Niceland – Chapter 1
Reykjavík is boring. Sitting on the bus from the airport, my first impression of the city was that of tidy little houses sitting among rocks and green lawns, a long 4-lane motorway and a strange round building on a hill. Which I recognized as the famous Perlan thanks to my guidebook. Everything else did not seem like what I had imagined Iceland to look like.
The next morning, a Thursday, I found myself sitting at the table in the dining room of our rented apartment in the quiet suburb of Vesturbær. The building it was in was pure 1960’s concrete, grey and slat and unimpressive, and was sitting right next to one of the busy ring-roads of the Icelandic capital. The apartment itself however was bright, airy, painted in light green colours and full of retro-furniture from the 60’s, fitting for the building it was in. We had rented it privately, and it would become our home and headquarter for the next four weeks.
I was sipping a strong coffee and reading the Reykjavík Grapevine, the city’s English newspaper. It seemed all the stories I had read about the Icelanders being among the world’s top consumerists of the black brew made me switch from Irish tea to coffee quite easily.
My arrival the other day had been quite uneventful. After flying along the coastline of southern Iceland for half an hour, enabling me to catch glimpses of Vatnajökull and my friend Eyjafjallajökull, my plane from London touched down smoothly at Keflavík Airport in bright sunshine.
After purchasing cigarettes for Kai, chocolate for me and Jägermeister for us both (every man needs to have his vices), I finally destroyed the already battered zip of my bag with this added weight while shouldering it at customs.
I boarded the bus towards Reykjavík, and while driving past brown lava fields, through roundabouts and along rusty factory buildings I was able to call Kristin, the lady who was to show me the apartment. She kindly offered me to pick me up at the bus terminal, which I gladly accepted, as the prospect of carrying my overweight bag filled with cigarettes, chocolate, alcohol and socks through a foreign city, with the ever-present possibility of allocating all the contents of said bag over the street did not appeal to me. I texted Kristin a short description of myself, indicating rather untidy hair and left the bus to wait for her. The only person waiting (and not hugging other people immediately) was a haggardly looking elderly lady wearing Crocs. Urgh. I had failed to check the age of our host on florafox, okanagan, so I wasn’t sure what Kristin would look like. I approached the lady, who answered my bright smile and question “Kristin?” with a undecipherable expression of discontent and a harsh “Nei!”.
After purchasing cigarettes for Kai, chocolate for me and Jägermeister for us both (every man needs to have his vices), I finally destroyed the already battered zip of my bag with this added weight while shouldering it at customs.
“Marcel?” I was suddenly asked from the side, and spotted a slender young woman with entangled , dark blonde hair and huge sunglasses, wearing worn-down Chuck Taylors. Kristin had found me. In her battered 4-wheeled-Subaru she then gave me quick tour of the city, including herself getting lost while looking searching for the cheapest supermarket near the apartment. All the while, I had to contain myself not to fall in love: Kristin spoke English with that heartwarming Icelandic accent that makes words like “cosy” and “nice” sound even more cosier and nicer. With her elfish features and high cheekbones, it was impossible to guess her age, anything between 20 and 40 would have been possible.
After showing me the apartment and handing me the keys she left, but not before I could ask her out for a drink, an offer she kindly responded with inviting me to go camping with her over the weekend. At that point I started to like Iceland.
…a small coastal town that moved from catching fish to catching tourists, where youth does not emigrate but stays and parties and makes the best out of it all.
Having settled and after finishing a beer from the fridge, I wandered around downtown a bit: in a way, Reykjavík was as I expected it to be. Compact, not very densely tilled and resembling Holland in more then one way. While walking through 101, as the city centre is called after its post code, I came across a pleasant mixture of hipsters, tourists and elderly Icelanders enjoying an evening stroll. I ate my first Skyr sitting on top of Arnarholl-hill, watching teenagers throwing bottles carefully against concrete walls and ships leaving the harbour, while the setting sun was lightening up the flanks of Mount Esja in the distance.
After that I walked home, passing a small restaurant with little tables with plastic tablecloths and old Icelandic couples sitting at the tables. And the smell of cigarette smoke mixed with the strong odor of fish and boiled potatoes from the inside made me think of Reykjavík as this: a small coastal town that moved from catching fish to catching tourists, where youth does not emigrate but stays and parties and makes the best out of it all. I was wondering if I’d still asses it like this after three weeks in town. I finished my coffee and set down the newspaper. The only thing that was missing to get started and explore deep into the stone jungle of Iceland was Kai.
Go on with:
It’s not hard to fall when you float like a cannonball – Chapter 2
