"Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Greenland?"
Name that movie and you get a gold star! Anyways, on the way back from Iceland, we flew over Greenland, which I thought was pretty freakin' cool! My good camera was stowed away so I had to use my point and shoot, which has a "plane mode" so that's nice, but the camera likes to become possessed sometimes and the only way to fix it (well, the only way I've found) is to drop it on the ground. Some would argue there's a better way, I say, go ahead and find it. Due to the somewhat frequent "resets" the lens has a spot on it and well, I'm a little to lazy to go into that much detail in Photoshop to fix it. So here are the pics of Greenland from the plane with a little spot in each of them.
In Icelandic, it's called the island, like it considers itself better than all of the rest—and it may be right. There's something special, something enchanting about that place. There are 15 Westland islands off of Iceland's western coast, only one is inhabitable by people, one by puffins. There are roughly 319,000 people, 80,000 horses, and somewhere near 400,000 sheep. The weather in Iceland is like a small child with A.D.D. In can be perfectly sunny, then rain, then snow, then be sunny again, then hail...all before you've eaten your lunch. The people do not wear ponchos, raincoats, or use umbrellas. They go out around midnight and stay out until five. There seems to be no day drinking to speak of and at 4 a.m. a hot dog will cost you somewhere near $15 (1550 krona).
Iceland is magical. Icelanders do not believe in ghosts but believe in trolls and elves, and after being there, I can understand why. Most of the country is not developed and the landscape is composed of dark rock covered in green moss, kind of like a mountain threw up, but the perfect terrain for trolls. The water is a cloudy light blue, a color that calmed me in a way that I didn't expect.
Iceland has water closets and volcanos, glaciers and waterfalls, tree sweaters and graffiti. It has a language that endlessly entertained me—one that I fell in love with almost instantly. Who doesn't love a good umlaut? Being there somehow made the days feel longer, like I was gone for two weeks, and at the same time, they went by really fast. They love music and art and apply it to everything—the land itself is art.
It was a place I had talked about going to for no particular reason other than it seemed to be drawing me to it, and one that seemed to make perfect sense for me to be in. So, takk Iceland. Takk.
The Blue Lagoon is a spa with geothermal pools. These pools/springs seem to spring up all over Iceland, so much so, that they use the water and steam for energy. The kicker is that these springs have a high sulfur content, so they are beautiful, but smell like farts. Driving up the spa, it was unmistakable...and overwhelming.
After stripping down to bikinis, and running through the 30-degree air into the pools, we went in search of the mud masks people were wearing. The mud created by the pools is supposed to be incredibly good for your skin. We quickly discovered that you have to scoop it up from the bottom of the pools, and guess what? That smells like farts too. So now we were smearing fart-smelling mud all over our faces in the fart-smelling pools. But, like anything, you get used to it. And, I have to tell you, it was fantastic. The water is a shade of blue I've never experienced before in my life and it was amazing. We nestled ourselves into an area of the pools that was hotter than the rest and laughed as our faces got pelted with sleet.
We were in Iceland, and it was amazing.
The weather in Reykjavik is all over the place, and all over the place quickly. One day we were there, the weather changed, on average, every ten minutes (sunny, rain, snow, sun, wind, snow, repeat). The below pictures are all taken within a half hour of each other.
Open on the weekends, the Old Harbor Flea Market had a wide variety of both the bizarre and the beautiful. They also had a fish market in the back, where Mindy got to try the Hákarl (rancid shark meat) she had read so much about. She was a not a fan—at all.
"So I went by, 'cause i had the time, and told the northern lights to keep shining. They told me to tell you they're waving." —Tori Amos
How's that for a mouthful? As part of our 12 hour Glacier and Northern Lights Tour, we stopped at Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted in 2010 creating havoc for air travelers all over the world. Next up on the tour was Skógarfoss, a waterfall that meets a bed of volcanic ash and sand not too far from the volcano.
It's rare that I am home during a weekday. But since I am leaving for Iceland this evening and just found out I have more vacation days left than I thought, I took the day off. I figured this was perfect because I could get another yoga class and gym workout in before I take off for four days. So that I did. I went to the early yoga class, which was great because I haven't been to one of Jeff's classes in forever and I like them a lot. Then I headed over to the gym. This is when I started to realize that Hoboken is just weird during the day.
The gym wasn't crowded for once, which was awesome. I also saw two of my new favorite people. The first was an older woman rocking hot pink running shoes and a fanny bag. Good for her! As if that wasn't good enough, as she was packing up her things I noticed she had a Song Walkman, that's right, a cassette Walkman. She is my new hero. As I was leaving the locker room I spotted a short stocky Asian man using the cables to workout. So what, you ask. His hair was unlike anything I have ever seen. It defied gravity in ways that emo kids could only dream of. It seemed to float above his head, angled to the right, as if he was stuck in a severe wind storm. It blew my mind a little.
On my walk home, I witnessed a classic argument between two lovers. The man, thin and tall, wearing a sideways baseball cap, walked ten feet in front of his significant other who was pushing their baby (I assume their baby) in a stroller.
He screamed back to her, "You're a cop caller. You're a fucking cop caller. We could have no money because you made us broke and I could go out and sell drugs to get us some money and you would still call the fucking cops. You fucking cop caller. Loser."
And I thought, "Well, I guess there are worse things than being single."
As I walked up to my apartment, my downstairs neighbor, who for awhile I was certain was dead because he didn't pick up his mail in four weeks, was walking up the stoop, laundry detergent in hand. So good, he's not dead, that's fantastic for him. When he realized I was behind him, I said, "Hey! You DO live here!"
"Yes, do you? Are you number two?"
"No, I'm three."
"Cool, I don't think I've ever met you before."
I've met this guy like four times and only three people live in my building. Maybe this is why guys don't call me—they've entirely forgotten they've ever met me. And thus concluded my morning in Hoboken. Now to finish getting ready for Iceland!
