Reykjavik: An Overall Observation Day 1

It’s difficult to write a blog post about your travels when you’re presently lacking a way to include photos, so I’ll just do my general thought on the  Reykjavik area until I can write up a proper picture-loaded entry.

Reykjavik is young. It has a short history,as my shuttle driver this morning told me. It was only “recently” colonized, about 200 years or so ago. And its youth, or perhaps boisterous teen years, radiates from its sidewalks. It is full of young tourists, and that energy is apparent as you walk about through the streets, along the shore, or sit idly waiting for your tour bus or shuttle. It smells of the ocean, with the pungent odor of fish drifting into every nostril, and the faint taste of sea salt in every bite you eat, whether it is salted or not. The wind is cold and ruffles your hair, nipping at your hands and nose and biting your lips until they are chapped. With the rain hitting you in the face and the acidic soil, you’d think the hills would be green and vibrant, but instead it is a sickly green-brown with erratic white splotches, colored as such from the fiery result of shifting tectonic plates. Where there aren’t smooth hills, rocks jut out from the ground like angry earthen teeth, with harsh chasms deep and dark and full of wonder and history. The seawater is bitter, burning every exposed surface of skin until it numbs.

My words make it sound like Reykjavik is a terrible place. It is not. It is stunningly beautiful. It is picturesque, even hauntingly so, and I could stare at these glacier-and-volcano-carved mountains for hours, perhaps until they all erupt again. Two days in Reykjavik will not be enough, and I think someday I will have to return to see the rest of this island. However, as much as I love the smell of this city (yes, the pungent odor of fish), the grey of overcast skies, the sepia-tone landscape, and the temperate cold do not make me want to live here. Even if there are whales.

Until next time,
E

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