According to D.C. Wire, the Post’s new blog on local politics, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and his wife set off yesterday for a four-day vacation to…Iceland. Huh? After the bruising battle he waged to get the D.C. Council to endorse the long-awaited stadium lease, wouldn’t he want to escape to a Caribbean island and drink fruit-themed cocktails all day? It seems not:

Food. Iceland. End of Feburary. Plug it all into Google and you get the Reykjavik Food and Fun Festival, Feb. 22 to 25, in which “world-acclaimed chefs” compete to make wonderful dishes out of native Icelandic ingredients. Of the 12 competitors, four are Washingtonians, including chefs from 1789, Charlie Palmer Steak house, Cafe Saint-Ex and Kaz Sushi Bistro. As for the mayor and his wife, they’ll likely have more to do than just cheer on the hometown chefs. The food festival coincides with the Reykjavik Winter Lights Festival, Feb. 23 to 26, an annual celebration of the growing light after a long dark winter.

Since Williams is travelling to savor the local cuisine, what should he expect to eat? According to Wikipedia, some of Iceland’s culinary specialties in the winter months include sour ram’s testicles, rotten shark, burned sheep heads, sheep’s head jam, blood pudding, and dried fish.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm…rotten shark.