Goodbye to Iceland

I loved Iceland!  There are about 300,000 people living in a country the size of England with half around Reykjavik and the rest scattered along the coast in fishing and farming villages. The country is such a combination of wild, unpredictable,  sophisticated, friendly and the sheer beauty of the environments can take your breath away.   The diversity of landscape is truly amazing.  It’s similar to the weather—within 5 minutes it can snow, be sunny and cloud up again.  And within a few miles you travel from barren lava fields to deep fjords.  Reykjavik Excursions took us on a snowy Golden Circle tour of the top three tourist sites in Iceland.    Thingvellir National Park is not only the site of the Althingi, the world’s first parliament but where the earth has pulled apart due to tectonic plate movement of the American and Asian plates.  There is a 900 mile rift valley where it’s super easy to see how the earth has simply fallen away as the two plates are pulling apart.  Next stop was Geysir , the original geyser after which all others are named.  In the 1950s unthinking tourists threw rocks into the geyser thinking they could set it off, but only blocked up the flow of water.  After an earthquake in 2000 dislodged some of the rocks, it starting erupting again, but as a shadow of it’s former self.   If it wasn’t snowing, hailing and raining, the area around Geysir probably would have been nice walk though all kinds of geothermal anomalies.  Last stop was Gullfoss, one of the most impressive double cascade waterfalls in the world. The water, lava, and snow combo made a beautiful black and white picture. 

The snow slowed us down considerably and we missed our tour of the greenhouses in Hveragerdi , the town where fruits and vegetables are grown year round in giant greenhouses that are brightly lit most of the day and warmed by harnassing the hot water that bubbles up from the ground everywhere.   Even closed, it was still an impressive site to see. The greenhouse even grows bananas!    The days are pretty dark from Oct to March and without the greenhouses, all produce would need to be imported.  In fact, during our trip, the day would lighten about 8 and be completely dark by 5:30. 

March 1 was National Beer Day.  Prohibition ended in 1989 and Icelanders definitely think it’s worth a celebration.  Fredrick, our evening hotel concierge tried to explain the alcohol habits of the Icelanders, the” runtur”  which takes place every Friday and Saturday night and he’s a big fan.  Alcohol is expensive and the only place to buy hard booze is the “Vin Bud”, 13 state owned liquor stores around Reykjavik.   That’s the first stop on Friday night to get drunk at home and then head to bars and cafes by midnight to continue public beer drinking (beer is much cheaper).  Instead of hanging around one bar, going from bar to bar getting drunker and louder is the norm.  This wild beer soaked party goes on weekly until the bars close early Saturday morning.  Then people hang around outside the “Vin Bud” until 9 AM when the liquor store opens and they can buy more liquor before going home to sleep it off.  Fredrick said Saturday night is a little tamer than Friday.  He also said, “kinda stupid, huh?”  We left Friday morning, so we missed the” runtur”, but not National Beer Day.  The four Icelandic beers that we tried were all excellent!

Icelandic names are worth a couple sentences.  Historically, children were given a first name and the last name was a construct of their father's ( or rarely mother’s ) first name and the ending –son (boys) or –dottir (girls).  ( My father's name is an example of this-Hans Davidson, Hans, the son of David.)  There are also family names that date back to early settlement time. ( Again, my Dad's family name is Slaattebrekk.)  Laws have been passed to stop people from taking a new name either by adding –son or taking the family name of a spouse.  There is also a list of approved Icelandic names that babies can be named unless you want to apply to the Icelandic Naming Committee.  So, chances are,  Anita would have had to pick another name for her daughter Tandi (African for love) or probably Moon Unit would have given the committee a good laugh and been nixed.

We never did see the Northern Lights because the weather conditions were not right.  The tours don’t go out in bad weather because there is nothing to see.

It’s been a long couple of days starting with getting up early yesterday to leave Reykjavik.  Between the ride to the airport, flight to London and transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick—day was pretty much shot.   I went for a walk and realized why our hotel is called the Moat House.  The West Sussex walking path was right behind our hotel and it goes for a couple miles along an obvious moat. Some places I actually walked inside the moat.  No castle anymore but it does make one wonder what it was like before Gatwick Airport was there.  Today was another 5 AM rise to get to the airport and pick up the charity baggage that all of us need to help get to Gambia.  All supplies for the surgeries are brought in by the volunteers. I have never traveled with so much luggage!  So right now,  I’m squished into a coach seat and ready to get to the Gambia. 

PS  It would be nice to be bilingual or multilingual like many of the people we’ve met.  In fact, every Icelander  we’ve met except for the eccentric owner of my favorite restaurant speaks English, but if you have to be monolingual , English is definitely the best language to know!