ICELAND

"Travel,   because travel teaches to say goodnight to everyone regardless of the darkness we carry inside.   Travel, because traveling teaches to resist, not depend, to accept others, not just for who they are but also for what they can never be.               

To know what we are capable of, to feel part of a family beyond borders, beyond traditions, and culture. Travel teaches us to be beyond.

Travel, otherwise you end up believing that your are made only for a panorama and instead inside you there are wonderful landscapes to see, still to visit."  -Gio Evan, Poet and songwriter

Home from Iceland yesterday and I am still thinking about all the people we met and the places we went; the experiences we had; and over all, of how I felt the whole time we were there.  It was infinitely easy and familiar while at the very same time so different from home.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that it felt comfortable, almost immediately even though I have never been there before.  Everything was new and different but not so "other" as to feel intimidating. It feels like a special affinity for a very different place.  I feel at home in another country. 

Our South Shore day tour was a revelation of sorts, waterfalls, glaciers, and black sand beaches. Beautiful sunshine. The town of Vik on the south shore. The farms along the way.

 I found a sweater at the Red Cross, a vintage/second hand knitted sweater, a cardigan, light weight, with beautiful old pewter or metal of some kind buttons. 

The guides we had along the way

The people we met. Anita and Dan with this wonderful story about love lost and finding each other again, and loving again. Two highly accomplished people a psychiatrist, and a professor and government employee, a scientist. They had to be in their 80's and they are traveling to Iceland. They had very different lives from us, but they were open, kind, interested and interesting.  

There is a nuance, a feeling of being captured by Iceland and it's people that I have never felt in another country. It was so easy being there and there was a wealth of things to do, or just sit in the sunshine and do very little, just contemplate because it will be so easy to return. And more than anything else, I want to return to hike and maybe drive all the way around the island, the country. 

It is the first time I was at a place and was not ready to come home. We only briefly touched the "tourist surface" of this strange and beautiful place at once desolate and surprisingly green and full of life. 

This place where the tectonic plates are pulling apart and the land is growing; so much new land comparitively speaking as the North American and the Asian plates pull apart exposing the earth's core. Many gentle earthquakes and volcanic activity as new ground is formed.

The birds we saw! So many puffins and other birds on the island.

the Hvammsvik Hot Springs in the late afternoon into the evening, by the cold Icelandic Ocean.

The concert at the Harpa featuring a trombone playing Sibelius.  An Opera singer interpreting Grieg. That perfect example of the Icelandic twist on life, a concert featuring a trombone. Unthinkable in my mind before now.  

And the food! I was prepared for lots of smoked fish and perhaps dishes that my palate would not be used to.  Icelanders spent many, many centuries on the brink of starvation, and yet the food was to every place we went amazing, delicious, urban, sophisticated, lots of vegetables and salad. Watercress on top of lamb shanks and celery root puree at a diner at the airport. Pan fried carrots, parsnips, and broccolini athe the Grill Market.

It all seems like a lovely dream which I can close my eyes and dream again. I can walk from the Center Hotels Plaza straight up the street, then V off onto the rainbow road and up to the beautiful Lutheran Church with the statue of Leif Eriksson in the front. Or I can go straight at the V and reach the coffee shop we stopped at or go a little further to our breakfast spot the first morning.  I can walk out the front door of the Hotel, head right and reach City Hall and our #1 bus stop for all tours, or wander through City Hall and see the topographical map of the country and visit the Pond.  Left out of the Hotel with a couple of turns brings you to the Old Harbor for whale watching, northern lights, and puffin boat tours. The old wooden boat a year younger than me that we sailed in for the Puffin Boat Tour.

I will treasure all these memories.