FFF #12 – Einar Jónsson Museum, Cafe Loki, and Hallgrímur’s Church
[Written 3 May 2014]
This week was so busy that I never managed to do a recap of last weekend’s FFF outing, but here at last it is!
The main goal (heh) this time was to visit the The Museum of Einar Jónsson, which is yet another place I’ve driven past a thousand times, but never actually entered. Happily, the museum is right next to the church of Hallgrímur (famous poet), which is always fun to take photos of, especially in nice weather.
It turns out this Einar guy was Iceland’s first (modern?) sculptor, educated in Denmark around 1900. I hadn’t realized, but I’ve seen his work all over the place – he’s responsible for many of the ‘main’ sculptures found around town.
Now, having walked through the museum, I’ll grant him that he was a really good sculptor, but not really my cup of tea. (Too religious, and dramatic.)
On to the photos! (83 images total, eeek!)
The museum building. From the museum website: “In 1909, Einar Jónsson offered all of his works as a gift to the Icelandic people on the condition that a museum be built to house them. This gift was not accepted by the Icelandic Parliament until 1914, however. The Parliament contributed 10,000 crowns to the construction of the museum, while a national collection yielded 20,000 crowns in private donations.”
Last Day of Winter
[Written 25 April 2014]
Summer officially began 24 April 2014 (Who decides these things?! And why isn’t it the first of spring and not summer!?!?), but the last day of winter was a beauty, so here are a few pics to commemorate it. (10 images total)
I dropped Emma off with her grandparents, and got this photo of them heading out for a walk. (Anna’s fetching something inside the car.)
Easter Day 2014
Easter Day finally arrived with its promise of copious chocolate and candy. First the kids had to find their eggs though… (28 images total)
NOT an Easter egg!
FFF #11: Ásmundarsafn and Te og kaffi at Borgartún 21A
I aaaalmost didn’t make it out of the house for an outing today…
First of all, I hadn’t formally planned anything (although I had an idea or two kicking around), and secondly, I was really tired for some reason. But, the weather outside was lovely, so after laying in bed for a bit, I rallied and kicked myself out of the house.
Today’s destination was one of those places I’d driven past thousands of times, but never actually entered.
It’s called Ásmundarsafn, or the Museum of Ásmundur Sveinsson. He was a sculptor, who built and lived in the house that currently houses the museum. Go here to check out his catalog owned by the museum.
I was duly impressed by the building itself, as well as some of his pieces. Ásmundur was probably a pretty cool cat in his day and age!
Alongside the works of Ásmundur were more recent works by other Icelandic artists. They were more hit or miss. (55 images total)
At the museum entrance. The museum sits on the edge of an outdoorsy sports and family area called Laugardalur (The valley of the hot springs – people used to wash their clothes there).
Behind Again. Ugh.
It looks like I took a mental blogging break. So now I’m behind again. Be warned that random stuff may appear in a random order. Or not appear in case my mental blockade keeps going. Ugh.Read more
Emma’s First Steps
[Written 14 April 2014] Emma hasn’t been all that interested in walking, probably because she’s an expert crawler. Recently I’ve been holding her hands and having her walk with me, and lately she’s even gotten pretty good at walking if I only hold one of her hands. This post is just to mark the occasionRead more
The Civil Confirmation of Hilmir
[Written 14 April 2014]
Finnur’s nephew, Hilmir, was civilly confirmed (as opposed to religiously confirmed) a couple of weekends ago. The ceremony was performed by Siðmennt (translation: The Secular Humanist Society?) and was apparently fantastic, as told by those in attendance.
Hilmir’s family invited a bunch of people to celebrate at the clubhouse of the the Seltjarnarnes golf club, and I was asked to take photos, which I did.
I won’t bore you with ALL THE PHOTOS (click if you’re curious), but here are a few samples (8 images total)
A family photo.
FFF #10 – Volcano House
Soooo… The FFF had to take a couple of weekends off because I was limping along with an injured heel, and two-hour walking-fests weren’t really high up on the want-to-do list.
My heel is slowly getting better, although I did a stupid thing at gym again, and probably made it slightly worse (again), but that’s just the nature of plantar faciitis. It’ll take a while…
But I was getting antsy again, so I decided to finally visit a low-walking venue that I’d both seen on the TripAdvisor to-do list for Reykjavik, and driven past a few times, sparking my curiosity.
It’s called Volcano House (#20 on the TripAdvisor list), and is basically a tourist trap/cafe/restaurant/rock display/tiny cinema. I really doubt they get a lot of Icelanders through their doors, so I figured I’d fall on the figurative sword and see what the touristy fuss was about.
The short story is that the meat soup was filling, but on the salty side, the rocks were mostly pretty, and the videos made me wonder why the heck anybody would live in Iceland. Ever. And that the people that do are therefore nuts and/or ridiculously stubborn. Which, incidentally, isn’t very far from the truth. (41 images total)
The Volcano House lives on the ground floor in that house on the left. Unseen, left-ishly behind me, is the Reykjavik Main Library, previously visited here.