Monday, August 9, 2021

Post New York Trip. Rotten Apple Perspective. Emery Visits Iceland. Manhattan Project - What If Color Over Competence? Incongruous?





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Everything previously posted was written and scheduled for sending before I left for The Rotten Apple.  We just returned and I will begin with a few observations and then post what accumulated while I was away: 

First of all we went up to celebrate Lynn's aunt's 99th birthday.  

Lynn's mother's sister worked as a court reporter and was one of the best and most admired  in her court district.

At 99 she is sharp and with it and a remarkable person.

Her son and daughter in law planned all the events and they were memorable. 

My observations of what I call The Rotten Apple refers to a city that personifies the best and worse of our American Culture. If you want art, music, great theatre, excitement, entertainment NYC will fulfill anyone's dream and appetite. If you want squalor, bizarre street corner partial nudity,  traffic, crime, awful public administration etc. New York is also likely to float your boat.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/05/cuomos-fall-would-be-a-win-for-the-cabal/

While is serves the best food it is also a city of starving, depraved homeless.  While it's architecture is unique, after COVID, possibly 10% of the structures are vacant and boarded.  Entire high rise commercial buildings, hotels and apartments are totally vacant.

High profile sections are swarming with police and other neighborhoods are crime infested.

Massive private yachts are docked down in Wall Street while much of what once was Wall Street has moved across the Hudson River to New Jersey.

It is one of America's greatest yin and yang cities.

NYC is truly a melting pot and the predominant people I saw might have been naturalized citizens but they came from all over the world.  They speak every language imaginable  but know enough English to become employed.  The maid who cleaned our hotel room was Asian, the staffing predominantly black, our waiters and waitresses were mainly Hispanic and the LYFT drivers were predominantly from all over the world.

I have no desire to return and certainly would never want to call it home.

At my age and physical condition Savannah is just fine. 

The Landings has become  my Garden of Eden.
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Our trip this week, to Panama City to stay with a dear Atlanta neighborhood friend, whose husband passed away earlier this year, was canceled due to too her concern about Covid'd resurgence. 

This is just a part of items that came in the three days I was away and which I deem worth posting:
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First, Melissa Emery, a dear Landings friend, superb writer, and her husband Jim have taken a trip to Iceland and she said I could post her memos:

Iceland Chapter 1

Gódan daginn from Reykjavik, Iceland.

 

Dear Readers – please be aware that I write this as Jim’s and my record of our trip.  I may include things that you find interesting, and I hope that is the case, but you may not.  I’ll try to make it as informative and entertaining as possible.

 

Today is Friday, Aug. 6, 2021.  We left Savannah on Tuesday, and flew to Boston.   In Savannah, there was a HUGE line for security.  Thanks to our TSA precheck cards, we sallied past the entire line, saving about an hour of standing in line.

 

This was a Jet Blue flight, and I’m not sure if I have ever been on Jet Blue before, so I didn’t know what to expect.  We had “premium” seats, which meant we were in what would be First Class on any other airline, but on Jet Blue, it just meant near the front, as far as I can tell.  The seats were still 3-across, but we were lucky and had no one between us.  They did serve beverages and snacks, but I had brought some snack bars along with me, so we didn’t need to indulge in whatever it was they offered.  The crew was very pleasant, so I really have no complaints.

 

We had to claim our bags in Boston.  Then we had about 7 hours before our flight to Reykjavik.  We had a long walk from our terminal to the Icelandic Air terminal, and we had all of our luggage, large and small, to lug with us.  We trekked down what could have been a secret passageway except for the sign pointing to Terminal E.  It must have taken us ½ hour to trudge over there, but that used up some time. 

 

We made our way to the terminal to sign in for Iceland, but were foiled by the desk not being open yet.  It would open at 5:00 p.m.  Rats.  No getting rid of the bags.

 

There was a Hilton hotel along the way, so we went back there to have lunch.  Since it was now about 3 p.m., nothing was open except their lobby coffee bar with some sandwiches and salads.  I got a chicken Caesar salad, which was 90% lettuce, and ate the other 10% of it. 

 

Eventually, the time elapsed, and we were able to walk back to the terminal (not a short walk) and get our bags checked in.  We still had a couple of hours to kill, but at least no big bags to drag around.

 

The plane loaded roughly on time, and we got settled in our comfy seats.  No lay-flat seats here, since the flight was only 4 hours and we were going to use up about 2 hours waiting for, and then consuming, dinner.  Dinner was a cold salad of chicken and couscous.  It would have been much better hot.

 

I slept about 45 minutes, and Jim says he slept less, but he seemed to be asleep longer.  We arrived in Reykjavik, which is 4 hours ahead of us time-wise, at about 6:30 a.m.  We got through Customs, Covid Check, and baggage claim very swiftly, and emerged into a large hall to look for our driver.  We were at least 30 minutes ahead of schedule, and there was no sign of him, so Jim called to see if he could get there earlier.  Nope.  So we stood around for 30 – 40 minutes waiting for him.

 

It was about an hour’s drive into town, and we got to the hotel by 8:00 a.m.  Our super-duper travel agent, Valerie Edgemon, had cleverly made us a reservation for Tuesday night, so we were able to check in immediately and even have the “free” breakfast that came with the room.  Then we had a bit of a nap before heading out to our first adventure.

 

We were excited to be taking a helicopter ride to the volcano that is currently erupting.  Our driver from the airport was to be our driver to the helicopter, and he told us that the volcano had temporaily, at least, stopper erupting.  Well, phooey.  No lava to photograph.  (Hah!.  That was the least of the problems.)  We noticed on the way into town that the top of the volcano was covered in clouds and that the ceiling appeared to be pretty low.  But our expectations were still high.

 

Our driver called us just as we were heading downstairs to let us know that the ride was cancelled due to weather.  Damn.  One exciting adventure dashed.

 

We decided to stroll around Reykjavik instead.  Our driver was still coming to take us wherever we wanted, so we asked him to take us to the center of town. 

 

Iceland is about the size of Maine, with the population of our Chatham County in Savannah.

Reykjavik is a town of about 150,000, or almost half of the population (340,000) of Iceland.  It is located on the south-western coast.  It is a surprisingly cosmopolitan city, with a wide variety of arts, great restaurants, museum, music, and architecture.

 

I find  myself most interested in the architecture.  The buildings are a mix of colorful walls, corrugate steel siding, and modern office buildings.  It isn’t as charming an old town as I expected, but then, it isn’t really very old.  A few words on the history of Iceland.

 

            Pre-history:  The American and Eurasian tectonic plates pulled apart, and lava emerged between them.  This lava is what formed Iceland, and remnants of it can be seen everywhere.  Eruptions continue today along a belt running from the north to the south and southwest.  This belt contains Iceland’s active volcanoes and hot springs. While Iceland was uninhabited, Egypt, Greece and Rome rose and fell.  The only life on Iceland during this time was birds, foxes, fish, and the occasional confused polar bear from Greenland.

 

700-900 AD.  Monks appear to have been the first inhabitants, coming from Ireland.  Then, Scandinavian (Viking) explorers began to arrive.  No one knows exactly when the first arrivals came to Iceland, and oral histories passed on from generation to generation don’t really fill in the blanks.  These “sagas”, however, are deeply ingrained in Icelandic culture. 

 

According to the sagas, Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerdson was the first arrival.  He reportedly released 3 ravens when he was under sail:  2 returned to Norway but 1 flew west, so he followed that one. He was supposedly the first settler around Reykjavik in 874 AD,  but archeologists now believe that settlers arrived here sooner.  Whoever got here first, the Vikings established a course other sailors were able to follow easily, so settlers grew in numbers.  Settlers came from Ireland and Norway – interestingly, they believe that most of the women came from Ireland – and brought their cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses with them.  During this settlement time, there were no towns.  People lived solely on farms.

 

By about 930 AD, an island-wide assembly began to meet once a year in Pingvellir.  This was their earliest form of government.

 

In the 980’s, Erik the Red led people to the west coast of Greenland.  They established farms there which lasted until the 1400’s when the weather turned colder  (Aha, climate change is not a new phenomenon!)  Leifur (Leif) Eiriksson, Eric’s son, explored Canada and further south about this time.

 

The entire country of Iceland converted to Christianity in about 1000, after the King of Norway decided to detain some Icelandic traders until and unless they converted.  Privately, however, some Icelanders maintained their pagan traditions.  Today, many Icelanders have two names: their Christian name and the other with Pagan roots.

 

During the 1200’s, Icelanders decided to officially become subjects of the King of Norway, along with Greenland and Scotland.  Iceland retained its own laws, and local officials were all Icelanders.  In the 1520’s, Norway became a dependency of Denmark, making Copenhagan the seat of government for Iceland.

 

The black Death in 1402 decimated Iceland’s population, but allowed for more opportunities for the upwardly mobile peasants to buy their own land.

 

Around 1540, the Protestant Reformation reached Iceland.  The local bishop, who viewed the reformation as an evil Danish imposition, was captured and executed.

 

The Icelandic language is most similar to Old Norse.  As local languages evolved in other Scandinavian countries, Icelandic remained the same, causing Icelanders to feel more and more separated from the mainland.

 

In the period from 1600 – 1800, trade was limited to traders from Copenhagen.  Iceland had about 50,000 residents, depending on epidemics and famines.  Only property-owning men were allowed to marry, so illegitimacy was common, and infant mortality was high due to the belief that babies should be given cow’s milk rather than nursing.  There were still no towns or schools.  Children were expected to learn to read the Bible, so by the mid-1700’s, about half of the population was literate.  Dancing was banned, and there was little music.  Pirates were a problem along the coast, and witchcraft was widely suspected, with results similar to those in Salem, MA. 

 

Reykjavik was founded about 1750 by Skúli Magnússon, a high official who got clearance from Denmark to set up several businesses in Iceland.  He chose Reykjavik as his location, but his enterprises failed.  Nevertheless, Reykjavik continued to grow and prosper. 

 

In 1783, after several cold winters, a huge volcanic eruption caused a fissure on the island.  Strong earthquakes destroyed most of the buildings, and ash from the eruption killed off livestock and one-fifth of the population.

 

In 1786, the Danish selected six Icelandic harbors as official trading locations.  Reykjavik was one of these, and it then obtained “town” status.  It also became the seat of religion, government, and education.

 

I’ll stop there, assuming that that’s enough history for now, and revert to telling our own personal tale.

 

We wandered through the oldest parts of Reykjavik, enjoying the sights and knowing very little about what we were seeing.  We stopped in an English pub for lunch, and had our first real Icelandic meal.  It was fantastic!  I had some sort of fish tacos which had a yummy sauce and tasty guacamole.  Jim had beef sliders.  You’ll see them in the photos.

 

We decided to walk back to the hotel, which Icelanders told us was just a 10-minute walk.  Well, sorry, for old folks like us it was a ½ hour.  But that was fine.  It was cool and not raining, so we had a good walk.

 

Time for another quick nap, and then off to dinner at the Fish Company.  This had been recommended by Valerie, and she knew what she was talking about.  It was located in sort of a wood-sided building and did not look impressive from the outside, but it was spectacular.  We both had fish and then a decadent dessert to make up for our healthy meal.  Then we wandered around the neighborhood for a while, and got a taxi back to the hotel.

 

Well, this got longer than I meant for it to, so I’ll stop here and cover Thursday separately.  You can see the first batch of photos, scenes of Reykjavik, at: https://www.mmemery.com/Iceland-August-2021/i-n5VGQSR/A

 




 Iceland, Chapter 2


Our second day in Iceland, we had a tour of what is called the “Golden Circle.”  This is the southwestern-most part of the island.  We need a map!

 

This Golden Circle was originally known as “The King’s Road”.  The term Golden Circle comes from the name of the main waterfall here, Gullfoss, meaning Golden Falls.

We began by driving out of Reykjavik to the northwest, toward Thingvellir National Park, the oldest National Park in Iceland.  It sits along Pingvellir Lake.  ( I don’t know why one is Thing and the other is Ping.  Ping is spelled with a non-English letter at the beginning that looks mostly like a P but not quite.  It is pronounced Th.  Double ll’s are pronounced tl, so Pingveller is pronounced Thing-Vet-leer.  Icelandic has me baffled.)

The terrain along the route was strange.  Iceland is made up of lava.  All the rocks are lava.  You pass vast fields of it, with an occasional mountain popping up.  The mountains are not in a range here – they are just individuals, and not very pretty really.  Most of them were topped with fog or clouds today, giving them an even more eerie look.

At Thingvellir, there is an amazing gorge that was formed, and continues to form, a break between the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate.  The separation is getting about 1 inch wider every year.  The lake sits in the widest fissure between the plates.  The lake bed and land to its north and south have basically fallen into the gap.  As  you walk through the gorge, you have America to your left and Europe to your right.  As you continue, you come to Lögberg, or Law Rock.  In about 900 A.D., there were about 15,000 people living in Iceland.  Local chieftains began to meet annually, forming a sort of government.  This spot represents Iceland’s first capital.  Chieftains came on horseback from all over the country, and brought assemblymen with them.   A grand chieftain, the allsherjargodí, led the meeting, and the law speaker, lögsögumadur, recited guidelines for the meeting, outlined Icelandic law, and recapped the previous year’s meeting.  These gatherings took place  until 1262.  At that time, the chieftains entered into union with Norway and accepted the Norwegian king as their own.  The meetings from that time forward turned into more of an appeals court, which continued until 1798.  In 1944, the independent Republic of Iceland was declared at this spot.

On we went, along a river to Öxarafoss, a waterfall.  You’ll see it in the photos.  Very pretty.  Alberto, our guide, had kindly moved the van from one end of our walk to the other, so didn’t have to backtrack at all.  Good move!

Our next stop was lunch at a place called Fridheimar in Reykholt.  This place was fascinating.  It is a large greenhouse, growing tomatoes and herbs.  They claim to grow 20% of all the tomatoes in Iceland.  The tomato vines each grow from a small pot, but the vines stretch for many feet from the pot.  They are raised up by a system of pipes and pulleys.  The Fridheimar family has been in the tomato business since 1946.  Today, they are totally off-grid, making their own electricity from a hot spring and even using crates made of corn to transport their crop.  All the tomatoes are grown with no pesticides.  They import “good” flies from the Netherlands to eat the eggs of the “bad” flies that get on the plants.  They also import honeybees to pollinate the plants.  The lunch menu offered a variety of things made with tomatoes: soup, pizza, pasta, and salad.  They even have a beer that contains tomato juice.  Sounds pretty awful, but those who tried it said it was not so bad.

From there, we drove on to Gullfoss, pronounced GUTL-foss, or Golden Falls.  This is a 2-stage waterfall, with the upper falling about 35 feet, and the lower dropping 70 feet.  We walked to the lower of two viewing areas, which got us very close to the falls and spray.  The power of the water tumbling down the falls was immense.  You wouldn’t want to try this in a kayak or a barrel.

Now, nicely cooled off, we headed for Geysir, the origin of the word geyser.  (You didn’t know that, did you?)  This is a geothermal area with several pools of bubbling, boiling water and one geyser, Strokkur, that blows about every 10 – 15 minutes.  Old Faithful it ain’t, but you can get very close to it and, if you are lucky, get a good photo of a very brief eruption.

Our final stop for the day was at the Secret Lagoon.  Oh-oh, the secret is out!  It seemed to me to be pretty crowded, but Alberto said the crowd was relatively small.  Anyway, one is expected to strip, take a shower, and then put on a bathing suit, all in a wide open space.  (The spaces were at least divided by male and female.)  I walked into the locker room and turned around and walked back out to join Alberto for coffee.  Jim did partake in the fun of getting into the geothermal pool and enjoying the warm water.  I enjoyed watching.

We had a pretty long drive back to Reykjavik, but made it without difficulty.  Alberto was very entertaining, and when he was speaking, he played music by well-known Icelandic singers.

We had dinner reservations, but we were too worn out to get all gussied up and go to a fancy restaurant.  We decided to walk next door to a Mexican Grill and have tacos and a burrito for dinner.  Then we went back to the hotel, where I worked on Chapter 1 while Jim watched Olympics.

Here’s a wee pop quiz for you.  Reykjavik is the northernmost capital in the world.  
a. What capitals are 2 – 5?
b. What are the 5 southernmost capital cities?
Send me the answers, but no asking Siri or Alexa!

We had big plans for the morning before we were going to get on the ship, but we got up later than expected and just barely got breakfast before they closed it down.  We decided to scrap our plans and just go to the Grand Hotel, where the cruise sign-in took place.  This was just about across the street from our Hilton, so we walked and dragged our bags.  We were able to check the bags as soon as we got there, and got signed in.  Then we had a rapid Covid test, and sat around waiting nervously for the results.  We had both had Covid tests before leaving home, so we were pretty sure we would pass, and we did.  They gave us a bracelet to show that we had passed, and then we sat for another hour or so before the bus took us over to the ship.  N the way, we had a brief guided tour of downtown Reykjavik, most of which we had already seen.

We are on a Crystal Cruise aboard a brand-new ship named the Endeavor.  This is an excursion ship and carries 200 passengers, but there are only 100 on this trip!   There are 200 staff members, so that is a pretty luxurious ratio.  

We are the third voyage for the ship.  The crew was very well organized and friendly, and got us on board and in our cabin very efficiently.  Our housekeeper, Kamelia, from Bulgaria, and our butler, Adrian from Rumania, came to explain all the features of the room and service.  Then we left the ship for a walk over to something I had seen advertised call Fly Over Iceland.  It begins with getting some info on the history of Iceland as told by a projected storyteller, living in a Viking longhouse.  This is followed by a video projection of photos and music about the “hidden people” (elves) and the geologic formation of Iceland.  Then, the real fun begins.  A Disney-type production of video and sound, accompanied by cold mist in your face as you “ride” over Iceland to see the majesty and magnificence of the landscapes, from mountains to lakes to gorges to cities.  Legs were dangling, except for when I raised my feet to keep them from dragging in the ocean or bumping into a mountain!  We felt like we were swooping through the terrain.  It was fantastic!  If you EVER go to Reykjavik, make sure to see this!

We returned to the ship in time for dinner.  The dining room staff was lined up to greet us, and we landed a table by the window looking away from the city.  Dinner was magnificent, and the service was perfect.  Plus, the added bonus is that we don’t have to get dress up for meals!  We can dress like shlumps and eat like kings.

I think I’ll stop here so that you can see the photos.  I don’t know why the link is black, but I think it works.  They are at:

https://www.mmemery.com/Iceland-Chapter-2
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