Iceland - cold,beautiful, strong, nordic and alone. An isolated civilization of pure bloods who claim they're not quite European. We get off the plane and it's a typical scandinavian airport - modern-sleek,clean, efficient, child-friendly and with the cheapest booze in their country (most of which still costs 3 times what it would in the UK). Judging from the duty free and the sunshine deprivation in winter, I'd geuss there are a few of the social problems,which we see occuring in their genetic brethren in Denmark and Norway. Although, if I were to compare the Icelandics I met to any Scandinavian culture, I would say they were most like the Swedish. Polite with that rather rigid formality I personally find very attractive. They are friendly but outspoken and direct. Everyone knows what is right from wrong and no one shies away from direct eye contact. This directness almost led to a breakdown in a British friend, who went to live with family up there and find his roots (obviously he has rooted in the UK since..). However, being American with a touch of sisu, I find myself at home with them and I feel an incredible calling from the nature.
Our first day, we rent a car and drive the 'Golden Circle' (a must for all tourists). We see the slash in the earth where the North American and Eurasian fault lines have colided and the swirly lava immediately hardened as it hit the ice winds torrenting over the volcano. The wind is so strong I can barely see without glasses and our baby who can barely walk in her oversized ski suit braces me against a gust that could easily have carried other children into the nearby waterfalls. It is here that Iceland's two most important poets are buried, the cemetary is set up for the most influential Icelandics and I'm impressed to see they've kept it empty instead of filling it with not-so-noteworthies just to fill the space. I imagine Bjork will be buried here.
The second part of the Golden Circle is a visit to Geyser - literally the original after which all others were named. On a part of the earth which looks like the moon there are quite a few of these geysers like heating cauldrons in the earth ready to dramatically shoot up violently, streaming sulphuric bursts, which are carried through the clean gusty air. We attempt to go as a family but the wind is too strong and we have to wait and take turns with the camera because even though the baby is clamped into the stroller, the wind is whipping the entire mechanism around like a paper ball, with an eary similarity to a special effect from a horror movie.
Finally we (literally wind on our heels) hop in the car and then drive and drive and drive. Iceland is one of those funny places -I suppose like Idaho. The Germans call it 'schoen-langweilig' (beautiful boring) for those long spread out spaces, which are lovely to the eye but uneventful and even monotonous. Along our way, one suddenly sees tiny settlements of three and four houses at a time. What Icelanders call 'towns', we might use the word 'po-dunk'. I'm not even sure some of them would be allowed to be called farmsteads in the US, where everything is so much bigger. It is really like going back in time and I'm so happy to know there is somewhere still that is what we Europeans were. Everyone is white, everyone is christian (or questioning), everyone knows their neighbor, everyone helps their neighbor. I'm sure there is all the bickering, agony and ennui that comes with life in such a small and secluded area and I'm sure I couldn't live like this..but I'm so happy there are still people in the world who can,do and choose to.
After about an hour, we arrive at the Great Waterfall and it is intense. I think it must be like Ushuwaya or Victoria falls. All I can compare it to is the Rhein Falls and there's no comparison. It's monumental and alive. People here believe that nature is very much alive. There are people,who still believe in gnomes and nymphs and elves and giants and I see why. If I lived here, so would I. I had a kind of religious experience with the falls during my climbing and if you are a person who believes in spirits or presences, there are very many good ones here but I do think they're mostly christian spirits;). It is a Healing and positive and purely spiritual experience. Thank you for seeing me. I am so happy to have come to you.
We go home exhausted and wind-whipped. Iceland is notoriously the most expensive country in Europe and we have made a pact to make a game of doing it as cheap as we can (after all, we're going to NY shopping next:). The cheap'n' cheerful place recomended by the guidebook is Nahn Thai and it is by far THE WORST Thai or ethnic food I have ever eaten before 3 a.m.! I am convinced that my Pad Thai has been made by covering noodles in ketchup and mayonaise but since it's a local hang-out I can't help but thinking these people have inherited that Scandi-palate that will eat anything covered in Mayonaise (anyone who's been to Sweden, knows what I'm talking about and my mother is a classic example of this - I swear the woman'd eat a rat if you dipped him in enough mayo!).
Well, what did you expect --it's sort of nice to think they still don't have decent Thai because they are actually very isolated and on the other end of the world from Thailand. That just doesn't happen anymore! Anywhere in 5 out of 7 continents you can always find a decent Curry, Chinese or Pizza! This is the last junction!
Sunday morning, we wake up to find 300 rural Pennsylvanians in our lobby. So much for discovering new territory. They're not only visiting Iceland but on their way to an island in Greenland called 'melting island' because no one knew it was an island until the last few years when the global warming had melted down the area surrounding it! Only eight people have been there but that's obviously about to change. My first reaction is that I too want to go and then, I think but how awful I don't want it to become stomped on and polluted like everywhere else we humans have mowed over. This is a tormenting dychotomy that lies with me the rest of the trip, esp. on our first stop at the waterfalls and glacier at Skogar.
At skogar we park the car trying to use the park's 'facilities'as a wind barrier - not to much avail) and then walk up to see these lovely waterfalls. I go and fill the baby's bottle with the fresh water from the spring and take a volcanic rock to have a piece of this moment...and then, feeling guilty. 'What happens if everybody takes a rock' throw it back and hope everybody else will too...
From the waterfalls, past the glacier and into the abandoned town-cum-museum, Skogar takes about another hour. Arriving in the museum, I am a little 'weirded' out by the things the locals seem to find valuable. It's almost depressing - lots of worn-out old silver plate, bitty bits of junk jewelry, and then the next room is full of the things they've found in the ground, which sounds like it'd be worse than something locals would donate but it is the opposite. The room is full of whale bones which the ancestors used for all sorts of clever purposes - vertebrae as stools, rib cages as cow-shed separators, shaved into sharp and blunt instruments and even bowls. There is a ship and a large assortment of containers...primarily for alcohol. There is also a photo of a group of people, who were lost at sea in a shipwreck and one sees how nice it is. A culture where people are dependant on each other, where they KNOW each other, REALLY know, and they remember. Not like our Amerika or UK, full of old monuments with names only historians and amateur geneologists take the time to read.
After a more surreal walk through the recreation of a 50s era Icelandic living room and what would appear to be a Victorian family's private collection of stuffed animals and insects (including a two-headed goat), we decide to see the other buildings outside the main 'museum'. There are some charming trogledite houses one might imagine sorcerers or gnomes living in or perhaps a gypsy character from an Opera or a hermit friend of Asterix'. Then there is a small but clean and well preserved church and then there are a few old farm houses.
The farm houses are as long as my apartment in London but house 4-6 adults! One of them is literally a two-room house and the beds are of beautiful carved wood head-to-toe-to-head-to-toe lining the rooms. There are beautifully preserved books and bibles and a well-used kitchen. It appears as though it was a very hard but a very honest life. Truly mixed feelings strike me. Sometimes, living the jaded big-city life with pleading commercials and flashy newsclips I forget that I can have an emotional reaction to something! There is something about thinking of how this isolated life with torturous winters, not much food and self-reliance for entertainment fills me with terror (but that's probably from too many Sundays living in Zurich)! At the same time, I am full of respect for what appear to be hard-working,decent God fearing people, who lived here. My husband's grandmother is from the Orkney Islands and we think to ourselves this is very similar to how their farm was at the turn of 1900.
Lastly, we go into the Gallery to ask a few questions - I'm intrigued -are the nobility of Iceland Danish or really Icelandic? Is this more of a colony,where people were sent after the Vikings hacked down all of the forests that once covered this bare land? Why would someone stay here? Come here? Where do most of their visitors come from and I am surprised to hear that a good sum are indeed Americans, who's ancestors came with the other Scandinavians to start farms in the mid-west on the promise of free land and (and I'm quoting) the much easier winters (which if you've been to Minnesota or Wisconsin might put things in perspective)! I might also ad that the curator notified me all the homesteads were lived in until 1970! yes, 1970 not 1870!
Well, enough on our Skogar day. Monday we went into Reykjavik (travel tip: we rented the car for sunday as well- because a lot of European towns are closed on sunday and Reykjavik is def. one of them). The old town is charming and I have not only the BEST pizza of my life there but that evening we discover that all of us (including baby) LOVE eating whale! It's absolutely delicious!!! Literally Steak of the Sea!
Wandering around Reykjavik doesn't take long and I never do see the lead singer of Blur (who's SUPPOSEDLY moved there). The old town is very charming but only a few blocks long and most of it is ...well, sadly depressing. Lots of shale covered houses and buildings like you might find in Northern Ireland or other depressed areas. It's a lot like Orkney with the weird shale houses, the weird lack of trees, etc.
I try to visit the National Library, which has been bragged about to me by every Icelander I've ever known. Then we hit the Historical museums--all of which are worth seeing.
As our last day, we did the mandatory 'Blue Lagoon', which is an incredibly beautiful somewhat natural springs spa complete with grotto also there are both normal saunas, hot springs and hot springs saunas -just in case, you wanted to fully inhale that sulphuric smell on a seriously hot scale -that one was a quick walk in and walk out for me.
Lastly, we went all the way out to the 'VIKING VILLAGE'. Being an American, I can't help but think it's going to be an amusing kitchig icelandic disney world ' ye olde viking lande',etc. but we are sadly let down that it is just a restaurant. However, they do serve all the weird and wonderful dishes and drinks the Vikings had, so if you're ever in Reykjavik, be sure to go and say, I sent you 'Taak Bless'.
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