I wrote this for my friend Sara
who wanted to hear about our trip to Iceland.
who wanted to hear about our trip to Iceland.
And, I suspect, to pull me out
of my writing slump.
Thank you, Sara.
of my writing slump.
Thank you, Sara.
We have landed on
the moon. Or perhaps it’s Mars. We dropped out of the clouds into a freezing,
desolate rockiness – a throwback to the age of amoebas. Iceland is a recent
addition to Earth’s above-water bits. Its eastern coast is nothing more than a
preserved lava flow, a blanket of rock and moss buckling like an old parking
lot. It does not sound beautiful, but it is.
Icelanders
are instantly likeable. They are like Canadians, except they all sound like
Bjork. Iceland is, purportedly, the least genetically diverse country in the
world. And it is true; there’s a distinct familial resemblance. Perhaps even
sweetness is hereditary.
We
are transported like quarantined cattle to the capital Reykjavik. It is a tiny
town, to match this tiny island. Not quaint, exactly, but not entirely devoid
of a certain charm. It is efficient, and Scandinavian. Immaculate, but rough
around the edges, the lovechild of Copenhagen and some remote whaling outpost.
We must transfer to a smaller bus to navigate the narrow streets to our
apartment.
Our
first meal on Mars is a spicy Asian noodle soup. We have played the game where
you pass a hundred cafes (and knitted sweater shops), peeking and wondering. This one? What do you think of this one?
You can get whale just about anywhere, but the locals rave about this noodle
soup. It’s served fast and crazy hot by a trio of waitress who certainly shared
a womb. We slurp our soup with running noses, our burning tongues trying to
decipher its broth. Tummies slightly unsettled, we grab a few Viking beers and
call it a night.
It
is hard, at first, to leave the sanctum of our apartment. There is a television
the size of a small car and 400 channels waiting to be explored. We are
mesmerized and, besides, Iceland is not very welcoming at first. In fact, it is
pouring. Will pour buckets all day. It is true what the natives have told us:
always bring a raincoat.
And
so we do. Out into the deluge we go, with one destination in mind: the Sea
Baron and their famous lobster soup. Finally, a country that understands the
importance of soup. I will eat soup until it runs from my ears, I think, as we
plod down toward the docks.
The
Sea Baron is about as humble an accommodation as you can image. Part baitshop,
part pitstop, the Baron is spare. We sit on ancient boat fenders and lean over
split wood tables. This is not a place to linger, and yet we do. Several
parties come and go while we marvel over the insanity of this lobster soup. Is that cardamom? We are in love.
What
we don’t know is that we will overdose on lobster. We will eat pounds of it
before we go; Maricris will be served eight tails in one sitting. For the rest
– though we cannot know this yet – I will prefer chicken to puffin, and be
enamored of biscotti made with Icelandic moss. We will both find whale meat illicit
and indescribable.
We
have not been gone so long as to not be a little homesick for Copenhagen. Our
first bar is a Danish bar. Den Danske Kro
advertises Tuborg, Gammel Dansk and, we see too late, a variety of
Mikkeller. We drink two Classics in the deserted gloom. It is, I realize, a bit
like sitting in a British pub in India. We are in the old colony, with the
habits of the colonizers still fresh in us. I attempt to make peace with the
locals.
The
bartender looks like Bjork. I’m sorry, but she does. Even the boys look a
little like Bjork. They are all rather elfin, in a way. She’s young and pretty,
quiet but not shy. She tells us about her spotty education, her sister in
Sweden, how she hated having to learn Danish. And underneath it all is the
story of perhaps every small-town girl who’s tending a desolate bar on a
Tuesday afternoon. There’s not a chance to be much of anything, she says, if
you stay here. She wants to go to Australia. And maybe the grass is always
greener when you’re young.
We
spend rather a long time in the bar, as we sometimes do in bars. Still, it’s
raining. We are debating where to go. Rain calls for the indoors, but it’s too
early to stay and get drunk. We manage to get about halfway there, sipping a
Scotch each before we leave our bartender to her life. We need to get the full
story on this place: the National Museum awaits.
What
I can tell you about Iceland, now having toured several fine exhibits and clearly
being something of an expert, is that it’s probably best if you weren’t born here.
At least anytime before, say, 1989. (Which is coincidentally the year that beer
became legal.) Iceland is a harsh mistress; I think perhaps the people are so
sweet because the land beat the fight out of them long, long ago. Their welcome
is not unconditional, however. On the way home, I see a sign at a bar that says,
“If you are racist, sexist, homophobic or an asshole, do not come in.”
But
they do seem to tolerate cats. There are a lot of cats. Even in the rain. But
these are not street cats. This is not Rome. These cats are tended, collared
and spoiled, apparently. I watch a fat orange tabby eat ice cream off the street,
as if there were always a spot of ice cream on the street. Just for him.
There’s a whole
world, however, beyond this village of cats, knitted sweaters and colonial
bars. Not a signpost passes without promoting some rugged glacier climb,
volcanic cave diving or otherwise improbable adventure. We are practically
guilty about it. In the land of Vikings and people who have been bitch-slapped
by the elements for a thousand years, clearly we couldn’t just idle between
bars and cafes, listening to Bjork all day. We had to do something epic. But which of these myriad butchy offerings
should we choose?
Honestly, I might
have opted for a dip in an active lava flow before showering with a bunch of
strangers, but still, there I was. Naked. In the middle of Iceland’s answer to
Club Med: the Blue Lagoon. It might sound romantic to bathe in a geothermal spa
– and indeed, the water is opaque enough that I imagine “romance” sometimes
goes rather far – but ultimately, you have to admit that you’ve paid a lot of kronur
to slather goo on your face in the run-off from a nearby power plant.
All tourist
trappings and Puritan modesty aside, Iceland gave us a rare gorgeous day, and
we spent it wisely. And there’s nothing like sipping drinks in a hot tub in the
sun to make you pass out on the bus like a champion. I can’t even
remember what we had for dinner. (Yes
I can. It was organic fish and chips, made with spelt and barley, served with skyronnaise.
I still don’t know what that is, but while we ate it, we watched a golden moon
the size of my fist rise over the cliffs in the harbor.)
And that was all the kindness Iceland
would afford us. Anesthetizing as our one beautiful day had been, it was a
cold, windy, spitting farewell. The elfin people in the airport practically
escorted us to our gate, where I tried to get Maricris to notice that we were
sitting next to a famous person without alarming said famous person. (For the
record, it was Kristen Wiig.) Apparently famous people are in Iceland all of
the time. And not just Bjork. Something about the place – a bit of Mars in the
middle of the North Atlantic – seems to attract film crews. I’m pretty sure
they don’t come for the whale sandwiches.
