Hello again, Blogonauts!

Happy Iceland Day! June 17 is Iceland's national day, chosen because it commemorates both the establishment of the Icelandic Republic in 1944 and the birthday of Jón Sigurðsson, who headed the Icelandic independence movement in the 19th century.

My plan was to explore Akureyri, a town that, with a population around 18,000, is Iceland's second largest city. (In other words, it has several thousand fewer people than Keene. But being the presumed capital of North Iceland, it receives some automatic perks…not the least of which is an influx of tourists.)

My lodging for last night and tonight is with a French couple who have opened a pair of rooms in their home for travelers. They inhabit a small house sitting just up hill from the shore of the Eyafjörður (Island Fjord), and not far from the town of Dalvik. What I anticipated would be my first chance to interact closely with Icelanders actually allows me to pretend to speak French and discuss cooking and liqueur.

Akureyri is only about a 30-minute drive from their home, and with the help of my guide book, I spent a couple of hours giving myself a walking tour of the town. (By the way, even though it's mid-June, today's high temperature only reached about 43º F.)

Several unpredictably placed plaques in Akureyri give information about the town's notable history, including the "Road to Destruction" (which in the 1920s was the designated name of the footpath from the local college to a dance hall down the hill) and a commemoration of the first man in Iceland to watch television (in the 1930s, from a broadcast beamed from London). You can be certain he's a national hero.

The scope of Iceland's plant life has appeared to be rather limited, so I was pleasingly surprised to learn that Akureyri has a well-regarded botanical garden. The footprint is only several acres, but it is extremely well tended, and contains several fountains, an attractive cafe with excellent soup, and as diverse a collection of flora as you could hope to find at this latitude.

After grabbing lunch at the cafe, in the distance I could hear the sounds of a marching band. Knowing that this was the national holiday, I assumed that there was a parade underway, and so I ran in the direction of the music.

Indeed there was a parade…of sorts. In front of the marchers was a color guard, eight of whom each carried Iceland's flag. Then following the color guard, there was a well-rehearsed marching band, playing, of all things, "Funky Town." (It wasn't the only song they knew, but based on the head-bobbing of the percussionists, it was their favorite.)

Behind the band was a retinue of townspeople, proudly sauntering along with no rhythm in mind, many with their children bundled and their dogs tethered.

As luck would have it, the band's destination was a lawn near the cafe where I had eaten moments before. Many notables stepped up to the mike and proceeded to offer the crowd performances and speeches, all in indecipherable (for me) Icelandic. (The band, however, played "Funky Town" once more.) Inexplicably, in the midst of this there arose a loud clatter from another field about 100 yards away.

A violinist and vocalist had begun performing on that not-too-distant stage, and a crowd was forming around them. In a few moments, in marched a long line of 20-ish-year-old people all wearing business clothes and white military-styled hats. The demi-soldiered gathered in the center of the now-sizable crowd and began to perform a circle dance to the tune of (and I'm not kidding) "The Hokey Pokey."

I was concerned that this represented some politically charged alternative holiday celebration, in which the Hokey-Pokey had achieved the status of a protest anthem. But after asking a seemingly respectable passer-by, I learned that, no…there were actually two celebrations. The rally in the lawn by the cafe was to celebrate Iceland's national holiday. The other group, in particular, those dancing the Hokey-Pokey, were celebrating their graduation from the Akureyri Junior College, which stands next door to the Botanical Garden.

This was good news for protest songs worldwide.

Tomorrow, my itinerary take me for a stop-over in Husavik (known from the recent movie "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), then down to Lake Myvatn, where I will spend 2 nights and explore the territory, including some geothermal phenomena. Things could get steamy!

Blog to you later!