February 13-We have slowly been coming to the conclusion that Bifröst is not as isolated as we thought it would be. While the closest town, Borgarnes, is 20 miles away and only has a population of 800 people, it still has multiple grocery stores, a few restaurants, and other amenities to support the nearby rural communities and the influx of summer tourists. Furthermore, there are restaurants, filling stations, and stores in the countryside that are much closer to Bifröst, which makes it seem even less isolated.
Probably most surprising to us, however, is the relatively close proximity of Reykjavík. Since Reykjavík is Iceland's only city and its capitol, it is the location of most of the amenities you would expect in a much larger city. Having all of those services less than an hour and half drive away makes us feel much less isolated than we are in Gunnison!
This became particularly clear this evening, when the Bifröst faculty and staff headed to Reykjavík for supper and a movie. Since we found out about these plans last week, we bought a second cell phone to leave with the kids so we could be in contact with them if that became necessary. We got them all set with supper and entertainment, picked up Magnús and Signý around 4:45, and were at the restaurant by 6pm. Supper was at the Hamborgarafabrikkan (hamburger factory), which specializes in hamburgers, as you might imagine. Sally and I shared a lambburger and a gooseburger, which came with the warning to beware of buckshot. Interestingly, as we made out way through the burgers, Sally noticed that we were the only ones eating burgers with our hands! Everyone else was using forks and knives. The burgers were a little messy, but certainly not worse than a Big Mac. Just another one of those little cultural differences.
After supper we all headed over to a cinema to watch the movie Contraband, which has a special significance for Icelanders. It was originally filmed in Icelandic about a smuggling operation between Rotterdam and Reykjavík. The director then got the opportunity to shoot it in Hollywood and it morphed into a smuggling operation between Panama and New Orleans. Magnús and Signý told us that the plot was essentially identical between the two films, but the Hollywood hit had a lot more guns, explosions, and wrecked cars. We decided that it was probably due to the different budgets for the two films, and the necessity of guns, explosions, and wrecked cars for a Hollywood film to be a hit. Now Sally and I want to see the original Icelandic movie to see the differences for ourselves.
In many ways, viewing the movie in Iceland differed very little from viewing it in the U.S. The cinema was smaller with only three theaters in it; it reminded us a lot of the Majestic
Theater in Crested Butte, except that beer was not served. Instead of many trailers before the movie, we were bombarded with ten minutes of TV-style advertisements. One of them was even the Snickers commercial with Betty White. I was surprised that American football and Betty White are familiar enough to make this commercial worth dubbing into Icelandic, but the Icelanders got all of the cultural references without a problem. Once the movie started, it was easy to forget that we were in a foreign country, except for the Icelandic subtitles along the bottom. So, it was a bit jarring when the film suddenly paused at the scene when the van is being loaded onto the ship. It turns out that movies still have intermissions in Iceland! So, we all trooped out into the lobby and visited for a few minutes before we went back in for the last part of the film. We left right after the movie ended and got home around 11:30.
So, that is what it means to have a "night on the town" when you live at Bifröst!
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