FFF #9 – Geysir Bistro, The Settlement Exhibition, and Stofan Cafe

I was early enough that parking was a breeze! That gray stone building is the parliament building, and behind it you can see the Reykjavik cathedral.

Turning around, I spotted my second goal. The Settlement Exhibition lives under those three houses.

First things first though – acquiring lunch!  Fiskmarkaðurinn (The Fish Market) is on the right side of the red house. It was sadly closed for lunch, and the guy inside suggested I try Geysir Bistro (among others) instead.

Walking towards Geysir Bistro meant walking past the very sad Ingólfs-square. This used to be a gathering place for unsavory/cool people, and then turned into a skaters-place. Now it’s mostly just empty and forlorn.

A group of people and the bus they came in.

This house, at the edge of the square, used to house a wool-store, but now it’s mostly a restaurant (or two?). Geysir Bistro is across the street from the gable.

The bistro was essentially empty when I arrived, there were two other people there. It had filled up considerably when I left.

Downtown Reykjavik is so tiny. Here is the view out of Geysir Bistro, and you can see Cafe Iða, the Main Library/Photography Museum, and the Art Museum – all which I’ve recently visited.

This statue of a person with a hanging head was very popular with tourists. At least two groups of people had their picture taken by it (that I noticed).

The food looked fancy (and was pretty darn expensive), but sadly the very tasty fish turned out to be somewhat undercooked, so I sent it back for a top-up. The gravy was to die for though. Annoyingly, I hadn’t had a big breakfast, so I was pretty hungry and this meal was too skimpy on the veggies to really fill me up.

Walking back along Aðalstræti (yay, Iceland now has StreetView!) towards the exhibition house, I decided to peek into this black-ish house. It had signs indicating design-ware was for sale inside (Kraum).

Yup, design-y stuff galore!

Out back, there was a large space, made up of a second house and a splicing to the front old house.

Upstairs, the back house had design-y clothes.

Design-y household objects.

Anybody up for a $120 pillow?

Very cool old-style cash register (not in use).

Continuing on, I stumbled on this clear box rising out of the ground. It turned out to be a sky-box for the exhibition I was about to visit (meaning I was already walking on top of it).

Here be big trucks in front of the entrance to the exhibit.

This exhibition is unusual in that you walk in and straight down into the basement.

Basically, the exhibit centers around an archaeological find. It turns out that a big house had been built on that spot a thousand years ago. An even older wall fragment was found near by, which predates an eruption in 871 (+/- 2 years), which is why the exhibit is called 871 (+/- 2).

The entrance to the exhibition ‘hall’. It’s really just one really large basement room.

We can haz old books.

This is what Icelandic school children learn about the settlement of Iceland.

Inside the main room, panorama courtesy of Google+’s automatic photo manipulation programs.  Click on the image for a larger version.

A panning gif image seen from the entrance.

Along the wall was a huge panorama image of what the surrounding view from Reykjavik probably looked like before it became a town. Along the wall were motion sensors, and when you came close to these little screens, a video with ghostly images would play with audio.

Ghostly images milking a sheep (goat?).

The layout of known houses from a thousand years ago superimposed on a modern street map.

It’s really really hard to do any kind of photographic justice to the big house foundation. It’s basically a long brown rectangle, but in the middle you can see a pretty stone arrangement marking the outline of a long fireplace.

This is where a 3D version would be helpful. Otherwise all you see are lumps of rocks and mud.  There is multimedia found at the official website though…

On the far right side is the sky-box I’d walked by earlier. It’s right over the main entrance to the house, which was paved with big flat stones (which was apparently unusually opulent for the times).

At the far end, looking back.

Next to the end of the house is the wall fragment found which dates from before 871 +/- 2 A.D. Apparently, that light-colored sediment  is from the eruption that was dated using Greenland ice-cores.

Explanation of the Settlement Eruption Layer.

Very nice panorama of the neighboring mountains!

Looking towards the entrance. But first I ventured into a little side room off to the right…

Now, this is how you use technology in a museum setting! That circular thing was an actual thing, with raised circles (where the light isn’t shining). You put your finger on the white dot, and moved it around. The bigger the circle, the more reconstructed the image on the screen in front. As you went around the circle, the image rotated! Very, very neat!

Screenshot of the roof-support system.

Possible inside layout…

The outermost circle had a full scenic view. Very cool, and really showed just how isolated these houses were way back when.

I didn’t quite have the double-hand coordination needed to both move my finger on the circle board and hold the big camera steady.  But I tried!

Down towards the exit they have this ‘interactive’ table, where you see a schematic of the building, and you can then ‘press’ on a word pointing to some part of it to get further information. It worked pretty well!

Also lining the walls were these little boxes with artifacts found at the site. A note on the wall indicated that the house had been deserted at some point, which is why not a lot of artifacts were found.

Back out front, they had a nifty gift shop.

Back outside I walked past the Fish Market again… (such a pretty house!)

… and entered this yellow building almost opposite it. It houses the Stofan Cafe (“Stofan” translates to “living room”). Behind it is one of the many very ugly buildings found downtown.

The Stofan Cafe was very cosy, with lots of second (third?) hand furniture.

A jar asking for tips. Which is weird because Icelanders don’t tip. Ever.

The other half of the room. This is one of those cafes where you may have to ask to share someone’s sofa.

Being quite hungry, I got some hot chocolate (4 out of 5) and a pecan pie. And no, I didn’t not eat all that cream!

Exiting the Stofan Cafe, I couldn’t pass up the juxtaposition of the old style lettering, old couch, and old reflected house vs. the lady on the laptop.