I am at the Keflavik airport, waiting for my flight to
Paris, and have just received the bad news that the flight is delayed and will
not depart at 16:15 as planned, but at 19:00 instead. That means that I will be
landing in Paris CDG a little after midnight. Pobrecitos Geraldine and Nicolas,
who kindly offered to pick me up at the airport L
Yesterday I forgot to mention that, while munching on a
piece of fish jerky I pulled a bit too hard and broke the crown on one of my
incisors (actually, I broke the tooth post on which the crown rested, but I was
not going to know that until later). Since yesterday was Sunday I had no chance
to do anything about it. Today Monday (June 15, 2015), however, I made it a
point to be at the door of the local dentist by 8:30 am. There was a person
already there for an 8:30 am appointment, but the doctor told me he could see
me at 9 am. I waited and was called at 9:00 sharp. I showed the crown to the
doctor, who immediately tut-tutted, and after a brief examination explained
that the tooth had broken, and that the nerve was now exposed (and yes, I had
noticed the little flesh-colored spot in the center of the tooth). So, he
promptly anesthetized me, did a root canal, inserted a thin post where the root
had been, drilled a hole in the crown for the post, and proceeded to cement the
crown in place. He warned me that this was a temporary fix, and that my own
dentist would have to decide what to do later when I get to Mexico. He also
suggested that I be very careful with that tooth, and use it mostly for smiling
rather than tearing fish jerky. The final tab? $200 for half hour of work,
which I think is extremely reasonable. Health care is the one thing that
doesn’t seem to be wildly expensive in Iceland.
Still with a numb upper lip I walked to the local
attraction: The Settlement Exhibition and the Saga Exhibition. Both are
actually related, because the settlement story is based 25% on archaeological
research and 75% on the medieval saga, or tale, of the arrival of the Nordsmen
to Iceland. It seems that during the middle ages, from about 1100 to 1250 AD,
there was an explosion in the number of written documents describing the events
that had transpired since 870 AD, the genealogies of the different chieftains, the
Norse gods, and the legends of trolls, magicians, and witches that inhabit the
fjords and mountains of Iceland. I must confess that I knew nothing about this
extraordinary literary output, and had to shed a tear at not being able to
bring with me the very fat tome on Icelandic Sagas that was for sale at the
gift shop of the exhibitions.
The Settlement Exhibition went basically through the same
early history I described in Day 2, so I don’t need to repeat it here. The Saga
they chose to tell about was about this kid, who got into all sorts of troubles
when he was young, picking fights and cheating in the market place. Not
surprisingly he grew up to be a trouble maker, and ended killing a man.
According to legend he became a very old man, crabby and distrustful of all,
who at the end packed all his silver in two small coffers, and accompanied by
his two servants went to bury them in the glen. According to the legend he came
back alone, so folks are sure he killed the two servants and buried them with
his treasure. The treasure has never been found, so here is a chance for anyone
to get rich!
To conclude this leg of the blog I want to say something
about the Icelanders, who may have originated as pillaging hordes, but who in the
21st century are as delightful a people as anyone could ask for.
Genetic research has shown that men have a dominant Nordic genetic pool, but
women show a much more varied genetic pool, showing that pillaging of women
folk by the Viking men brought enough variation to make the modern Icelandic
people a pleasant mixture of blond and brunette, tall and short, attractive and
homely. One feature that totally fascinates me is that all of them are
perfectly bilingual. They can switch between Icelandic and English right after
they say good morning, and you never feel like a dumb foreigner. They are very
helpful and service oriented, and as my experience with the dentist show they
can be relied upon in an emergency. I would totally recommend to those coming
from the US to Europe to consider flying with Icelandair, and to take advantage
of their offer of a free stopover for up to 7 days in their beautiful country.
Well, what do you know? They have just announced that
because the Paris flight is delayed we can go and pick up a voucher for some
food. I think I will try their lobster pizza ($25) and a beer ($8).
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