My first morning in Jón’s jovial villa was full of optimistic life attitude, cheerful people and cats. In the start of our Sunday there was a convivial, good-humored hour at breakfast table with the family and furry friends – one of which tried to eat my morning cheerios with a will. While making tea for myself and the lady of the house I received some interesting and funny facts about Iceland from Jón. For example, did you know that back in the Viking era Icelanders used to have a different month system depending on weather and crops, Iceland once had the biggest banana plantation in whole Europe or that people in Iceland always call each other by their first name, even when talking to the president?
After our first breakfast of the day Guffa the hostess wanted to take me to a tour through the neighborhood and the area near by with her younger son. We discovered the hot water swimming pools near the house, found odd chips from the grocery store and took time to admire the architecture of Kópavogur, Reykjavik. One of our stops along the way was a very pretty and sweet-scented little bakery Guffa said she liked a lot. By request of her son she bought us a cake to enjoy at home, alongside of croissants and fresh bread. The cake of the year, told the baker – summery colored, citrus flavored and made mostly of meringue.
About the second breakfast of the day – Icelandic traditions, exploring Europe and ice to break a knife into. We set a table at the living room, where Aré the little guy already had spread out a board game set of Tickets to ride Europe. He wanted all the family to play against him and asked me to join as well, even though I had no smallest clue of what the rules in the game were. Turned out it was tick-tack-toe with little train figures, and that Aré rocked at it. While trying to beat the master we feasted with croissants, bread, strawberries… And a deep frosted cake.
When bought – I swear – the cake was not meant to be an Ice cream- or frozen sweetmeat, even if Icelanders love themselves a good ice cream every now and then. Instead of deep-freeze it was in a showcase like any other fresh baked one. Nevertheless, after almost two hours of building railway tracks it still was frozen like Vatnajökull when we decided to try a knife on it.
In the afternoon I took a little walk around the area by myself. The streets of my host-home square look misleadingly the same, what made it a little troublesome to find my way back at first, before I noticed how convenient of a landmark the geyser- pool park was. Maybe the place could’ve thawed the cake as well. The rest of the day rolled past on even more railroads, and when Aré finally got fed up of winning against us I spent a couple next hours watching Game of Thrones – an Icelandic fave – with Jón’s daughter Paola and one of the cats, Athéna. I’m sure Athéna loves Jon Snow even more than me and Paola do.
Greetings from Alisa 