Iceland
The Chicks Downtown
If you have ever had the opportunity to visit Iceland’s capital city, you will know firsthand just how friendly all the locals are. There is always a stranger willing to share with you their favourite part of the country that you MUST visit, always a person next to you at the bar offering to buy you a drink and hear your life story, always a local willing to steal the sandwich you are eating straight out of you hands… Wait, the feathery gang downtown do count as locals, right?
The cities magnificent Tjörnin lake is where you will meet this bold crowd. Tjörnin is often referred to as ‘stærsta brauðsúpa í heimi’ – ‘The biggest bread soup in the world’, it’s easy to see why. With around 50 species of water birds calling the lake home it is a hub of bird-feeding locals and tourists, all fraternising with the infamous chicks downtown.
But these birds have been spoilt. They fully believe that if you are wandering past their territory bearing any form of gluten – whether it be your lunch or not – it is now on their territory and rightfully theirs. So consider yourself warned.
Being gluten intolerant you won’t find me eating a sandwich as I admire the lake and it’s overconfident inhabitants – but you will find me giving in to their typical Icelandic friendliness and maybe even feeding them some cookies on a good day…
