Almost Iceland

I had just shut down my emails with my professional mentor/friend of over 50 years. We'd been sharing information about his 90th birthday celebration trip to Iceland.

Within seconds, a picture of Iceland flashed on my screen from my rotating screen savers, bringing a cascade of memories. It was the first time in over two years, an Iceland photo had appeared there.

In my early 30s, I'd seen how Iceland needed fish packers. Crime was almost non-existent. They were a country of readers. The salary was high, the expenses low. I thought I could do it for six months, maybe a year, save my money then go to Paris and write living off my savings.

I went to https://www.schoenhofs.com/ then in Harvard Square and now on line to pick up learn-Icelandic books. Having loved my linguistic courses in uni, I was fascinated by its structure and history. 

Life interfered. I stayed in Boston. My fascination went underground.

Fast forward to the mid 2000s. I was retired and living in Geneva, Switzerland. Now was the time to visit Iceland. My housemate asked if she could go. Of course.

Tour or no Tour

We decided, if we went on a tour, we would be less apt to miss something. If we disliked our fellow tourists, we said we could gossip about them at night when we were alone. 

The people on the tour were lovely. Our guide a buxom (very) blond was beyond informative. Her humor added to her commentary. Even better, her French was easy to understand, not always the case with a second language. We'd have missed so much, had we done the trip on our own.

Sights and Sounds

Nothing had prepared us for the variety of landscapes. From waterfalls, geysers, fields, flowers, rocky landscapes, to an area that was so like the moon, the U.S. used it to train astronauts, I was mesmerized. I learned about cairns, saw puffins and black sandy beaches. I was told when a horse leaves Iceland, it can't come back. 

The Unexpected 

 

Standing in the field where the Althing (Parliament) has existed since 930s put my imagination in overdrive. I could "see" blond Viking type men and women run by me and sit on the nearby rocks as they made their laws.. 

We took a boat to an iceberg, with it's soft blue/white color. The captain broke off small pieces for us to eat. Never on any bucket list had I written, Eat An Iceberg, but it was a thrill. It more than made up for the normal Icelandic food, which was good but limited. I missed the wide selection of fruits and vegetables I was used to. I didn't expect to be offered the cod liver oil at breakfast I was, which I declined. A spoonful had been forced down me when I was little every day. I didn't need any as an adult.

We saw a number of museums. A never knew there was a penis museum, still family owned.  

We saw Höföi House where Gorbachev and Reagan held a summit in 1986. 

There were other museums and displays giving a feel of what life must have been like in the past as well as the culture. 

Sagas 

My biggest thrill was the Saga Museum, where old Icelandic poems written between 1200 and the end of the 14th century, were preserved in a darkened room to protect them. 

That day, I was lucky enough to be alone with the Sagas. The others in the tour went to the spa or watched the Gay Pride Parade. My imagination, once again overtook me as I imagined the people who wrote them. I "saw" them as they were dressed, the writing implements they used. I could almost taste the fish they had eaten for lunch. 

In a way, the Sagas were the social media of their time, with parchment not the internet the transmission form of events.  

I wonder every now and then had I been hired to pack fish and then gone to Paris, what my life would have been like. How it enfolded with my move to Europe, the development of my writing, the people I have met, the other places I've gone have been more than I could have dreamed of. And on top of it all, I got to Iceland, too. 

Notes: Check out https://dlnelsonwriter.com  An Icelandic tradition my husband and I and my daughter when she is with us has adopted on Christmas Eve we give books and then go to bed and read them.