acclimating

i went to Kolaportid Flea Market today- housed in a huge warehouse adjacent to the harbor. the space smelled like turned fish. i heard that this place sells hakarl... i've been looking for the stuff since i arrived. i didn't know what to expect: is it sold in the grocery stores? at street kiosks, alongside the delicious hot dogs? in tins? cubed or in filets? i've only seen it on two menus, as part of a ~$30 tasting menu, and i didn't really want it that badly... but everyone who knows me has been bored by my fascination with and insistence on trying the fucking stuff...
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the market was an olio of less-compelling antiques (fusty candlesticks, war memorabilia), bad-in-a-bad way fashion, pulp romances written in icelandic, tables of cheap plastic chinese jewelry... and in the back, the nexus of the funky aroma, the food section. dried haddock (which i ate for dinner with butter- FUCKING DELICIOUS. i'm going to try to bring some back, odor be damned- it is absolutely magical), bags of frozen 'seafood mix' (baby octopi, scallops, shrimp, lobster), svio (sheep's head), lungs and hearts and viscera of various mammals (all indecipherably labelled), and hakarl.
little plastic lidded cups, the sort one gets a side of tartar in, were filled with about 8 cubes and sold for 150 Ikr. whole sharks, about a foot long, were vacuum-sealed: yellow puddingy eyes and what looked like a coating of orange icing. i held up a cup of the dice to inspect: the cubes were yellow and almost translucent, like gelatin. there was some liquid (leakage?) at the bottom. the older woman commandeering the stall was watching me. i believe she was smirking.
i couldn't.
just looking at it made me nauseous. nervous. evolution dictates that we do not eat that which is fucking rotten. they bury the shark in the first place because it's fucking poisonous, for christ's sake! i'm all about The New Experience, except when i'm not... so after years, honestly, of fantasizing about this moment, i pussed out and walked away.
but i did find a pair of cool gloves- my first tangible souvenir.
silly chickenshit american.
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christ the king cathedral was first built in the late 1800s. it sits above the 'downtown' area...
the sun was just rising (at 1130am).

i was the only one there. i didn;t shut the door properly and the entire time i was inside it banged in the wind, echoing. i always cross myself when i enter churches- not out of any religious tendency, obviously, but out of respect. i think i did it backwards, though: right shoulder, then left? fucking it up cancels out any respectfulness...
i've had several conversations lately about 'wanting something to believe in'... some foundation seperate from yourself that you can rely upon. i cannot comprehend that, still...
i debated getting a tattoo whilst in iceland. i've thought for years about having the word "island", small, in a subtle location. island is also the icelandic spelling for, um, iceland, so it seemed relevant, but then it occured to me that i don't really think of myself as isolated any more. i operate that way, often to my detriment, but i don't get much pleasure from it. lately i feel like more of an isthmus...
i have never before seen a car like this in europe.

the sun actually shined (shone?) for the first time since i've been here. it was extraordinarily cheering. it got no higher than eye level and set again- no migration across the sky. the shadows were long and gold.

the woman i bought the gloves from said "we haven't had any winter at all." she sounded almost sad about it. i smiled and nodded, my hands jammed in my pockets amongst the wadded kleenexes from my perpetual wind-snot, hair permanently flattened under my hat. today was fucking beautiful, though, and the lack of humidity made it seem less cold than usual. lots of people about... i saw a lot of prams, even parked outside shops while the parents (i almost said 'owners') were inside.
reykjavik reminds me so much of seattle. the cafes are full, there are bookstores everywhere - for a city of 110,000 people, i know of (and have been in) at least 5 LARGE bookstores in a 20-minute walking radius. all the bookstores are multileveled, with cafes and entire floors devoted to art supplies. books are, like everything else, expensive as fuck. i saw a hardbound copy of keith richards' 'life' for 3.600 Ikr... even paperbacks (the majority of which are in icelandic) are at least 1.800 Ikr. a fancy deli near my hotel was crammed with people buying cheese and pate and sausage and honey. groups of young women in tight jeans and ankle boots, older women with copious eye makeup... young men with either beards (tourists?) or fucking emo haircuts, older men with fur-lined caps and, almost always, glasses. the men here are mostly thin, the women less so, though most people are wearing too many layers to tell. that said, there are a lot of very nice female asses in iceland.
tonight- this afternoon- i returned to my happy room for a lovely repast of the aforementioned haddock, flatbread, butter, and a can of danish pear cider...and a comically large bottle of 'toppur sitronu', the cheap local mineral water.

whenever i find the rare cognate, i get so triumphant- "icelandic can't be too difficult to learn! for example, this water has citron involved!"
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now: 136am GMT, just enough rain to make the occasional passing car sigh. some things sound the same no matter where you are.