Sunday evening post

[shewhomust]

After two days in Iceland, I'm close to information overload: we have seen so many wonderful things that I need some time to process and sort before I begin to write about them. The short version is that we spent yesterday exploring the Reykjanes peninsula, pulling off the road to explore minor tourist attractions: black cliffs dotted with birds, a bridge spanning a sandy gully which happens to be the fault line between the Eurasian and American tectonic plates, the boiling mud of Seltún - stuff like that. Today we toured the Golden Circle route - the major tourist sites: the original Geysir and his livelier little brother Strokkur, Gullfoss waterfall, Þingvellir. I'm overwhelmed, and a little exhausted, too.

After all that, we went out for a pizza, so instead of any weightier cultural analysis, here are two of the pizzas available:

The Viking

Cheese, sauce, tabasco sauce, mushroom, pepperoni, fresh chili, pineapple, black pepper, cayenne pepper, fresh jalapeno.

Janis Joplin

Cheese, sauce, ham, banana, pineapple.

I have held forth elsewhere about the wrongness of ham and pineapple pizza; it never occurred to me to add that that goes double for bananas, Of course, we are in Hveragerði, where most of Iceland's banana crop is grown...

Even so, we had the 'Salmon Harbor' (prawns, mussels, smoked salmon).

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Iceland has a banana crop?? Whoodathunkit.

Sounds like you're having a wonderful time. ;-)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Europe's largest banana producer! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Iceland)

And yes, thank you, wonderful time indeed!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I am very fond of ham and pineapple pizza, wrong as that may be to you. Where I draw the line is black pudding on pizza, and that is on offer from London to Birmingham.

I am dazzled by the thought of Iceland's banana crops, even having seen many greenhouses while being bussed around.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Perfect icon!

Ah, but re you fond of ham and pineapple as a foodstuff, or as a manifestation of tiki culture?

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

Wow, it sounds fabulous. I'm so glad you're able to make these regular posts - it adds to the excitement.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Now packing to leave the hotel with the easy WiFi, so we'll see what tomorrow brings...

[anef.livejournal.com]

The Vikings, of course, ate a lot of pineapple and jalapenos. Usually together.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

They were notorious for it!

[anef.livejournal.com]

And yet gammon and pineapple is a classic. Though maybe not on Byzantine pizza. Darn, if you got the earlier version my spelling is all to pieces.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Gammon and pineapple good; ham and cheese good (also with bread, which pizza base surely is); cheese and pineapple classic, though not one of my favourites. And yet ham and pineapple pizza is Wrong. What can I say? Ours not to reason why...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Viking for me! [surprise...]

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I did think of you, obviously...

[larryhammer]

Re: Information overload -- yes, the first few days of Iceland do that to one.

(here via janni)

---L.