Winter in Reykjavik

I arrived in Iceland and promptly messed everything up. I knew there was a bus (flybus) that went into Reykjavik from the airport in Keflavik and also that there was no "blue lagoon layover" possible having arrived at an ungodly early hour. I immediately headed to the duty free shop to load up on cheap booze and smokes. You can never know when those will come in handy due either to extreme partying or cultural desirability. I mean if coffee and tobacco are the only real currency in jails worldwide, it goes to say that there is a strong possibility that cigs might be the difference between making friends and choking to death on expired nicorette after a night of heavy drinking.

Disappointing after the impressive display of local and exotic booze varieties, there's a 1 liter limit per person. I mean WTF? I went with the standbys: the local Black Death and whiskey. I found some limited edition camel cigs that might make good souvenirs for my committed smoker friends in NYC.

Before the coffee had kicked in I realized I was the only non-employee in the airport. I asked at the counter when the next bus would be. I had missed the one perfectly timed for the more 'with it' members of my own flight. Luckily, there was 1 other guy who had somehow convinced the bus to make a trip and I could piggy back on this tremendous good fortune as the difference between the deluxe Mercedes bus and a waiting taxi is about $100 usd.

Even after reading extensively, the landscape was still shocking; barren, volcanic, windswept and black. I expected more snow, or more land. Somehow the horizon and a great sky had become 60% of the visible dimension. I was stupid enough to travel without a power converter and had only one charge on my fancy camera battery. Instead I took it all in, a living IMAX nature show. The sheer Nordic-ness of everything was deeply impressive, even as it became clear that Reykjavik is a very little city. I tried to imagine living there, in tastefully painted metal sheet buildings with heavy wooden windows all reminiscent of a fishing village from another century.

The apartment-hotel that I had booked for a few days in the city was not to be ready until 2pm and I had 6 hours of trying not to fall asleep carting around too much baggage and looking for the address of the place. Somehow I found a gated black house, something that looked more like the inspiration for a painting than a functioning building, and rand until I was buzzed in. No one appeared to be home except a gentle old black dog. The doors on all the first floor were locked. The entry inside with stairs leading up seemed a bit rude, but after 5 minutes and no answer I climbed up to find a very young, very blonde boy looking at me with bright blue eyes. My first instinct was to wonder what language I could speak, since I hadn't even bothered to try to learn any Icelandic. English then.

"Hello. Is your Mommy home?" He turned to run, like a boy messenger warning of an approaching army. His mom, the proprietress, was busy on the phone. He returned to his room, a beautiful pastiche of blue walls, dark hued books and a rainbow of wooden toys. In the stairwell a sculpture of books, glued together in a spiral, had English titles and upon closer inspection some were stamped with, "San Francisco Public Library." The main room, a dining room, leading to the open kitchen was a perfect blend of art and design from Latin and Nordic cultures. I stood stunned taking in the visual ghosts of the late 1990's San Francisco Art Institute. The paintings on the walls were exactly like those my friends had been making then. An attractive middle aged woman in black appeared and began to apologize. She looked Icelandic, her clothes definitely were. Even her English had a cute Icelandic accent.

She explained she was alone in managing their growing stable of apartments and rooms. She could do nothing until 2, but I was welcome to leave my things and she would direct me to anything I might need or want, which considering the city was inevitably within a 5 minute walk. I asked about the art. She had been there just before I had, knew the same painting professor -the legendary one- and had married an Icelander. I asked if she'd known a woman named Madia who I had known from that time. Madia had moved back to Reykjavik around 2000. Since then I’d only heard from her once, a phone call in which she described hooking up with a rock star that she couldn't name but was a household name internationally. It was all very exciting for her and sort of depressing to watch. We gossiped about the epic motorcycle accident in Italy of a mutual acquaintance and lost touch. It was a small city, even with a confusing lack of surnames there couldn't be more than 20 Madia's in the phonebook and why not try them all?

Instead I found an adorable tearoom, experienced my first sudden Icelandic hailstorm, the delicate protocols of the Reykjavik hot pots and waited to 2pm. My fellow alumni surprised me with a car ride the several blocks to the apartment, which was a considerable upgrade from what I'd actually paid for. It was the brand new apartment designed to house five significantly more affluent individuals than myself. First there was a vintage armchair placed artfully under a skylight with custom upholstery that had a repeat motif of either a clown or Barack Obama, the detail of the weave made it impossible to distinguish which. On either side a massive coat closet (no hangers) and a beautifully tiled bathroom with a huge oval shaped bathtub sculpted to look like a vase. Wandering through the great expanse, heated to a perfect level of comfort, I began to feel a kind of elation that my efforts had lead me here. Two bedrooms, both luxury foam mattresses, one with a patio overlooking the harbor and classic Icelandic architecture. The massive front room was a modern studio with white leather sofa, fake velvet deer heads arranged in a row, awesome new kitchen appliances far more space age than anything I'd seen in real life. I slowly sat in each room, looking over each piece of wall or tile and considered that everything had to have been imported by boat from the harbor, driven over here and installed with precision by the same generation of Polish immigrants who artlessly slapped together countless condos in NYC. What a difference a culture makes.


My second day the time difference and massive clock failure between various laptops, clocks, cell phones and other devices left me late and pissed about having missed the city tour I'd arranged in advance. Having already mastered the DIY stumbling around, I figured it couldn't hurt to do the tour with the idea of saving time and increasing the likelihood that I'd learn more than the aesthetic composition of buildings in general. Alas. The second half of the day I managed to be picked up in time for the "Golden Circle Tour." And if ever there was a non-stop whirlwind of must see sights made way awesome for the gentle voice over by sing-sing Icelandic English, this is it. Everything was amazing, but more so because of the variability and violence of the nature that is more than a backdrop, but a participant in the history and experience of Iceland. It started snowing and I was amazed to see the buss plowing through the massive snow like a modern Valkyrie, which has been almost uncomfortably captured by the Iceland Expeditions flash ad.