Fiskidagurinn Mikla, The Great Fish Day, is a wonderful festival of fish in Dalvík, a small town in the north. I'd gone the year before with Fabio and Gunni, and was itching to get out of town again.
As usual, we started with a big group, but this time we shed even more party people, ending up with just Rakel and myself in the end. Oh well. :) Less logisitical problems.
The drive up was uneventful, mostly because we were in fog the entire way. From just past Borgarnes, all the way to Dalvík, we were in thick dense fog. Not much traffic on the road thankfully. Arriving in Dalvík, we found even more people camped there than last year, the place was basically overrun with campers and caravans and rvs.
The day itself was lucky with the weather, no rain, and even some sparkles of blue breaking through. This was indeed fortunate, the forecast had been particularly bad. The festival was mostly the same format as last year, lots and lots of great free fish food, though a couple of menu changes. The saltfish waffles were gone, thankfully, being replaced by small saltfish balls, with sweet and sour sauce in the centers. Much more palatable. We hung out and watched the kids fishing off the pier, and generally just ate and relaxed for the day.
In the town hall, they also had a big quilt, with each panel being made and sent to iceland by people around the world. I took a few pictures of some of the panels.
The evening's entertainment was a sing along, both pubs having a sing along. We were a little bit late arriving, and didn't get a song book. The place was absolutely packed, and we expected to just be able to share with someone. This turned out to be much harder than we though. Even though we were mashed up into a back corner, where there were a couple of kids, and some couples obviously not singing along, they refused to let us borrow their song book! (The song books belong to the bar, they're not personal property) We ran into this far more than we expected, which was really strange. Eventually we got one offered to us, and we could join in a bit better. I might not have always understood what I was singing, but I can read fast enough. Lots of fun. One of the rude people from earlier, now that we had a book, was actually helping us now by telling us what the song number was, quite a change.
The band man for the evening was ....... who was quite impressive. While last year there'd been a full band, and this year just ..... and his keyboard, he really knows what's he doing when it comes to running a sing along, and also had quite a flexible voice, I often thought he had company, but it was just another voice of his. One of the highlights here was seeing the Chief Policeman, Geir Jón, singing and leading the crowd in merriment. I thought at first he was standing on a chair, but I later found out that he's actually HUGE. A good 20cm taller than me, and built like a gorilla. Quite a weighty presence, I wouldn't want to go breaking any laws while he was around!
After that it was just the fireworks, out in the rain, and briefly checking out the other bar.
Oh! And I got a lovely new beanie that you will see on me in a few pictures in the future.
