Þorrablót and Reykjavik miscellanea

I was in Iceland for the Þorrablót, a pagan feast for Thor, which means I--as a Nordic mythology enthusiast--felt the need to participate despite the feast's contents. As with many traditional foods from formerly poor nations, these foods were winter feasts because they were the only thing left to eat and had been cured to last longer than they really should. I  was (luckily, really) unable to locate a restaurant that gave the full feast with kæstur hákarl--putrid shark's flesh left underground for months until it has decayed enough that it isn't too tough for humans to digest, only too tough to stomach--súrsaðir hrútspungar, the testicles of rams pressed in blocks, boiled and cured in lactic acid--and other (shudder) delicacies. However, I did eat Svið: singed and boiled sheep heads. Or, in my case, half a sheep's head:

It tasted about as good as it looks. The boiled skin was rubbery and definitely not edible. Most of the meat (and there's more than you'd think) was in the cheeks and gums, and was gamy even for mutton. I was able to eat it all by mixing it in with the mashed potatoes, though I nearly made myself sick even so. My compulsion against wasting food is a curse at times.

As long as we're on the subject of bad taste, here's a visual joke recreated from the cult film Reykjavik 101:

Kink Christian IX is the man presenting the constitution, and Hannes Hafstein is the one who, from this perspective albeit not historically, is receiving it.

To end on a better note than Hafstein's end, here's the Suncraft, a lovely statue by Jón Gunnar Árnason.