Iceland . .. cold, sun, Björk

"Better weight than wisdom a traveller cannot carry. The poor man´s strength in a strange place, worth more than wealth."
and
"He is truly wise who´s travelled far and knows the ways of the world. He who has travelled can tell what spirit governs the men he meets." - both from Hàvamàl Eddaic poems (AD 700-900) (Viking sayings)

(oh! if you want to smile watch the videos on wherethehellismatt.com)

Reykjavik, Iceland June 29th, 2008
9:30pm

Somehow when I was planning this trip (errr . . .. "planning") I somehow forgot to even think about Iceland. It wasn´t until I was in a library in New Zealand that I even picked up a guidebook to see what things there were to see and do in this far-north country. I definitely did not look up what the average temperature would be here in June. So . . . as it turns out . . . it is COLD. Seriously cold for someone who mostly has a summer wardrobe. As luck would have it, I managed to buy a nice coat and sweater in the Paris sales immediately before arriving here. The biting wind and 8° C weather didn´t catch me unprepared! Just surprised.

In addition to cold weather, Iceland at the moment has 24 hour sunlight. Pretty wild, when you think about it. I´ve only stayed up past midnight one night, but sure enough it was still bright and light out. It darkens slightly between midnight and 2am, but not enough to really obscure anything. The amount of partying that goes on here is madness . . . such intense nigth time debauchery that even the grocery stores can´t bring themselves to open before 10 am. It is a bit strange, however, to see people stumbling about drunk in full light . . . that sort of thing should really be hidden by darkness, shouldn´t it?

So, cold weather, sunshine and . . . CRAZY expensive prices!! When I calculated that the shuttle bus from the airport to downtown Reykjavik was going to cost $30 and that a regular take away type meal would cost close to $20 . . . well the nice young man selling me my shuttle bus ticket said, "I hope you brought your platinum!" Sure enough, Chase Rewards is going to be quite happy with me. Even eating cheaply and self-catering are still pricey in this island country. A beer is easily $10 making Iceland one of the most expensive places to go out in the world. Apparently it is second only to Tokyo.

Despite all this I have been enjoying Reykjavik and using it as a quite time to reflect and enjoy being by myself. I have had some seriously lovely days wandering around, having a coffee (about all I can afford), sampling a cheap hot dog (I got one from the same stand that Bill Clinton did on his visit), and strolling around the wharf and flea market. I visited the National Museum and learned that the majority of women in Iceland share genetic markers with women from the British Isles, but the majority of men share genetic markers with men from other Nordic countries, mainly Norway. What does this suggest? You guessed it . .. vikings settling here with their Irish brides. It makes sense that Icelandic people are ridiculously gorgeous - possibly even more beautiful than the Swedes although it is a tight race. Blond, blue eyed, with the occasional ginger splash and freckles . . . everyone is über-good looking. Also . . . they all speak English in addition to Icelandic, which is quite helpful!

On Saturday night I went to the free Björk concert here in Reykjavik, which was really quite a big deal for Iceland. Björk and Sigur Ròs got together with some other artists to do the concert as an environmental awareness statement. Here in Iceland they are worried about their natural resources being destroyed for aluminum smelters and big ugly hydroelectric plants, etc. Anyway, the crowd was HUGE, Björk´s outfit was WILD and of course it was sunny out for the whole thing. And freezing.

Today I went on a tour of the so called "golden circle" which visits three of the most important natural sights of Iceland all in one day. First the Gullfoss waterfall which was big and beautiful, followed by the geothermally active area of Haukadalur. This area reminded me of Roturua in New Zealand . . . bubbling mud, steaming hot water, sulphur smell . . . but Haukadalur was different. Mainly the geyser, Strokker, which every four minutes or so hurled boiling water up to 20 meters high. Pretty amazing stuff, folks.
Oh! And I got to have some traditional Icelandic meat stew for lunch (lamb) and it was delicious.

We ended the day with my favorite place - Þingvellir National Park. Not only is this the spot on which Iceland´s parliament started meeting in 930 (it is one of the oldest parliamentary institutions in the world), but it also happens to be where the continental plates of North America and Euro-Asia meet. Err, well, they aren´t so much as meeting as tearing away from each other. So basically, today, I stood on the continental rift and looked down into the canyon separating North America from Europe. I found this fairly exhilarating.

The only thing that kept me from jumping for joy was the extremely sobering thought that tomorrow I will be back in the U.S.

That´s right folks, Anna´s great round the world adventure is coming to an end. I imagine I will post at least once more with conclusions, overviews, etc. (plus I have a ton of quotes still to use), but this will be my last post from the road.

While I am looking forward to seeing people, and to living in one place for awhile, I have to admit that I am sad that this adventure is over. The past four months have easily been the best of my life. I just have to remember that as this door closes another opens . . . this is just one more beginning, one more fresh start.

Thank you, for traveling with me. Hopefully I will see you soon!

Lots of Love! Anna

and maybe . . .
". . .the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home."
- Paul Theroux