Wednesday morning we all slept in, me until 10 and my grandparents until almost 12. They had a long day of travelling before so I figured I would wake them up at 12 if they weren’t up by then. After we had breakfast/lunch we drove around Akranes a bit and grandpa showed me a couple of different things and shared many stories.
Our first spot was the beach/coast line where we went to see how the tide was. One of his friends lives down that street and when we drove by his house he thought he saw him in the window so he backed up the truck to see again. Sure enough it was his friend and his friend recognized him and came down to chat. Grandpa must have been excited because to see him because he stopped the car in the middle of the road and was going to park it there until he realized maybe it would be better to get closer to the driveway.
We went down to the docks and grandpa told me stories about a couple different boats and the cement plant near by. There were a couple of kids fishing and grandpa was keen to find out what they were catching so we walked over to them and he started chatting. One of the little boys had just caught a mackerel and his dad cut the head off and through the body in the bucket where they already had about 5. We both are really hoping that we can get our hands on a fishing rod at some point during the trip and catch some fresh fish for dinner!
We drove down to the light houses (old and new) and grandpa told me about how he didn’t really believe in trolls when he was a kid, but when he told this to someone they said “Oh, ok, well then if you don’t believe in them go and pee on that rock over there”. Of course he didn’t go and pee on the rock because what if it was true and they were actually there!
We drove around the town a bit more and he pointed out the house he was born in, his parent’s old homes, the old fishing plants he worked at, where they would play as kids, where the old hotel was and his dads old garage among many other things. We stopped at a grocery store where it seemed like he knew everyone. The first person we chatted with was someone I had met at the farm. I can’t quite remember her name but she had stopped by the farm one day for coffee and I’m pretty sure this was the woman who told Dora (at the bakery) about me. She chatted with grandpa and they tried to figure out who were some common friends they knew. I was following the conversation quite well for the most part! Grandpa then ran into an older couple he knew. The man had been the best footballer in Iceland for years and on the drive home he told me that everyone wanted him to play for their teams, England, France, but he wasn’t interested and wanted to stay in Akranes. We then met the owners of the grocery store and chatted with them for a bit, grandma and I were able to communicate as the man spoke very good English. Grandpa was saying how they are really getting to know me through this trip, how their relationship with me and Anders is very different from with Lauren and Lindsey as they live 10 mins away from them and lived over 2000km from us growing up. To which I joked how I didn’t even know them, that we had actually just met here in Iceland. We all laughed at that and then the man said that I have the same sense of humour as Lilla my great grandmother, grandpa said that’s where he got his sense of humour too.
We stopped by Chris’ (or Diddi in Iceland) workshop to see if the rental car had been dropped off yet. It hadn’t but we got to look around and see the work that he was doing. He make custom cabinets and doors and woodwork like that. Looks like really good stuff if you ask me!
In the evening one of grandpas friends came over so that I could help him learn how to use his new phone that grandpa had brought over for him. He gave me some money for helping, far too much money. I tried to give it back but he wouldn’t have it. After he left we just chatted away. He told me stories of the Cod War and how Adda’s husband Toti had been part of the coast guard at the time. He told me about being on a boat with his uncle and seeing a Greenland shark sitting still in the ocean so they drove the boat over to it and hit to get it moving again. As soon as they hit it it just took off. He told me how he isn’t taking cod liver oil anymore but how in school the teacher would line up the kids and give them a spoon full each morning.
We also talked a bit about his summer on the boat fishing when he was 10/11. At one point when they had caught a bunch of fish and were bringing them in, the fishermen told him that in order to be a real fisherman you had to take a fish from the catch and bite it in half and that you weren’t a real fisherman unless you had done this. So being young and wanting to prove himself he grabbed one of the fish being brought in from the nets and took a bite but he couldn’t quite bite through so he had to rip it apart. Apparently when he did this they all started laughing at him because of course this wasn’t something people did, they were just messing with him. He can’t remember who told him to do this but he was thinking it was quite possible that it was Guðmundur. I think it might have been too 😛