Reykjavik part 1.

A week last Friday we bid farewell to all of the wonderful people who we had worked with at Holar and took the main road south to Reykjavik.  It seemed far longer than four weeks since we first arrived and I was said to be saying goodbye to the quiet, little town in the valley which, that summer, had been my home.  On the road we drove past the same sweeping fjords and bleak expanses of bog that we had a month before.  The landscape which had felt fresh, new and exciting before was soaked in memories and unfulfilled desires.  I knew that my time in this beautiful country was running out and that though we had seen so much there was far more still that we had not seen.  I don't believe it is ever really possible to have "done" a country.
In Reykjavik we stayed in a surprisingly swanky Salvation Army hostel in downtown.  Reykjavik is often described as a modern European capital.  This is true; the city is home to a multitude of special interest groups and one is forever turning the corner to discover an Esperanto book shop or all male leather bar.  However, the city's real charm lies in how small, even cute, it is.  This city of a hundred thousand is a place where the Prime Minister is listed in the phone book.  The streets of Reykjavik were always quiet and at night I slept like a log not five minutes walk from the city's main party street.
Undoubtedly the most famous building in Iceland is the Hallgrimskirkja, a colossal, concrete cathedral at the heart of the city which I visited twice over our weekend.  Monolithic and grey, the Hallgrimskirkja is a defiantly modern construct; a clenched Lutheran fist thrusting upwards, into the sky.  Organ festivals have been held here for the last decade and, on our first visit, Hannah, Zen and I were fortunate enough to overhear a rehearsal.  Discordant, jazzy chords reverberated off the walls complimenting the imposing atmosphere of the church perfectly.  On Saturday Zen and I decided to attend a concert where we listened to Andreas Sieling, of the Berlin Cathedral, perform pieces by Bach and Liszt.  The organ appears a ferociously difficult beast to get to grips with and this man, who turned out beautiful music, was clearly a virtuoso.