Mid April:
Iceland is, so, like, volcanic and functional.....
Arrive 6:15 AM.
Efficient zip from plane through customs to baggage claim to flybus.
Front seat with excellent view of volcanic rock mixed with snow patches.
Women across the isle is totally drunk and passed out on her luggage and purchases at custom free shop. Doesn't have a coat but an icelandic cardigan. At her stop the bus driver calls her. She doesn't wake. He shakes her gently. Eyes opened then closed again. He called her and shakes her gently a second and then third time. She wakes and doesn't want to get off at the stop but maybe just a block further? No. Not possible. She gets annoyed and points out she only has a sweater. A man two rows back, in Icelandic, says (later translated by person behind me talking to his English speaking girlfriend) " This is your stop you drunken bitch". The woman rises in fury and screams back at him, and, from the isle takes her red suitcase and throws it out the bus door onto the snow, screams at the driver, who is helping her with her packages and stumbles down to the steps and blocks the doorway a couple of times getting her last words in. The driver is shaking from anger, the man my age sitting next to me is embarrassed. I think how sad it is that she is like that.
The landscape is flat. You can see the sea. Low functional buildings hug the port areas. Grey, snow sputters. The bus careens around the round-abouts and slides into the stops through the slush.
Reyjkavik.
Hilly.
I transfer to a minibus and come to Fosshotel Baron. It is about 7:30 or 8:00 AM and check in time is 4:00 PM .... The young man at the desk finds me a room anyway, as I stand there in a stupor. I drop my luggage in 413. Go down and pay 1000 krona for the hotel breakfast. They have locks and gluten free bread for me.
I sleep for about 5 hours and then walk Reykjavik's main shopping street. Sunshine, sleet, sunshine, ice wind, incredible church on top the hill with wind chill factor feeling like -5 degrees. Statue of Lief Erikson. Fancy Queen Ann architecture of corrogated tin. Park for graffiti that continually changes. Across the bay, bluffs. A feel of mini San Francisco, not as steep, not as old, not as fancy, not as dirty, not as big....but still
Back at the hotel.
Must find a restaurant. That means going out in the wind again. Thank heaven for my down coat.
I like it here.
Blue Lagoon tomorrow, maybe golden circle the next day. Then, Germany.
And yes, people speak English as well as Icelandic. Polite.
I’m happy I am visiting Iceland. What glorious landscapes. I understand why only 300,000 people live here though. They have to be tough, really tough. I also understand why people drink so much despite exorbitant liquor prices. I have a few myself. Whooeee. Wind, then wind and rain, wind and sleet, wind and scattered sunshine, rainbow, wind....freezing wind. At the Blue Lagoon I soak my body in geothermal superheated seawater while my wet head, hair and ears freeze in the wind. Picture milky blue green water with steam rising off it against black lava. It is good for a couple of hours, destroys my hair. I decide Icelanders may not be naturally blond, but probably have blond hair from the sulfur in the water. Don't know where the blue eyes come from.... maybe staring at the snow bleaches them or their eyes try to match the color of the glacial ice. The result, beautiful clear eyes. Some eyes are dark lava black/brown...
On the Reyjkavik bus back from the Blue Lagoon, I talk with a young film project manager from Sweden, Lina Linde. She wants to rent a car and explore but is hesitant drive around by herself.
Lina and I rent a car and drive through the most agricultural of Iceland. Rolls of hay, deep drainage ditches, barns shaped like a quonset huts on top a bigger box, icelandic horses -- small and shaggy, isolated homes and very small villages. We continue onto a volcanic plain to see the Hvita River roar over Gullfoss Falls. It’s bone biting cold with the horizontal rain. pure heavy water falling in two cascades with a turn into a volcanic valley. Colors are monochromatic broken by tourists’ orange rain suits. Spray. Wind. Thunder. The Romanticists’ awesome scene.
On we go to fumeroles and geysirs. Poisoned land, sulfur fumes, pleasing yellow and red mud colors. The geysir belches for us. When it does more than belch, it is taller than Old Faithful. This is my first geysir.
We spend the following hours looking for restaurants in small (and I mean 150-400 people small) seaside villages. No restaurants are open until 5:00. We miss the national park and 1km deep lake with crystal clear water, all in search of food...
Lina and I have a great visit about the lives of people involved in art, trying to make a living and the differences between Sweden and the U.S.
My last night in Iceland I wake at 2:30 and am in Frankfurt by 12:00 PM.
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