An Icelandic Flea Market

One of the things I love about vacation is trying something new.

For example, attending a flea marker in Iceland, which is what I did this morning.

It was an indoor market located right by the harbor and as soon as I stepped into the building, the smell of fish overwhelmed all my other senses.  Though the first stalls set up were not ones containing food, it was clear that at some point, there would be seafood.

With this fact in mind, I slowly made my way down the rows of shops, briefly stopping to look at a stand covered in various childrens books.

Eventually, I reached the food section, and that was when the real fun began.

It started out with baked goods, but soon transitioned into tons and tons of fish.

There was cod, salmon, dried fish fillets.  Everywhere you looked, a fish was (or fish parts were) staring at you.

Dried Fish

There were even some samples!

Next up was the meat section.

Among the blood sausages, large amounts of beef, and lamb stakes, I discovered something truly disgusting.

Can you guess what these are?

That's right, horse sausauges!  Isn't that awful?

Needless to say, I didn't stick around those things for a while.

Instead I hurried over to a display of speckled eggs.

Apparently, as the man selling the eggs explained to me, they were from an Icelandic seabird called the kittiwake.

Never having heard of thie bird, the eggs interested me, not only because of their spots, but also because of the unique fact that they probably only come from Iceland.

That's another thing I love about vacation; all the unique things you stumble across, that you could never find at home.