cultural commentary from the desk of Don Shewey
Gamelan Kusuma Laras in rehearsal at the Indonesian Consulate
Another New York landmark disappears: Tanti Baci, the archtypical Village Italian restaurant
Andy and I had dinner with Tim Whiteside on his three-day stop in New York on his way home to Hawaii from a month in Argentina. I met Tim in 1992 on Fire Island; Andy met him independently on the swim team in 1999.
Puerto Rico Day at the West Side YMCA
I discovered that if I shot Icelandic vistas in black-and-white, they looked more like the Sigur Ros video of my dreams.
On our way to the airport, we stopped for an all-too-brief visit to the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s most famous spa
One of the things I loved most about Iceland is that most people seem to spend some part of almost every day sitting in hot water — definitely, my tribe.
Icelandair is like Virgin Atlantic or JetBlue, an airline that has cultivated a hip-and-groovy and humorous sensibility in its customer relations. What other airline gives you a poem on your pillow? What non-American airline provides a mini language lesson on your seat back?
This may be the first time I’ve glimpsed Greenland. There is a common saying: Greenland is mostly ice, Iceland is mostly green.
This was a big fun trip, thanks to Andy and IGLA’s decision to hold its 2012 championships in Reykjavik.
Sunday morning we got up early and walked across town to take a van to a bus that took us to a farm 45 minutes outside of Reykjavik for a horseback ride.
I somehow thought we were going to ride horses out onto a lava field, some forbidding Icelandic landscape not reachable by motor vehicles. But no, we had a plenty trot on a beautiful day along a creek until we got to a scenic spot to rest and take pictures before turning around.
I’d only been on a horse once before. Icelandic horses are smaller than most, carefully bred for farming purposes. Once they leave the island for any reason, they’re not allowed back, lest they communicate diseases from abroad.
One of the most prevalent and colorful flowers on view in Iceland is indeed an invasive species — the purple lupins, which somehow found their way here from Alaska.
Back at the farm, we had an hour for lunch — our hosts served yummy soup and bread for a very modest fee. Our group included a dozen swimmers and a few other people, including two American engineering students currently at university in Sweden. Mike has such a striking face that I asked permission to photograph him.
Then a gigantic tour bus pulled up with another 20 people onboard, and we set off for the Golden Circle tour — a somewhat corny but obligatory tourist ritual that takes you around to the equivalent of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Central Park. First stop was Þingvellir, which we got to view from a different perspective from our trip on Friday — here we were looking across the Continental Divide from the North American side, from the top of the Lögberg.
Next stop: Gullfoss (Golden Falls), with its ever-present rainbow
Some of us brought our own colors to add to the landscape
The other obligatory tourist attraction is Geysir, where the temperature from geothermal pools underground periodically send gigantic gushers of water into the air. (This is where we get the English word geyser.) What’s funny, though, is that the main sight you see here is tourists standing around with their cameras cocked for 10-15-20 minutes at a time, waiting to capture the two-second eruption when it happens.
I feel a little funny saying this, but I went to Iceland excited to see unprecedentedly exotic lunar-like landscapes, but even the most impressive sights reminded me of Montana, South Dakota, and the American southwest.
Saturday morning, while Andy participated in the last day of swimming competitions, I moseyed around Reykjavik.
I stopped in to tour Hallgrímskirkja, the church whose 245-foot-high tower stands out on the Reykjavik skyline and serves as a navigational tool.
After all the ornate Italian churches I’ve seen in recent years, the interior shocked me with its Lutheran austerity.
Lurking around Cafe Loki across the street, trying to get a wi-fi signal, I started chatting with this handsome guy from Houston named Carlos Obando who turned out to be the co-president of IGLA.
Back at Laugardalslaug, the meet ended with the Pink Flamingo, a floorshow of sketches, this year by four teams. I liked the way the Iceland team used the light and the reflection off the pool.
But inevitably the large, boisterous New York contingent — with its plethora of local references and Icelandic in-jokes — won the Pink Flamingo competition, along with the water polo tournament and the overall championship.
The Pink Flamingo competition had three local celebrity judges, one of whom was this city councilwoman who presented the trophy — a stuffed dalmatian mink.
We didn’t have tickets for the IGLA banquet that night. Wandering around looking for a place to eat, we connected with a local couple who recognized us because they’d been volunteers for IGLA. Finn is a 33-year-old massage therapist and award-winning truck driver; Thorhalla is a 35-year-old linguist who grew up on a sheep farm. They met while working at the post office and described themselves as polyamorous bisexuals. We had a long walk and then dined together. I suppose we could have sought out Icelandic specialties like puffin, ram’s testicles, or putrefied shark, but they wanted pizza and we settled for pasta.
They took us to what passes for a gay bar in Reykjavik, Bar 46, where we met up with Thorhalla’s younger sister Inga, who was very drunk and very friendly.
Friday morning, Andy had a long-course swim first thing (800-meter freestyle). Afterwards, we piled into the car with Brad, Jim, and Fede.
Destination: Þingvellir National Park. (That first letter is called a thorn and is pronounced “th” and a double-L in Icelandic is pronounced “tl” — also r’s are rolled and slightly aspirated, so Þingvellir is pronounced “Thingvetlih.”) This is where the European and North American continents meet, and where you can see and experience where the tectonic plates have shifted.
This place has huge historical significance for Icelanders as the site of the first meeting of the Althingi, or Parliament — it’s called Lögberg (Law Rock) and has special acoustic resonance.
A beautiful river runs alongside Lögberg
Beautiful waterfalls are everywhere in Iceland — we hadn’t gotten sick of them, yet.
On our way to Lögberg, we stopped at a scenic gorge and frolicked
Some of us went skyclad, which I didn’t think it would ever be warm enough to do in Iceland
We got back to Reykjavik in time for a cocktail party hosted by Elizabeth Turnbull-Brown, the ebullient Aussie who is currently president of Team New York Aquatics
I had a gin and tonic and admired Michael Tynan’s ears and schnozz
Then it was on to Nauthólsvík Beach, where some hardy swimmers engaged in a 250-meter open-water swim
including Randall and Joe, who reported that the water was cold but not arctic
Then there was a barbecue
We got back to the apartment around 11:15 pm — the golden hour
another eye opens 