Hi Maria,
I have been a fan of your blog since last January when I was doing some research for my trip to Iceland. Now I visit your blog and am longing to go back.
I've recently been researching the existence (or possibility) of palm trees growing in Iceland. I saw your photo of people enjoying the outside patio at Sirkus and found it odd that there is a mural on the wall of palm trees.
Do you know of any palm trees in Iceland? I'm having trouble finding some images.
Thank you,
Michelle
I was intending to give Michelle some outdated bla bla about how Iceland is the northernmost banana grower in the world (here's an interesting article comparing Iceland's banana days to Iran's running out of gas) but then I remembered that banana plants are more bushes than trees. I was also going to mention the huge plastic palm at Perlan, but then, on my way home today an amazing thing happened.
Right there, at the end of the Great Wall of China Asian restaurant on Vesturgata, stood a small but stately palm! And I can promise you it hadn't been there only twenty minutes before when I'd walked the same sidewalk in the other direction! There was Michelle's Icelandic palm tree, and all I had to do was whip out my Olympus to snap the shot she wanted. Of course this tree is also not real, but it's like Michelle's question conjured one up on the snowy streets of Reykjavik, like magic.
11 comments:
Too funny!
Oh, and I should thank you for telling me it's not real. I would have had this teeny, tiny doubt...despite myself.
LOL
Thanks for explain us the story. I shocked with the image but I cannot stop to laught meanwhile I was reading your story.
Perhaps more shocking than a palm tree in snowy Reykjavik, is the pram left out the front of this restaurant with snow gathering on it!! Where is the baby and the mother? Hopefully inside eating.
Ahh, good observation! Actually, if you look closely you'll see my son Óðinn's well-hatted head framed by the opening of the carriage. I was tempted to try to photoshop it out, something I never do to my pix just because it doesn't fit into the story of the palm and because I didn't fit the whole carriage into the shot, but since you brought up the subject, it's very common for parents to leave their sleeping babes outside stores, restaurants and cafes, in almost all weather! Most have baby monitors nowadays, but just as often a passerby will peek into the store, etc. and let it be known that a baby has woken up. The little ones don't seem to mind at all!
Visitors are often shocked by this because they're concerned about abduction, but this is a small and mostly inhospitable island, so criminals never get very far from urban areas and always, eventually, get caught...
Oh, magic indeed!
My mother used to leave me out in my pram in the snow to get me to go to sleep - at least that's what she always told me.
These days you'd be reported for child cruelty if you tried it.
Now I've seen everything!
If you have a search for "palm iceland" you will see that it is officially accepted with a few palm trees on Iceland! I have only found your plastic tree.
Does anyone know if there is a out door palm?
Lars Frihagen from Norway
Hahaha, Lars! Nice one with the metal trees. there might actually be fake ones in some of the bigger malls here. Then of course there are the few in the Hveragerði hothouse/giftshop Eden: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DSC00781_Face_At_Eden,_Hveragerdi.jpg
Blimey, you really had me there for a moment! Palm trees in Iceland, have you ever heard the like...
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