Arrival

I held back tears leaving Reykjavik last Sunday. It was an involuntary reaction that just snuck up on the way to the airport. I haven't been so sorry to leave a place since Disney World at age five, despite my assumption that after the small beds and shared baths of guesthouses, the relentless freezing rain and the miniscule cups of coffee, my stiff legs and arms from the constant walking and packing up, leaving and arriving, then leaving again, that I was ready to come home. Not so. While in one sense this odd world made it seem like I had been gone for months, in another I now couldn't believe it was already ten days ago that I boarded a plane with a frenzy of flying fear shadowing half-waking daydreams of the hot springs and glaciers to come.

The Myvatn area in northern Iceland.

At some point through the flight to Iceland I began to get antsy, wondering how many hours were left. I was slightly sedated and had already been through three episodes of My Name is Earl and two hours of Hugh Grant--needless to say, my capacities were a bit dull, but with what I estimated to be less than two hours to destination, I found myself thinking about geothermal pools, the Golden circle, wherever else our trekking would take us. There was a slight buzz of conversation from a mildly drunk crowd on the plane, but it somehow made the whole flying experience more comfortable, and suddenly I got the feeling of Christmas Eve as I swung my shoe-less feet on the ground and felt oddly cozy in my seat. The pit of my stomach tinged with excitement as I read in Lonely Planet that according to Scandinavian folklore, the Northern Lights were the final resting place for unmarried women.

Lava formations in Northern Iceland.

And still more beauty from the Myvatn area!

We landed and took the Flybus from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik. En route, the mildly drunk crowd from the plane had suddenly become the highly inebriated and loud drunk crowd on the bus. They were American. New Yorkers, and as it turns out, the NYFD coming to Iceland for a bachelor party, so one can imagine the level of, shall I say, unawareness to surroundings? Funny coincidence, but slightly disappointing, first, because the non-Americans on the bus all seemed to be sneering, of course, at the loud Americans, and second, no matter how much I love New York, when going to a foreign place in an effort to absorb a new culture ( and possibly having minorly deluded ideas of the exotic) I did not want to feel like I was riding the N train back to Astoria. It was too dark see much out of the windows, but halfway through the ride we were introduced to Iceland via our sense of smell as the aroma of sulfur seeped into the bus, a smell that would find a home in my lungs and airways for the next ten days. I never knew that not only could I get used to the rich smell of rotten eggs, but I would actually come to like, and eventually miss it.

Sulfur at its finest--The bubbling mudpots and smoking grounds in the North. Temps of the pools reach up to 200 degrees centigrade.


Eventually we made it to the Salvation Army guesthouse (or gistiheimili), one of the last places to have a vacancy for the night, but still smack in the middle of central Reykjavik. It was a small, no frills room with only a wash-bin and two twin beds resting perpendicular to each other, but I liked it. I liked the paper thin curtains of pastel orange, blues and yellows, the flowery designs on them, and the unintentionally meshing impressionist-type painting on the nearly bare walls. I liked the simple wooden crucifix hanging over the bed. I even liked the prayer on the wall, stamped on paper with old black ink. It was the Our Father, in Icelandic. I felt like a "traveler." (Colin, who has traveled half the world already probably just felt "tired.") It was too late to get a sense of Reykjavik, it being Thursday night at 1AM, but we would stay for a few days, and I had heard that there was a festival on Saturday--hence, the lack of vacancies in the city. There was a bell tolling outside. This, I would soon learn, was coming from Halldrimskirkja, the city's largest Cathedral. After staying longer in Reykjavik, I realized with its constant tolling or chiming every ten minutes, it set the pace for the city. I fell into an interrupted sleep, revved up by thoughts of seeing some of the most beautiful landscapes that the world has to offer, and that life is for exploring.