I Spent Five Weeks In Iceland, My Heart Has Never Left

I recently got a new computer and while transferring files I came across the final essay of my summer course at the University of Iceland in July 2017. I had won a round trip plane ticket to Iceland for learning Icelandic in the #Add1Challenge and someone generously paid my course fees. It was a dream come true. (You can ask me about how I got obsessed with Iceland later.) At the end of the month, students were required to write an essay of at least five hundred words on what they enjoyed about their time in the country. I spent hours writing and translating and agonizing over the essay before I hand wrote it on notebook paper and handed it in. I wanted those who have never been there to catch the Iceland bug and even if they couldn’t visit in person, I hoped they could imagine what it was like just by reading my essay.

With the charm of the ripped body of a champion wrestler, Iceland stands in stark, rugged contrast to the soft, sensual beauty of a tropical island, such as Hawaii. It is a land that breeds a people as stoic as itself. Perhaps it was the struggle to survive in the face of the harsh climate conditions that attracted people here, just as it bid me to wrestle with its language and climate. In this essay I will describe my impressions of the Icelandic nature and people.

An isle of 103 000 km², situated between Greenland and Norway, Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice. When I arrived in Keflavik, I was welcomed to a thick fog, chilling and dampening me to the core. I can’t say much for a first impression of the land that was to be my home for the next month as seeing beyond a radius of 100m was almost impossible. Grey blocks of flats appeared out of the mist like tomb stones in a cemetary as the taxi drove me to my friend’s appartment on the edge of Keflavik.

The first real view I had of Iceland was in the evening that same day as my flight to Akureyri took off from the Reykjavik municiple airport. As I flew over the town, the clouds parted over the brightly coloured houses, giving me the most stunning view of the town. I felt on top of the world, ready to start my Icelandic adventure.

When I arrived in Akureyri the sky was clear, and the sun was still high above the mountains at 7pm. As I walked the three kilometers from the airport to the house of my couch surfing host I marveled in the beauty of the nature. The air was filled with a cool piny odor that I had never smelled before in any forest, and yet there were few trees. I paused a few moments to watch a family of ducks swim and dive in the fjord, the fluffy babies keeping close to their mother. Seaguls squalked and a pair of Arctic terns flew at me, probably thinking I was there to steal their eggs.

Sleep wasn’t hard that night after being awake over thirty hours, and I awoke to another day of perfect weather. I jumped out of bed and dressed quickly, eager not to miss a moment of my stay. I hurried out to explore the town a bit and buy some breakfast before my penpal came to pick me up and take me horseback riding. It all felt like I had been swallowed up by the dream I had dreamed for so long as I rode through fields of knee high grass, rippling in the breeze. It was easier than I had had thought to speak Icelandic all day, only reverting to English to ask for some words I didn’t know yet.

While in the north I decided to take the ferry from Dalvik to Grimsey, an island three hours north. I stood at the bow as the cold wind blew through my hair, numbing my ears. I felt like a Viking approaching a new land to conquer. The small town at the southern tip of Grimsey was swarming with tourists, so I quickly headed past the airport where there was no one. At the northern end of the island I sat, just me, the bird cries, the occasional bleating of sheep soothing the city-weary soul. As I walked through the hillocks back towards the ship, the fog started rolling in, first as thin cotton whisps blowing about my feet and then thicker and thicker. Out of the fog appeared a herd of horses who crouded around me, trying to get a taste of my sweater or hair. My unfettered laugh rang through the cliffs as I told the horses, « Nothing to eat here, nothing at all. » To make an already awesome day, even more awesome, on the way back to Dalvik, someone shouted, « Whales! » Everyone rushed to the railings to get a front row seat to the acrobatics of the largest creatures on the plannet.

On the bus trip back to Reykjavik, I passed through fjords lined with steep mountains, splotched with snow. Quaint, colourful fishing villages in the north west lent a touch of brightness through the chilling rain. The narrow, winding roads and tunnles through the mountain led on from one stuning vista to the next. Half way down the coast, the land flattened out a bit, covered in these rounded mounds with one rock sticking out the top resembling green, mossy breasts. I even caught a rare glimpse of a sunny Reykjavik from across the water coming in to town.

My favourite place within easy reach of Reykjavik is the hot river at Hveragerði. As the bus decended from the plateau I caught my first glimpse of the valley. It was shrouded in a mysterious mist, not unlike the smoke surrounding haunted castles or ghosts in horror movies. The land was scarred and covered in oozing, sulpherous sores. The hillsides breathed steam like dragon’s nostrels. Truely a strange and slightly terrifying place.

Some may say that Icelanders are closed and distant. In my experience this has not been the case. Everyone has been willing to take the time to make sure that I understand when they speak to me in Icelandic. I have been invited to dinner at the house of someone I had just met. Nor for one moment have I ever felt unwelcome, unsafe, or lacking anything. Icelanders have bent over backwards to make sure that I feel comfortable and happy here.

Iceland’s nature has countless times made me fall to my knees, wordless, in awe of its unspoiled beauty. I fell head over heels in love with Iceland, and I’m already thinking of ways to come back and explore all the places I’ve missed. I feel there is a treasure just beyond me, lost in the fog, just waiting to surprise me.

Since this was written, I’ve already been back once and plan to go again this year. I have vowed to visit once a year minimum when I am not living there permanently. Iceland is good for the soul. I have included a screenshot of the first paragraph of the essay in Icelandic in case you are interested, and a video with more pictures. I cringe watching that video now because of all the mistakes I made speaking Icelandic in the film as well as the mistakes I made filming and editing. In the two years after, I’ve improved leaps and bounds, but still so much left to learn! Ég elska Ísland!

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