I would be an ass to suppose that I could sum-up Iceland in the first line of a blog post. I know, because I just tried for the last fifteen minutes, and each attempt made me mutter: that makes me sound like an ass. Even if I had stayed for a very long time, I could not do such a thing, I'm sure. Having stopped over for a one-day trip a few years ago, and a two-day trip this time around, I surely cannot do such a thing. I can say this: I am struck by two ideas: First, it is a country that seems to have a very clean genealogical line. Perhaps this clean sweep down through the generations can be seen reflected in the buildings -- the old dwellings were about function, and yet still had a form that was aesthetically striking. A thousand-plus years later, the same can still be said. Second, it is a land of diverse natural beauties.
But before I jump into any more sophomoric/surface statements about an entire country, we should go back to the beginning...
While I can't complain about the actual flight (i.e. mechanics of the plane, turbulence, etc. -- all fine -- we didn't crash for goodness sake, and that's all it really comes down to), I will say that sleep did not come easy for anybody, and it didn't come at all for me. I've never been so unable to get comfortable in my life. We took off at 8:40pm New York-time, and landed around 6am Iceland-time. And we hit the ground running...
All around Iceland people stack rocks. Cairns. Some people posit that it is a sacred art, others say it is a tradition to wish people well -- something started by the Viking culture of coming and going. When driving from the international airport towards Reykjavik there are some that, at first glance, look like people standing on the hill (for those of us sleep-deprived they were winking and waving). With 300,000 people in the entire country (2/3 of which live in or around Reykjavik), perhaps it doesn't hurt to pile up a few extra citizens. The effect that they had on me was to immediately bring a feeling of place where people so identify with their land and culture that ancestors would naturally want to hang around... stand on the hill and watch how things unfold.
We stopped for some cash -- which is quite pretty.
And some pastries and Skyr -- the famous Icelandic yogurt -- we got the drinkable kind because we had an agenda... Like marathon runners we just threw the yogurt in our faces as we ran past. (You think I'm kidding, but wait until you finish reading this post... in about two hours...).
Our first stop was a waterfall (a "foss") called Seljalandfoss. You can actually walk on a trail all the way behind it, and there's a legend that there's a treasure back there. We are thin-skinned and weak, and I didn't pack enough extra shoes in anticipation of all the mud that was piled up behind there, so we walked up the stairs until our already shivering selves got rather wet, and then came back down to the sun. The Dad did walk the entire loop. He didn't find the treasure.
And then we stopped at another: Skogafoss. No option to walk behind this one. Which is nice to not have to decide whether you're the awesome adventurous type or the ever-impressive I'll-stand-here-and-enjoy-it type.
We then had a rendezvous with The Boy's future -- his Icelandic 80+-year old self. There is an amazing museum called the Skogar Folk Museum that was established in the 40's. The man who started it all happened to be there and he was very happy to walk around with us and show us some of the pieces (The Girl sniffed in great dissatisfaction when he showed us an old-fashioned, and rather gruesome spirt-of-the-French-revolution-like mouse trap). He said that he started collecting items when he was 15-years old (The Boy leaned over to me and whispered, "I'm way ahead of that..."). According to some of the literature, it sounds like at some point, when the idea for the museum was coming about there was a "drive" for items that showed the history of Iceland, and boy, oh boy, are there some amazing things...
Fishing boat -- of the variety that was launched into the waves and then beached.
Shoes made out of fish skin. There were also "ice skates" that were pieces of bone that would be attached to the bottom of boots.
Viking axe blades.
Wrestling champion pictures.
Taxidermy of a lamb with two faces... And it goes on, and on. It is a building full of goodness. I could have spent a lot of time there, and sincerely wished that I wasn't in a floating haze of fatigue.
Outside there are buildings that also show Icelandic culture. There is a school that had a series of pictures on the wall that I knew must have some sort of moralistic message. Upon inspection I saw that I was correct, and so called the children over for a lesson (they are in school, after all).
In the first picture he was a sweet boy, but by this second one, he was looking bored, smug, and stand-offish during the scripture-reading...
In the third one he is enjoying the drink, and by this fourth one we see him stumbling home to his wife and children, unable to even make it through the door without losing his balance. The mom is distraught, the poor children can only look at the ground, too ashamed to look at their pathetic drunkard of a father.
See what happens? Now, that's a school lesson.
In addition to the school there are also turf-roofed hobbit houses that can be walked through.
As well as relocated/refurbished examples of other homes, like the first wooden house (there is not a whole lot of timber on the island, so the wood used was from driftwood... which was a much-desired luxury).
There were even tiny little houses built into the land. When we asked our friend who started it all what the houses were for, he said that they were for children, and the bones were used as toys. I said under my breath to The Sister, "Kids, the cow has died -- Christmas has come early." The Girl overhead me and got super pissed.
As a special treat, our museum-collector of many talents took us to the chapel (it is a compilation from many old churches -- the piece of altar art is from the 1700's, etc.) and he played a hymn on the old organ. It was impressive.
Aside from the incredible overview of Icelandic history that the museum provides, it also provided us something more personal: it showed The Boy that his dream (that he speaks of daily) to someday open a museum full of art, history, and oddities is absolutely possible.
When I told The Dad that the little huts with the turf roofs are hobbit homes he said that Tokien, and Lewis were intrigued by Iceland, and would discuss the sagas. That William Morris felt a great compulsion to visit Iceland. Great people have been impressed and influenced by this land. I always wonder as we expose the children to things whether or not it's extravagant. I wonder what it is they can be getting and if it is bigger than other good things that we could be doing with the resources. On the flight over I watched the episode of Arrested Development when George Sr. has his spiritual moment while in solitary confinement, and comes out with a part of his shoe on his head as a makeshift yamulke -- to remind him that there is something greater above him. Driving along that idea came to me -- as ridiculous as it sounds to be getting confirmation via Arrested Development. I thought, if nothing else, hopefully seeing such incredible things will cement an innate understanding that there is something greater above them. And I think that can inspire them to be greater than they would have been otherwise.
On to Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon. For this we drove out five hours from our starting point. We were to take a boat ride through the chunks of aqua-colored ice. It started pouring rain on the way there, and we wondered if that would alter anything. When we got there, and went into the little structure where they sell hot cocoa and waffles (we, of course, partook) we found out that the captain had to cancel all boat rides, not because of the rain, but because the ice was too packed. As we sat there at our table, eating our waffles in exhausted silence, an older lady from the tour group that was packed in there with us came up to our table. She chatted with us for a while and told us that they had come from Norway, and this boat trip was one of the highlights of the tour, so they were pretty disappointed. She asked the children if they were disappointed, and when they said that they were (I think more because she suggested it, than because they were really that upset) she told them that they were young and would have plenty of opportunities to come back and try for it again. As she put her scarf on she said, "I can't say the same for myself." And then wished us well and went off toward her bus with the other bummed out elderly Norwegians.
We did enjoy walking around down by the water. We saw some eiders, and a seal who poked his head out a few times. We talked about how the landscape reminded us of Chasing Ice. The Boy created a cairn.
We then backtracked for about three hours, stopping briefly at Vatnajokulspjodgardur National Park.
And trying Icelandic candy bars. We are totally into stopping by grocery stores/convenience stores and trying local packaged/processed foods. The green one is a chocolate bar with m&m-like candies inside, the yellow is a chocolate bar with a strip of black licorice piggy-backing, and the blue is like a Krackle, but with a sweeter, more fruity chocolate.
After dinner we stopped by Dyrholaey to see the black sand and rock formations.
And then arrived back to where we needed to be: Skalakot farm.
Our destinies were entwined with some Icelandic ponies. The Girl's was the white one, and her name was Honey.
After riding -- and seeing the sheep (apparently every sheep has twins) there were hundreds, and each one sweet and silly and worthy of all the adoration that The Girl's heart created for them -- we went to our little cabin that we rented there on the farm, and made our beds and finally crashed somewhere around 11pm. It was still light outside.
Day 2
After slowing to let The Girl take a million pictures of the lambs, we stopped at a grocery store for some breakfast items, snacks, and a comic book. Hint: don't get those chocolate banana candies.
On to Gulfoss. Waterfalls that rival those in Niagra. A nice little walk. The Boy wore the hat that he knit, and it was all stretched out because of the rain, so we decided that he looked like Professor Quirrell when Voldemort as a crazed naked snake-creature is living in his wonky turban. The Boy didn't love that and made the request that if we had to call him anything because of the largeness of the hat, that he would prefer it be Bob Ross.
We were making our stops along the Gold Circle, and our next one was Geysir. We waited for one of the eruptions, and did see it, but it went so fast that it was finished by the time any of our cameras engaged.
Across from the steaming pools was this enormous elf. There is a quote that plays on the Iceland Air TV screens that essentially says that while 30% of Icelanders have a college degree, about 50% believe in elves. An interesting statistical pairing -- one that kind of bugs me. Seems snotty for some reason. The last time we were here we were taking a taxi and while The Dad was chatting with the driver about music, etc. I decided to ask him about this statistic.
"I read that a large part of the population believe in elves."
"Yes, they live in the rocks."
"Okay, then."
"My grandmother heard them. She never lied."
"Okay, then."
In my estimation, if having a college degree trumps what your grandma told you... well then, you might as well become a smug arse who wears Buddy Holly glasses, skinny jeans, plaid shirts, and comes up with PR stuff for airlines.
I mentioned how there seems to be a clean line from the first Icelandic settlers to current Icelanders. The first came from Norway -- a settlement happened in the 800's. Some came from Britain as well. And there doesn't seem to be that much coming or going since.
Our next stop was PIngvellir. Home of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (getting wider every year), and the first parliament (some say the first in the world, others say one of the first). It felt pretty amazing to stand there and consider what history had happened in that very spot. Not just the chieftains coming and negotiating law (and sometimes drowning those that were found guilty in the pool not too far down below), but having been to the museum the day before and reflecting on those houses, and that school, and that church and thinking: my goodness, these people were staring at the same few faces all the time. To consider that once a year there would be an event around Midsummer's even when just about everybody from the four corners of the country would gather together... well that must have been quite a party. My guess is that there were an awful lot of teenage girls who waited all year to go to where we were walking today.
Because this area is so important to the people of Iceland, and their sense of fair government, it's here where they had the ceremony when Iceland finally broke from Denmark in 1944.
A woman I know who is brilliant once said that a book that most influenced her was Independent People by Halldor Laxness. I came home from talking to her very excited to read it, but never did... But The Dad did, and loved it, and went on to read other books written by Laxness. So we stopped by his house, and while The Sister waited in the car with the spawn, The Dad and I ran in and did the 25-minute audio tour. The house is incredible for its ability to combine elegance with awesome. Pretty much every wall upstairs is lined with books. There was a part of the audio tour that I loved, it said that stepping in to Laxness's study you can smell the books -- a singular smell that incites curiosity. That, my friends, is why we cannot let e-readers completely take over. Let them have their place (i.e. keeping college students from becoming stooped 45-degrees), but by all means, if we want our kids to be readers -- the kind that want to absorb books -- we should not rob them of the subtle power of the sensory experience.
It was time to start drawing in our circle, so we headed to Reykjavik. The first thing we did was go through the Einar Jonsson Museum. All things Einar Jonsson were cool, but there was an overlay exhibit going on with more avant-garde pieces (i.e. a woman in tights underneath a huge piece of shimmering spandex, and as we walked by she would raise and lower her arms) that were a bit... distracting. The thing that is so interesting about the museum was that Jonsson donated his collection to Iceland, with the stipulation that a museum be built. After a few years it was agreed, and so the first art museum in Iceland was opened -- complete with a penthouse apartment upstairs where Jonsson and his wife lived. I told The Girl to get cracking with her pottery -- it could get her a penthouse someday if she plays her cards right.
We then found a cute place for dinner. We walked up some narrow steps to get to it, ordered some paninis and sat amongst some endearing kitsch. Not the least of which, was an enormous poster of home.
Home. We've all commented on how home seems so long ago. Like our apartment has almost vanished from our history.
Before turning in to our hotel here next to the airport we of course had one last stop: The Blue Lagoon.
We enjoyed our blue slushies (the plastic cups had "KRAP" written across the front -- which of course highly amused the kids), we put mud on our faces (The Boy got over-zealous and we almost had an emergency eye-flush added to the agenda), we froze (it was mighty cold and windy on the parts exposed), we liked paddling through the steam rolling on top of the aqua water as we searched for "hot pockets," and four out of the five of us made a point to not be seen naked in the locker rooms. It was really fun.
After trying the last of our Icelandic candy bars, we turned in for the night. Well, four out of the five of us did... I've been writing this post. I know that the rest of the trip is going to be just as fast-paced, so I want to slap down what I can when I can. Even if it means that I'm only going to get about two hours of sleep tonight, I wanted to be sure to try to capture this: Iceland is magical. I did not hear elves speaking, but I did have a surreal experience of slipping in and out of sleep as we drove those five hours out to the glacier lake. I have a filtered slideshow -- light-infused snapshots of what I saw out of my window:
Volcanoes, and the aftermath; the ocean, and the snakes of water leading to it; lakes; waterfalls; farmland. Like a dream where I landed on the moon and then the next moment I was feeling the mist of a waterfall. When you wake up you cannot explain the logic of a dream, but while dreaming you naturally take everything for what it is. That is the complexity of Iceland. Their ancestry might be a straight line, but their landscape is a dreamscape.
