Listen, you know me, friends, neighbors and loyal readers. I am anything but judgmental or critical.
Heck, I recently looked up “open minded” in the dictionary just for grins.
And there was my photo.
That said.
In my travels around this island I have gradually, reluctantly, begun to grow suspicious of all things Icelandic.
I dunno, maybe it’s the hostile looks cast my way when I, in all innocence, ask passers-by “so, where do guys you winter?”
There’s an undercurrent there.
But then, thank goodness, I happened to run across a quote by Halldor Laxness.
He was Iceland’s only Nobel Laureate. Who, if he were still around today, would surely donate his Nobel Prize to The Donald.
And, suddenly, everything fell into place.
Laxness (is that a great name or what?) wrote:
It has been claimed that Icelanders yield little to rational argument…but instead resolve their difficulties by engaging in pedantic hairsplitting and quarreling over trivial nonsense that has nothing to do with the matter at hand – yet become terror-stricken and fall silent whenever the heart of the matter is approached.
Dude! How American is that?
I mean, all along we have been buying into the myth that Vikings settled Iceland. That can’t be right. It had to be a lost tribe from…oh, I dunno…Dallas, or The Villages or maybe Mar a Lago.
I mean, what’s the big deal about Greenland anyway? Why haven’t we annexed (invaded, infiltrated, bought) Iceland by now?
But I digress.
I really wanted to tell you is about our day on the Snaefellness Peninsula.
Made famous because it is the home of the gloomy, ice-capped volcano into which James Mason, Pat Boone and a doomed goose named Gertrude disappeared on their way to, you know, The Center Of The Earth,
Anyway, let’s start with Drivik Beach. Because, why not?
Tourist lore has it that, back in the day, local fishermen would come here and pick up really big stones.
And depending on how big a stone one could heft, one would become either a captain or, you know, a cabin boy or bilge water or such.
To test this theory out, I asked Buddy – universally known as the Hercules of Alachua County – to heft the biggest stone in evidence.
And, as you can see, Buddy did.
Oh, news flash GNV Sun. Buddy has now been appointed Admiral Of The Icelandic Navy.
Heck, Iceland didn’t even have a navy until he picked up that stone.
And then we moved on to the peninsula’s famed Black Church.
So famed because it’s been around since 1848, and because of its black paint.
Listen, I’ve been to two rodeos and a goat roping. But even I noticed that the black church was painted gray.
I was inclined to dismiss all the hype as a tourist come on. Until my bud Rick directed my attention to the small cemetery adjacent.
Where Karl Marx was buried, for reasons that nobody is willing to acknowledge or explain.
Since my own alma mater recently purged the Karl Marx room from UF’s library in slavish obedience to The Great DeSanitizer, I was inclined to cut The Black Church some slack.
Because Karl Marx had to end up somewhere.
And Groucho was already spoken for.
What else?
Oh yeah. We also visited a lesser renown, but very cool church in nearby Hellnar.
With a cemetery where all the headstones faced the ocean.
Helnar has seen better days.
But it keeps clinging onto the edge of this windswept cliff overlooking an angry sea.
You gotta admire that kind of tenacity.
Oh, almost forgot. We also went to a beach where seals frolicked and played. As if they could care less about the rest of life, the universe and everything.
When they weren’t frolicking they were staring at us. As though to ask “You lookin’ at me?
Not wanting to appear rude or nosy, we quickly moved on. Because we saw that De Niro movie and it didn’t end well.
Later.
FreeGNV 