What a completely surreal day it’s been.
I’ve been planning this trip since June and it’s finally been realized. There were so many factors against me getting here - potential airport workers striking, Thanksgiving holiday travel madness, thunderstorms, and a third party ticket that was super cheap but may or may not work.
And by the grace of the universe my ticket worked, the workers are waiting until the 29th to strike, security at the international airport was the fastest I’ve ever experienced, and it was just a light mist.
So with the smallest of delays, I was off to Iceland. Departing at 7.00pm from Chicago, I arrived at 7.30am in Iceland.
The first thing that struck me was how neat and clean everything seemed. Iceland’s tourism has been booming since Eyjafallajokull erupted a few years back - Iceland’s board of tourism did a tourism campaign right after that and it’s struck a lot of people’s interest. Because of this, there’s a lot of infrastructure that seems to be under construction, in order to make an attempt to keep up with the absorbant amounts of tourists traveling in and out every day.
Also, their airport sinks have the faucet and dryer connected through the same piping above the sink. WUT!
This is my first time traveling solo internationally, so I was trying to be patient finding my car rental while also stressing myself out about time constraints. In the winter months, the sun is only up for a small portion of the day. I never saw it today because it rained pretty much the entire day but the light started around 9.00am and was gone by 4.00pm. Honestly not that bad, but in order to compensate for it I made a pretty outrageous itinerary to make the most of my short time here.
With a little bit of luck, I was able to find the shuttle to get to my car rental, and I was in and out in probably all of 5 minutes. Dude literally wrote down my license number, I signed, we looked at my car for signs of any previous damage and presto, I’m off. I don’t know why I didn’t just take more time to chill out and get acquainted with my car - I think I was just stressed about the lack of daylight and wanting to utilize it ASAP. Since I was already a little bit behind on time, I wanted to go Go GO! So I hadn’t messaged my parents to let them know I was there or plugged in the phone charger or anything, I just needed to go.
In Iceland’s more urban areas, there are a LOT of roundabouts, which I’m not used to. After missing the first one, I didn’t miss them again after probably 12 or so on my way out of the city and into the country.
Let me tell you this, though. When the sun is down in Iceland, it is DARK. While in parts of the city, it was totally cool and there were a bunch of cars around me and I felt safe. But at some point there was a turn I had to make and suddenly there were no buildings around, cars were disappearing into the horizon, I was surrounded by mountains (though I didn’t realize this at the time due to fog and lack of lights) and I was going to even have to drive on a mountain. I was kind of scared for my life for a moment because:
Remember when I mentioned about infrastructure? Yeah. You can be driving down a mountain at 90km/h and there aren’t even any guardrails aside from some wooden posts sticking out on the side of the road. If there’s a patch of ice and you spin out of control, sorry!
Icelanders basically leave it up to you. When I visited my stops for the day, there may be a sign on the ground that has an X over a set of footprints but if you ignore it, you could be walking into some geothermal activity, or stepping too close to the edge on a 100ft waterfall and drop to your death because of a gust of wind, get swept away on the beach by 10 foot waves, etc. LOL no big deal.
But here I am, alive (for now).
Once the light started to break through the day, I felt a lot more comfortable driving. My first stop was Gluggafoss. I considered skipping it because of the aforementioned daylight constraints but decided to check it out and I’m really glad I did. I think it was the moment when I had really entered the countryside and I was struck by what Iceland is and could be.
The terrain is just incredible, and this is such a cool time to come. Greens, tans, browns, whites, greys. I’m grateful that I’m able to see elements from both the contrasting seasons - some areas still have elements of summer (lush, green grass), but there are also bigger mountains with snow decorating their grooves. That sweet spot of the year!
After Gluggafoss, I went to Seljalandsfoss, one of the more iconic waterfalls in Iceland.
Gljufrafoss a few minutes away. I was going to actually go through the crevice but I stepped in the water and was like F this.
And Skogafoss - another super iconic waterfall. There’s a staircase (a LONG staircase) that leads to the top of this gigantic waterfall, which I climbed. Mountain Climber! I was super out of breath.
Dyrholaey. So many birds flying around this lighthouse. The drive up was crazy, just zig zag zig zag on a narrow gravel road where you have all these blind spots when making sharp turns.
And Reynisfjara.
This beach was, honestly, the highlight of the day for me. I’ve been to so many beaches before, but something about the greyscale, ominous atmosphere was really incredible. It was the most metal fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Ten foot waves that can sweep you up and murder you (this is true, this has happened). And these crazy tourists be trying to walk right up to where the last wave crashed! As I said, Iceland leaves it up to you. There is no barricade.
I hadn’t eaten really so I went to the Black Beach Restaurant right next to the beach and got a kickass burger and fries. It was set up kind of oddly because there were menus at the tables but then there was also a coffee bar looking thing, so I asked one of the workers if it’s just a coffee bar or separate and she was like “I don’t understand” and came off totally cold and I felt like an idiot tourist. But I got my food and then Lady Gaga came on the radio, and after that 4 Non Blonde’s “What’s Going On?” came on and it was like a message from my buddy Mike ‘cause he loves that song and it cheered me up. I ate my burger alone and then finally went to check in at my hostel.
I hadn’t slept since 9am on Wednesday, and it was now 4pm on Thursday Icelandic time which would have been 10am Thursday in Chicago. I know I should have stayed up, but I literally could not. I’ve been sick and needed the rest, so here I am at almost 1 in the morning, needing to be up in 5 hours to get my second day started. Oh well!
Who needs sleep when you’re exploring paradise or whatever?
