Orn's Travel Blog

Here is the second post from my friend Deepak from our trip around Iceland.  All opinions are his and not mine :)  The title of the post comes from the fact that when in Switzerland I advertized Húsavík – my home town – a lot as the best place on earth.  Natasha, my friend from Lodano in Switzerland, wanted at one point to stress how great her home town was and said it was the Húsavík of Switzerland.

We arrived in Húsavík to sunrays welcoming its long lost son home. Sadly, the sun paid a visit for only a brief moment, as the rain clouds finally overpowered it. We drove around the town for a bit and saw the places Örn had lived as well as the famous slaughterhouse where he worked and his local “ski lift”. After getting a nice tour of the town, we met up with Hrefna, the daughter of the owner of the guesthouse we were staying at. Given Örn’s popularity in Húsavík, it was of little surprise that a phone call was all it took for the owner of the guesthouse to open just for us (it could also have had something to do with them being former neighbors but we’ll never know). We were given our choice of rooms and Judith and I selected a room on top floor. Though the place was completely empty it would be that was just for one night as the Murderers and (…I forgot the name of the other band) would be taking over the next night.

Since it wasn’t pristine weather to walk, we drove to the world famous Icelandic Phallological Museum, aka, the Penis Museum (http://www.phallus.is/). Housed within the museum are the penises from all sorts of species (they even have Santa Clause’s penis!), the lone exception being human species (though three men have promised their penises to the museum after they die). The museum was very interesting, but we didn’t linger there too long.

After the penis museum, the girls and guys split up. The ladies went to a café for a warm drink while Örn and I went to the public swimming pool. Iceland is full of these public pools with naturally heated water, which are open year round. It is very relaxing to sit in the warm water while being misted by cool Icelandic rain. There weren’t too many people there at that time but Örn was still recognized by a local. The man had been following Örn’s blog posts and was excited to meet him in person. After signing a few autographs, we met up with the ladies for dinner and headed back to the guesthouse.

The guesthouse was nice and comfortable though being only 4 people in a huge house spooked Judith a bit. The howling wind and Örn and I telling ghost stories didn’t make things better but we made it through the night without incident. The next morning we checked out the whale watching tours but, unfortunately for us, the boats were not going out due to choppy seas. Our time in Húsavík was running out but not before we had a sugary breakfast at the local bakery.

From Húsavík, we set course for Egilsstaðir where Örn’s mother lives but that is a story for another post.