Autumn In Iceland
9/18/03, 8:30 PM EST	We’re back at Logan Airport. This time, the mood is decidedly different. Last time, we were feeling completely on edge; war had just broken out, we were feeling embarrassed, alarmed, and nervous that we were making a bad decision by going to Paris.  We even bought maple leaf pins in Montreal to disguise our country of origin. Today, we’re sitting in the same terminal, a mere six months later, and are staring at five television screens detailing Ted Nugent’s new reality show and the Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck breakup.  Amazing what a few months of media spin can do to one’s outlook.  I wonder if the Iraqi citizens were afforded such a donation of positive attitude. I’ve already called my family to say goodbye.  Wei is about to call his Dad. It’s kind of funny. My parents know when I plan to take a bathroom break during my trip and Wei’s parents don’t even know that he’s taking one…a trip, not a bathroom break. We searched through the newspaper store in our terminal for some trashy magazines.  I usually reserve my Cosmo reading for international flights.  It was so weird, they had multiple racks of mags featuring busty women in oompa-loompa sized bathing suits. Every fourth stack was covered with a piece of strategically placed cardboard.  I was so confused. Make up your minds, gentlemen, either flaunt the magazines and the girls on their covers or cover them all up.  Don’t confuse the poor public by blocking ever fourth magazine, even though they all boast the same photo, and all at eye level. We bought a Maxim brand music mag named Blender. Thom Yorke is being completely snarky on the cover, so I am very excited to read its contents.  I also have a pocketful of McDonald’s cookies, courtesy of Wei.  If my trip keeps up this pace of luck and joy, I am in for a great ride. I am really excited about Iceland. Neither Wei nor I have done all that much research but I don’t think that will matter too much.  We’ll be together, which is paramount, and we’ll be surrounded by dizzying spectacles.  I don’t know how we could go wrong. Oh look at that…the news is reporting that Americans are beginning to doubt that George W. had a justifiable reason to go to war. Imagine. I’m so glad that we don’t have our TV plugged in at home. Everyone is standing around the terminal.  There are plenty of seats, but they are still just standing around. Maybe that’s what Icelandic people do:  stand around and look blonde and well-groomed.  I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone in Iceland is cooler than us.  These people don’t look like Bjork or anything, by any means, but they just seem…cooler.  At least if this airport cohort of Icelandic folk is representative of the population in general.
9/19/03, 10:45 AM EST	The plane trip was uneventful save the fact that we’d been seated next to an Icelandic woman who was returning home after spending the last 1.5 years in Hawaii with her American husband (Ohio native). She was returning to Iceland to complete her Master’s degree in folklore, which is apparently a very big deal with these folks, what with the Vikings and the Norse sagas.  Her name was Gudmunda.  You pronounce the first “d” as a “th”.  She was hysterical.  She spoke intelligently and animatedly for three hours without breathing, with the remarkable fact being that she’d already been traveling for 30 hours straight on no sleep.  She was great fun, we liked her a lot. We learned a lot about Icelandic socialist structure and naming conventions (they have no last names, they simply say “I am (first name) (father’s first name)son/dottir”.  We learned that Tolkien had an Icelandic nanny and this is likely where he got his tendency of naming his characters “Gimli, son of Gloin” and whatnot. We had an easy dropoff via bus to our hotel, and SURPRISE, the room was ready for us at 6:30 AM! We went in and accidentally took a 6-hour nap.  Off to play now, more later!
9/19/03, 12:34 PM EST	Reykjavik is pretty cool.  It’s much different than I expected. Since it’s such a cold, windy climate, I picture the architecture being much like that in Boston.  Kind of robust and smacking of history and storytelling.  I guess I imagined “austere”.  Instead, it seems oddly pre-fabricated and temporary.  There is a lot of corrugate and very little ornamentation.  The more I think about it, the more fitting it becomes.  Why spend time and resources to adorn something in a place where, for 6-months a year, it is too dark to see it. Also, the sheets of metal must be necessary to resist the wind and potential natural disasters.  My parents’ house wouldn’t last 5 minutes in this place. They do have doner kebab.  That was a surprise.  We made a beeline and got some. The demeanor of the people here seems to reflect the weather and culture of this place.  Shielding from the cold, but once you get inside, very warm.  Everyone is blonde, attractive, and of a healthy Body Mass Index.  They have blue eyes, clear skin, and fleshy faces.  Everyone who we have met is fluent in English.  The woman we met on the plane said that this is necessary to do business with the world.  She commented that it is odd to be in the U.S., where it isn’t necessary to learn anything but your own tongue to be viable.  We’re lucky.
9/19/03, 1:35 PM EST	We are sitting in a café right now, watching people, drinking tea, and warming up after our brief bout with a cold drizzle.  Wei is currently using a payphone to reserve a rental car for tomorrow.  We want to do the Golden Circle Tour, and the car rental is a lot more cost effective than two tickets for a tour ($69 vs. $60/person).  It’ll also give us more freedom of movement and liberties with our time. While we were walking around, we realized that being able to cope with this climate and six months of annual darkness must be something that you would have to grow up with to be able to tolerate.  People here view the winter months as opportunities: to cuddle, to learn music, to try their hand at art, to read, to nest, to live their lives by candlelight.  For me, it would simply be an exercise to see how long I could take the darkness until I wanted to jump off of a roof. I just left a store that sold Icelandic woolen hats and sweaters.  You would not believe the patterns and colors. They are so vibrant, which is in pretty stark contrast to the gray business walls and storefronts lining Reykjavik’s streets.  There was also a photography display in a park by the café that we are currently in.  The Icelandic photographer took pictures from a helicopter, capturing an aerial view of life around the world.  The two most noteworthy photos were of a rooftop slaughterhouse in New Delhi, India, and a fabric dying plant in Morocco.  Both were so colorful and active, but in such different ways.
9/20/03, 6:27 AM EST	We just finished breakfast (free, yahoo!) at the Hotel restaurant.  Our friendly Reykjavik car rental agent dropped off our compact car this morning at 9:30.  We are almost ready to head off into what sounds like hurricane winds and rain to explore the Golden Circle. Note: The car guy did not look like he had been to bed yet.  Smiling and smoky, he looked like the clubs had just spit him out. Last night, we walked around town and found the Viking ship sculpture, which strongly resembles a big insect crawling from the North Atlantic onto land.  We meandered to a restaurant named Caruso’s (recommended by Gudmunda) and had a fantastic seafood dinner. The place was very cute, with candles, plants and flowers, and small colorful pottery holding the salt, pepper and sugar.  Then there was this weird ceramic firetruck mixed in with the sculpture and vines, which made us laugh.  I had halibut, Wei had the fish of the day, a totally unidentifiable fish cooked in what looked like…green things.  It was delicious. Following dinner, we went to the VOLCANO SHOW.  This is a 2-hour long movie created and directed by a man who appears to be an amateur geologist and professional volcano chaser.  He remarked that he and his father before him have committed their lives to studying seismic and volcanic activity in Iceland.  The film’s footage was pretty spectacular, if disparate (volcano-related shots were intercut with little pieces about local tourist attractions, Icelandic culture and history, and weird shots of nude swimming caves.  It was pretty funny.  The geology aspects of the show, though, would have made Brent pee his pants. I don’t remember much after that as we seem to have been shot soon after we laid down to sleep.  Now off to see some of the nature here…
9/20/03, later	We have returned from a day of fresh air and awe.  We started off the day with a Scandinavian breakfast. Wei partook of the pickled herring, but I played it safe with Cheerio’s. I guess it all ends up being the same, though, since its final destination is the WC.     It was a long, fog-obscured drive to the first stop of the Golden Circle, Gullfoss, a spectacular series of waterfalls spilling into a canyon.  According to the small museum at the parking lot entrance, the waterfalls were on the land owned by a farmer.  About a century ago, a foreign group tried to purchase the falls in an effort to explore its power for lucrative purposes.  The farmer’s daughter strapped on her walking shoes and trekked to Reykjavik to plead with the government to not allow this to happen. She said that Gullfoss should belong to Iceland and Iceland alone, and that selling it would prompt her to throw herself into the falls.  Eventually, the falls were purchased and donated back to Iceland as a natural reserve. When Wei and I got there, it was pouring rain and so windy that the raindrops felt as if they were cutting your skin.  I laughed hysterically the whole way down. One of the cool things about Iceland is that they don’t rope off the natural attractions.  We were able to climb out onto the rocky ledge of Gullfoss, each gust of wind sending a little thrill into each of us, probably because it could easily send us toppling the way promised by that farmer’s daughter. When we got back into the car, I could literally ring my corduroys out, so I took them off, jammed them under the car heater, and wrapped my buttocks in mom’s travel towel.  The second site was Geysir.  This is literally the geyser after which all other geysers are named.  After earthquakes, it spouts up to 50 M in the air. Thank God an earthquake didn’t happen, so we settled for the more reliable, less dramatic Strokkur, which blows about every 8 minutes.  It was very cool and brought with it this really organic, sulfur smell. It was like the earth was belching in our faces. It was pretty impressive. The next site was Pingvellir. This place was noteworthy for a number of reasons.  (1) It is perhaps the most significant site in Icelandic history and culture.  It is the meeting plains.  In the country’s youth, the settlers from all over the island would make a pilgrimage to the plains once a year to decide upon laws, arrange marriages, settle disputes, perform executions, and establish rules for the entire country.  The land is still used as a festival grounds for national celebrations and events. (2) In this park, you can see (and actually straddle) the rift upon which the continental plates for North American and Eurasia meet.  In some places, it resembles the cliffs of insanity, in other places, it is merely a crack in an otherwise forgettable portion of rock.  Wei and I were in Europe and North American at the same time today. Following Pingvellir, we made our way back to Reykjavik. After another fantastic dinner (Wei: lamb, me: baked cod), we decided to see what all the fuss was about regarding the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is the closest thing that Iceland has to a bona fide tourist attraction. We got there just as it was closing so we didn’t have time for a soak, but the water is something to see. Without aid of spotlight or artificial ingredients, the water glows a milky blue, steam rising into the night sky.  The silica silt and cyanobacteria within the water infuse the place with a ghostly, silky quality that makes you wonder if you’ve accidentally stumbled upon the fountain of youth, or some similar “mythical” place.  Since it was closing upon our arrival, we just got to peer into the cloudy, luminescent waters without having to see people ripple its surface.   We were both somewhat sad that we could not wade in, but so incredibly happy that we witness it under a dark sky.
9/22/03, 1:09 PM EST	It has been a couple of days since last I wrote, but I couldn’t seem to make the time to do so. We are currently sitting on board our flight home, and much has happened.  I guess we can start with yesterday morning. We began with our usual free breakfast. I had Cheerio’s. Whatever possesses Wei to eat pickled fish and sardines for breakfast totally escapes me, but he seemed happy with his selection.  I then hustled us through the morning routine so that we could meet Ishestar, the horsey people, right at 9:00 in the lobby. We arrived promptly at 9:00 and sat there.  9:05, no driver. 9:10, no driver. 9:17, no driver.   Then we heard tentatively spoken words, tinkling with an Icelandic accent that said “Oh, the tour has been cancelled.” Heart sink. As sad as this was to hear, it was even sadder that it was true.  The woman at the desk explained that the winds (allegedly thrust upon Iceland by the hurricane residue that had just left North America) had become so strong and of such a temperature that the daylong trips across the open lave fields had been considered dangerous and had been subsequently cancelled.  We were offered a consolation prize of a morning trail ride on a fairly protected path.  We were sad, but decided to make the most of it. About 40 minutes later, we were signing release forms and hearing the head of the horseback tours explain that many of the day’s tours had been cancelled and that she had actually called our hotel the night prior to let us know that our tour would likely be cancelled and to advise us to make alternative plans if we so desired.  Our hotel failed to pass on this message, an omission that we both feel warrants a somewhat strongly worded letter. But whatever, back to the horses. The Icelandic horse is a fantastic beast. They are woolly, friendly, gentle, frisky, stout little guys with an incredibly smooth 5th gait called the tolt.  This gait glides you from a walk into a trot, a transitional period where the back legs appear like propellers on land.  I loved my horse, he was very wonderful and proud.  Wei had fun too, although after 1.5 hours, he got a nice rugburn on his buttocks.  I can only imagine what it would have looked like after 5 hours on these Hobbit ponies. The scenery while we were on horseback was reminiscent of much of the landscape that one is confronted with when traveling across south central Iceland.  It is like a moss-covered moonscape, bulbous layers of black lava, fissures and steam as far as the eye can see.  There is a noticeable absence of wildlife, trees and houses.  Life in general seems to be consolidated in the crook of Reykjavik’s arm with those venturing outside being constantly reminded that, if something happens, they are alone. I am not all that well-traveled, nor have I camped under extreme circumstances, but Iceland is the first place I have ever been to where I have been completely and utterly humbled.  I trust Wei entirely, and I feel that, if tested, that I too can survive some severe conditions, but I felt in Iceland that if something went wrong, we’d be in trouble.  Perhaps it was the absence of people or the abrupt solitude, the harsh landscapes, but Nature asserts herself in Iceland and I definitely paid attention.  In this country, with its volcanic eruptions, glacial flows, pressing winter blackness, instantaneous blizzards and constant gale force winds, Nature commands and earns respect. I gave it willingly and with downcast eyes. Since we weren’t able to spend the afternoon on ponies, we opted to have the horsey people drive us to the Blue Lagoon again, this time for a soak.  Sure, it was touristy, but as Wei said (after sinking into the steaming milk back) “I’m ok with that.”  We spent two hours submerged in an ethereal geothermal pool, clouds of sulfurous fog spouting from hot pots and obscuring our view of the miles of lava fields around us.  Never before have I felt so much like I was nowhere, but there was nowhere else to be. Wei and I slunk from hot pot to hot pot (which spout water of different temperatures into the lagoon), digging our toes into the silica on the bottom of the bathing area.  This type of thing would never be legal in the US.  The heat and the color of the water come from the fact that this lagoon is runoff from a nearby geo-electric power plant.  Also, there are no filters (we found a lot of hair mixed in with all that silica), no antibacterial soap, no lifevests, no “no running” signs, no velvet ropes or lifeguards.  It’s just people relaxing in what might easily be mistaken for a womb, if one is in the proper state of mind.  This was especially nice when you decided to pop your shoulders out of the water and realized that it was 2 degrees centrigrade with 40-50 MPH constant winds.  Slinking back in and wading hand in hand to the next hot pot as definitely worth the visit. The wind and cold only got harsher when we returned to Reykjavik and got blasted with Arctic temperatures en route to dinner. I must admit that after 45 minutes I got fussy and we ducked into a fish buffet in the town square.  Luckily, it was great and after 3 cups of tea each, we were ready to walk home. Jen’s final thoughts on Iceland 1.    Nature is queen, and in Iceland, one is best advised to obey her. 2.    I respect the Icelandic horses more than I do many people. 3.    Icelandic people are remarkably like Bostonians and we felt right at home. 4.    Fish doesn’t necessarily have to come in stick form and can be quite delicious. 5.    Icelandic hot dogs (pylsar) are about as good as they come, but they should leave the donner kebab to the germans. 6.    Icelandic natural wonders are untethered.  People are allowed free and liberal access.  As Gadmunda said, “if you stick your hand in a hot spring, you’re stupid.”  I wonder if some litigious folks out there, if confronted with an accident, would be confused about who to sue. 7.    Iceland is an exquisitely alive, fragrant, restless, terrifying country with a kind people, a fair and just social climate, and a bristling ecosystem that is nowhere near her “settling down” period. 8.    Iceland boasts 100% literacy, healthcare for all, no homeless, almost non-existent crime, and a sophisticated, tolerant culture.  “The children of parking attendants go to school with the children of the wealthy and both children believe that they can do and be anything.” Hooray socialism! 9.    I’d follow Wei anywhere. Jen’s thoughts on returning home. 1.    Trips are crucial to remove Wei and I from the context of our lives and remind as that “each other” is what we’re living for. 2.    Trips are also crucial because there is no email. 3.    Iceland still has no Krispy Kreme. Wei’s thoughts on Iceland 1.    We saw but a fraction of what there is to see. 2.    When you are forced to be inside for 6-months a year, everybody’s an artist. 3.    The Princess Bride line “do you really want me to send you back where you were? Unemployed in Greenland?!” is much funnier and more meaningful now. 4.    if we were to return, we would come back in the summer and would like to see glaciers, volcanoes, and less well-known hot springs. And maybe take a night and go to those crazy Icelandic clubs.