Old albums, old VCR movies, old Cd's, old clothing,old shoes, old stamps, old coins, old Halloween costumes,odd bits of old military uniforms and embroidered badges,odd vases, plates, cups and glasses. An area that caught my eye had baked goods, lots of interesting breads, an item called Icelandic donuts, that were much denser than any donut I ever ate, and oddly shaped as well. Cakes with really thin layers, and some sort of wonderfulness in between holding it all together. Quite a few beautiful hand-knit sweaters, with the classic snowflake designs, mostly in shades of grey, white, brown and black, those colors that naturally occur on the hundreds of sheep we saw out in the pasture land. We saw not the first woolly mammal with pale pink or blue coat, so it is obvious those colors were synthetic (as the labels indicated: made in China) rather than produced by those saggy beasts clinging precariously to steep inclines.
We stopped in a little cafe right on the waterfront that claimed to be Haitian. Everyone we encountered spoke with an accent, and I could not discern if she sounded like she was from the Caribbean or some place in Africa - I would have believed anything. Some had hot cocoa, others had blistering hot coffee, and a slice of apple pie that was about three inches tall. It must have been cooked in a spring-form pan, with about a bushel of apple slices to be so densely packed with layer upon layer of fruit, really impressive, and yummy looking.
It was surprising to see so many flowers blooming in planters all over the downtown area. It was so cold and windy, it felt like south Georgia winter to me, so every planter filled with bright blue bachelor buttons, brilliant red dianthus and pure white yarrow was an unexpected surprise. A reason to smile in a country where so much of the landscape is bleak and often barren of any signs of life. Though there were very few mature trees, the ones we saw were about half and half between evergreens, some type of fir, and deciduous ones that were beginning to shed leaves in an early autumn. But the planters full of colorful blooms, in neighborhoods, on street corners, door steps provided a pleasing exclamation point where ever they were sighted.
A really impressive mural on the wall of a large building we passed a couple of times driving. And walked by at a speed more conducive to taking photos. There is certain to be a story attached, but I cannot share the specifics. Only know how impressive the crafting of the long illustrations was when I stopped for a picture. Made of thousands of wee square terrazzo tiles, the full scene was at least a hundred feet long, probably a depiction of the early days of boats on the bay in that area of prolific shipping businesses.
It was a pleasant day with nothing on the agenda other than getting to the airport to catch the Iceland Air flight back to NYC. A five hour trip, plus you loose two hours going through time zones, so we were zombies when we got to JFK, staggering through customs. I am always, always thankful to be a US citizen. And found another reason for that thankfulness when everyone traveling on a US passport was shunted off into a line that was much less shorter than most of our fellow travelers deplaning from Iceland. I expect some of them are still struggling with the process of being allowed to exit the airport.
We had reservations at a hotel in NY, and fell into bed when we arrived, with scrambled brains. Not able to think well enough to figure out what time it really was, though we knew it was too late to care about finding food, just ready to crash.
No comments:
Post a Comment