Breakfast in Iceland

Breakfast in Iceland

The hotel served a magnificent breakfast—all you had to do was get up early enough to enjoy it. Fresh waffles with real maple syrup, assorted fruits and yogurt, milk, tea and coffee and fresh fruit juices, whole loaves of crusty bread ready to be sliced and buttered with the excellent and yellow Icelandic butter—these and many things more awaited in the spacious breakfast room.

When I descended for my first morning meal, there was apparently a supermodel convention going on. Tall, Nordic women with straight blond hair sat opposite rugged men who appeared to be descended directly from an undiluted line of Vikings. Moreover, they looked to be professional rugby players. When I entered into that throng, still dragging my sleep-deprived body along in a rather unwilling way, the eyes of those assembled turned as one. The women wore little pill-box hats of lavender, yellow, pink and turquoise, and these all rotated in a dignified, unhurried way to regard this newcomer. An audible gasp arose from the breakfasters, and little bits of toast and spoonsful of yogurt, held in dainty and perfect fingers, stopped in mid-air, suddenly poised as if for an impromptu still-life. Feeling self-conscious, and afraid that the food might suddenly be taken away, I began stuffing handfuls of pineapple chunks into my mouth, squishing the juicy fruits together as best I could. It was at this moment that a man—something of a representative of the morning crowd—arose and came to me.
“Listen up, my good man,” he said in a conciliatory and wary way, “We don’t want any trouble here, do we? Any of us?” He gestured at the sea of pill-box hats, their morsels still suspended midway between their plates and their perfectly-formed lips. They were watching to see what would develop next. Apparently, they’d never seen my kind before.
I stared stupidly at the emissary, unable to speak due to the pineapple chunks I was still working on, with their angular geometry most likely apparent in my bulging cheeks. He pulled out a roll of bills, lots of them, pushed them into my hand.
“Here, why don’t you go into town and buy the kind of food you like,” he said encouragingly. “Get anything you want; there are plenty of shops around, and you’ll be happier out there.” I was having trouble with a particularly stubborn pineapple chunk, that seemed to have become a permanent part of my right cheek, and I looked mutely at the money I now possessed. Then I looked back at the man, who smiled while nodding: “Yes, go ahead—take it. It’s all yours.” I quickly grabbed more of the fruits and some sliced sandwich meats and ran out the door without a word. I saw, as I was exiting the modern and streamlined dining room, several of the pill-box hats collapse and their Viking men come to their aid.