Day 8

Today was Iceland's national holiday!  We went to a national holiday ceremony that took place next to the parliament building in downtown Reykjavik, where a statue of Jón Sigurðsson lies.  Jón Sigurðsson was the leader of the Icelandic independence movement in the 1800s.  During the ceremony we heard the prime minister speak and saw the revelation of the new Fjallkona, who represents the female incarnation of Iceland.  There is a new Fjallkona each year and the identity of each one is kept a secret until the ceremony where their new title is announced.  The Fjallkona is typically a popular female actress.  After the ceremony, we joined the native Icelanders in following the marching band as they paraded to the nearby gravesite of Jón Sigurðsson where more speeches were given.
To celebrate the day, there were several bouncy houses and food vendors as well as a concert stage set up in the park around the Reykjavik pond.  We explored this area a little but because it was pouring rain on and off today I decided to go to an indoor soup restaurant for lunch instead of buying food at the park (where there wasn't a great selection besides hot dogs anyways).  After lunch, I got some delicious Rhubarb liquid nitrogen ice cream then walked back to the hostel to relax from the busy week I've had.  It was so nice to have more free time today since we walked a lot yesterday.
Also, a couple days ago I realized that I actually had a sunburn on my face which I didn't think was possible in Iceland.  Thankfully, now I've bought sunscreen so it won't happen again here but my sunburn did get made of by the Canadian ambassador because the other participants pointed out my sunburn to her somehow without my knowledge.

A bunch of fancy old cars that lined up along the bridge over the pond:

Finally, a pretty Reykjavik sunrise (although the sun never completely went down) around 3 am on Saturday morning.