel and we get a lot of free booze.
So we grabbed a Reykjavík Excursions bus, rounded
up a bunch of foreign and local bands, a couple of
industry folk and a whole lotta Reyka Vodka and set
off to have a real Icelandic rock’n’roll adventure!
WAKE UP AND SMEll THE VODKA
We trucked off at the ungodly hour of noon, before
anyone’s coffee had kicked in or their hangover had
worn off, and headed off towards the Golden Circle
region. Our official Reykjavík Excursions guide Níels
provided occasional geographical and historical tid-
bits for our first-time visitors while Jóndi, our day’s
official MC and Grapevine co-founder, shook things
up with saucy anecdotes.
After a quick detour to check out Sigur Rós’
studio (from the outside only—it’s that grey build-
ing next to the grey building) we arrived at our first
stop, Þingvellir. In true Icelandic form, the instant we
stepped off the bus the weather went from sunny
and cool to a torrential hail storm accompanied by
the winds of death, which made it fairly difficult to
properly pass around our baptismal bottle of vodka
and sent Rich Aucoin running back to the bus in his
improper outdoor attire. Of course within five min-
utes we were staring at a fucking rainbow. Typical.
THIS BAKERY IS SO UNDERGROUND, YOU
GUYS
By the time we were working on bottle number two
of Reyka we were pulling up to the newly opened
Fontana Steam Baths in lovely Laugarvatn. The
facilities were sleek and the super friendly staff
hooked up our whole gang with the swimsuits many
of them did not realise they should bring to this
country. Once we hit the hot tub, Kolli from RETRÖN
took the ice-breaking to the next level with a rous-
ing game of Guess-the-Marine-Animal. (How was
THAT an octopus, dude?) Fontana also boasts an
awesome complex of Finnish style saunas which
honestly felt more like microwave ovens.
After leaving our insta-bake experience we
were joined by Jóel Friðrik Jónsson, owner of lo-
cal craft-work shop and café Gallerí, who came
around to show us some real slow-baking—under-
ground bread baking, to be exact! After repeating a
few times to our disbelieving guests that yes, they
bake bread underground, it quickly turned to hip-
ster jokes. “We were baking bread before it was
cool, man!” “Our ingredients are all real, organic,
analog!” Etcetera. Their excitement over the hipster-
bread was visibly abated when Jóel reached into his
ground-oven and pulled out a filthy plastic bag full
of milk cartons which contained the bread, prompt-
ing Rich Aucoin’s manager Jason to bet me there
would be a hand inside.
FOOD! BOOzE! SHEEP POOP!
We hopped over to Jóel’s establishment (which he
has run with his wife Þuríður Steinþórsdóttir since
2003) to sample the bread and some damn fine
smoked trout. Our guests got a bit apprehensive
again when Þuríður told us that one kind of trout
was smoked in sheep’s dung, but they all inevitably
preferred it to the birch-smoked trout. Patricia of
Pop Montreal even said it might be better than Van-
couver smoked salmon. Those are fighting words!
Then we cracked open another bottle of vodka,
chilled out and passed it around while Markús (mi-
nus the Diversion Sessions) played us a song ap-
propriately named ‘Decent Times.’ Yes, they were.
MORE SHEEP! MORE POOP!
Our last stop was over at Eyvindartunga farm, which
belongs to Jóndi’s uncle Snæbjörn Þorkelsson, to
hang out with a bunch of sheep who were meeting
their maker on the morrow. Jóndi told us a jolly grim
tale of his uncle casually shooting a sheep in the
exact location we were standing for a cover-shoot
for this fine publication you’re reading, and then
stumbled into the barn.
The result of how much free-flowing alcohol,
hot tub relaxation and minimal amounts of food
we had all had resulted in delusions of grandeur
of sheep-taming abilities. Jason, Kolli and our pho-
tographer Skari all hopped into the pen after Jóndi
who showed them the technique of hopping over a
sheep’s back, picking it up by the horns and show-
ing it who’s the boss. Pretty soon we all hopped in
too to get our shoes all poopy and to get as close to
Iceland’s real majority population as possible.
And with a ceremonial vodka shot to commemo-
rate our grand adventure, we loaded back onto
our bus. Åse and Linn from Deathcrush practiced
synchronised handclaps, always resulting in a fit of
giggles, and Kolli pointed out holes in the cliffs to
wish upon until we were back in the city, back in the
party, already partying hard but not even close to
partied out.
Going To The Country, Gonna Drink A lot Of Vodka
A report from the Grapevine’s First Annual Airwaves Road Trip!