Better late than never
Time has flown and here I sit in front of an incomplete post from way back in Iceland. I find that my attention is torn in so many directions I am forgetting to have myself write. It is easy to bark orders to the kids "Go write a blog post" and forget that it is an option for me too. Cooking, laundry, organizing tomorrow's adventures, lodging questions, unpacking/repacking, the need for ingenuity, mainly in the kitchen, and best of all, actually sight-seeing. Figuring out groceries so that there is minimal larder to carry from one location to the next, and definitely not refrigerated items, is a constant mental gyration. I am not so good on this one, we almost always let milk behind. I tried transporting lettuce from Iceland to Ireland. Haha! That was not such a brilliant idea. Anyway, these all conspire against me to produce any written memories from my experiences. I find that I choose to live in the moment rather than formulate sentences. I do write in my head while we are out and about but promptly forget it all. So, backing up, if you care to know, here are some thoughts on that fair country, Iceland.
Among my favorite memories from traveling will be the moments of conversation with local peoples. It has been fairly easy so far to get people to talk about their homes, communities, and country. Perhaps it is because Icelanders are friendly and helpful, or perhaps it is because we were there off-season; I am not sure which is true, probably a bit of both.
Summer, tourist based business, was coming to a screeching halt, the last of us few stragglers were more of a surprise than expected. On more than one occasion we were offered, "I can call over there to (name) and I am sure he wouldn't mind opening the (whatever we happened to be interested in seeing) for you." They appear to know each other very well. On three occasions I almost felt like they were playing the Mennonite game as they asked about where and who's place we were staying at. And then there was the day I was grocery shopping and literally bumped into the guy who had special opened the SeaMonster Museum for us in a town 1/2 hour drive away. "Hey! I know you..."
As one farmer said to me, "You can't expect to get away with crime in this country. The population is only about 300,000. Everybody knows everybody else." He was speaking about the capture of some tourists who squatted in a tiny country church for a few days and trashed it. I had been wondering why all the churches were locked as I assumed they would all be open. Sadly, they are all locked now, because of tourists.
"I served over 70,000 tourists this summer. It is exhausting and I start to forget why I am here. But then it slows down and I get a chance to go out and sit in the open on a mountain and Ah! then I remember. This is why people come here. This is why I am here. We have a house in Reykjavik but we can't stay there very long. Too many people. It is hard here and the government wants us to encourage tourism but they don't help us very much. We hang on, just too stubborn to leave. It's the Viking in us, tough."
This lady is in the Westfjords. I asked her about the winter and if they stock up on what they will need since their location is only car accessible 4-5 months out of the year (think 3-4 meters of snow on roads that don't get opened). She laughed. "We have a saying here, 'If you don't have it, you don't need it'. Snowmobile. We run into town [Reykjavik- 4hr drive by car?] a lot on our snowmobiles. We will look at our watches, 'Hey, lets go.' and just go. But it is like I become two different people. When I am in town, I am one person, I need things and as soon as I come back here, I am different, I don't need anything. It's weird how that is. I don't like it much in town."
Space. These people have space. Vast areas of remote, lonely, rugged, windswept, space. But even in the more populated areas, there is space. They are happy and satisfied. I was frequently surprised at how small their dwellings are in comparison to ours and their family size (traditionally, larger than the average of Nordic countries). I wonder if we tend to fill our need for space with large houses with lofty ceilings and plenty of elbow room to navigate. They have small houses and narrow roads. We have (or wish for) large houses, broad roads, and smaller families. I wonder if there is any corrolation?
The landscape is powerful! It is not difficult at all to imagine millenia ago when the earth was roiling and writhing:
Heavy smoke swirling tempestuously breaking
reveal spurting fissures and heaving bulges threatening
unleash a hidden serpent of fire and ash
Dark stench permeating the uttermost heights and depths
of craggy hollows and caverns
Ghastly facades straining to conceal an unknown strength trembling to be unleashed in uncontrollable fury
here and there punctuated by towering infernos
Boiling, ever boiling
And then He spoke.
Silence
Stilling waves soundlessly rolled over hideous abandon
Green unfurled healing
sparkling cataracts
unleashing splendor of great magnificence
Iceland.
Of high importance to me was that we had, for the most part, wonderful weather. People would comment about how nice the weather was. The week before had been rainy with an unusually fierce storm the night we flew in. This was such a blessing to me as I had had myself convinced that all we would see was rain. Before departing the States, I had read that we had a 7% chance of seeing the sun in Iceland. I think it turned out being closer to 7% rain/drizzle. Excellent.
So there you have my belated thoughts.
Speaking of weather. We have been having lovely weather continually. In Ireland, according to the locals, it was exceptionally nice compared to the previous week and apparently the whole summer for that matter. Someone even asked me if we had brought this mild and beautiful interlude along with us! I am fully expecting to learn to deal with 'English' weather here in England so don't bother to remind me.
