sunday at the pool
Laugardalslaug was back in full effect when I went there on Sunday. New coats of paint on everything and the floors in the vast mens' shower-and-talk-naked-to-the-custodian area had been redone. Unfortunately, they hadn't done anything special to guide tourists to a separate holding pen where they could jabber English/French and complain about things not being like they are at home as loudly as they wanted. And no new hot tubs, either.
I did have a lovely and fully Icelandic-enabled conversation with an older woman in one of the pre-existing hot tubs. Like many retirees in the neighborhood, she walks over to the pool every day. I didn't recognize her because it turns out she is usually in the morning crowd and me in the after-work crowd. (I see a lot of the same old dudes after work every day.) She told me all about her family, and told me her husband has a summer house in Borgarnes (north of here) where she doesn't really like to spend time because she is a "Reykjavík lady" at heart. I said "já já" a lot and listened to her stories. She was a real sweetheart, and the more I talked to her, the more I could see the beautiful young woman hidden under the 79-year-old exterior. After 40 minutes in the hot tub my brain was melting, and I finally told her I had to get out and cool down. So we stood there talking for another 10 minutes in the 50 degree rain, until my non-Viking body could stand the swimsuited cold no longer. I hope I see her again, it would be really nice to have an Icelandic grandma to hang out with at the pool.
I did have a lovely and fully Icelandic-enabled conversation with an older woman in one of the pre-existing hot tubs. Like many retirees in the neighborhood, she walks over to the pool every day. I didn't recognize her because it turns out she is usually in the morning crowd and me in the after-work crowd. (I see a lot of the same old dudes after work every day.) She told me all about her family, and told me her husband has a summer house in Borgarnes (north of here) where she doesn't really like to spend time because she is a "Reykjavík lady" at heart. I said "já já" a lot and listened to her stories. She was a real sweetheart, and the more I talked to her, the more I could see the beautiful young woman hidden under the 79-year-old exterior. After 40 minutes in the hot tub my brain was melting, and I finally told her I had to get out and cool down. So we stood there talking for another 10 minutes in the 50 degree rain, until my non-Viking body could stand the swimsuited cold no longer. I hope I see her again, it would be really nice to have an Icelandic grandma to hang out with at the pool.
posted by JB at 16.8.05
1 Comments:
I've been in the hottest one only once, myself. It's brutal. You have to sit very still. Even the slightest bodily motion sends a Seljalandsfoss of boiling water cascading across you.
That pool could definitely use more than a week's-long makeover. According to my new Icelandic grandma friend they want to take down the (insanely ugly) bleacher seats and replace them with a hotel. As long as they make the TouristTub addition, I'm okay with that.
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