9 September - Sharks & Schnapps

It's official: I can go live in Iceland. Last night went to small gathering of icelanders and passed the most important test of all ie. the ritual ingesting of local delicacy: fermented shark. No, the smell of ammonia is not due to it being buried under ground for a few months and having been pissed upon by the buriers, but by some other chemical reaction. I was told not to smell it before I put it in my mouth, but you know, you say that and of course you want to do it. I figured it couldn't be worse than the smell of thai fruit the infamous durian. And it wasn't. It helped that the sharck was cubed into tiny pieces that looked like er.. any sushi you care to mention. So one went down and of course some smart arse had to let me know that I hadn't really tried the worst bit as picked a whieish morsel instead of the more potent darker coloured ones. So I picked one of those too. And it was fine. To be hones, the BF who has actuall eaten it before and puffin as well, oh and whale, said it would return in my mouth for the following day but it hasn't. Various checks have also revealed that it doesn't give you bad breath either. Hurrah! Or maybe it was the following schnapps that act as a cleansing agent. Anyway, there you go! Iceland here I come or here I return I should say. However, my 6 morsels are nothing compared to the full on Ms PE who had a dozen and thank god someone snatched the jar away from her. We can't decide if winter or summer would be best and want to do both. Ok, winter now comes first so maybe that's the obvious course of action to follow. After all, I'd love to go to both the Artic and Antartic so am not worried about the cold.