Over the holidays Christian and I spent 3 weeks abroad. Before leaving for the trip I had to make the heartbreaking and life altering decision many millennials face in their lifetime; I left my computer at home. Unplugged and lonely, my 2.03lbs shiny gold internet box silently served its time in solitude. Being away from my MacBook gave me the chance to live life unattached to a world of strangers, to enjoy the moment free from distractions, and for three weeks reminded me what’s most important in life, my blog. I’m back! And I’ve got more one-liners than ever before!
As some of you may have read on the front page of People Magazine… I mean my personal Facebook account… Christian and I made a spontaneous decision. Because we like earning money and because we collectively have the attention span of a high functioning Black Moore Goldfish, we’ve decided to leave our home of 7 months and head to another island. It’s called Manhattan. But before you throw this blog off your radar, before it becomes another high sprung spec of static in the white noise that is white girl New York blogs, I have a couple weeks left on a European island and a few more things to say about it. This week? I’m talking about what it’s been like to date Iceland.
This courtship has been short, sweet, and to the point. Iceland and I have been on one perilously awkward first date after another. It’s true that Iceland and I have had our moments together. At best, she is the exotic dancer/finance major you reconnected with 5 years after high school. She is lively, surprising, and simply the most beautiful thing on two legs (or rather, 18 million years of volcanic lava and moss). At her worst, Iceland is the bro-dude you met at a Mets game your father made you attend, who insists on your first date being a movie called, “Gnarly Scars and Babe Warriors” which you see with him because he shares your political views, but neither of you laugh in the same places. Iceland is, to quote the Goddess of relatable life quotes, Elizabeth Lemon, your “settling soulmate.”
We spent the late summer driving the coast of the island. We were entranced by black sand beaches and came upon waterfalls as often as you’d hit a Kum N’ Go during a road trip in the Midwest. We scaled basalt columns and took selfies with volcanoes. We stayed up as late as the sun and couldn’t wait for the winter, when we knew the aurora would make up for the lack of vitamin C-mainly in awesomeness-we still have to take a bunch major load of vitamin C. Because eventually, the winter did come. With the aurora came freezing rain, police-enforced house arrest level windstorms, and Christmas-tree sized icicles that literally impale people over the holidays. In the winter, Iceland becomes the super hot and super (in the words of my Ukrainian friend, Olya) “bed sheet crazy” love.
You have to work for Iceland’s love in the winter. You must cover her in expensive salts, to melt the ice so you do not fall and break your back. You must be willing to endure her wild fits of rage and the intense solitude you experience when the weather is so bad you stay inside. Forcing yourself into the nature-based silent treatment. But it’s all worth it. Because on freezing nights when you wear six scarves on your neck, legs, and arms to go get groceries, you can look up and see those incredible lights and look down and see snow that sparkles like diamonds. But whatever you do, don’t look straight ahead, if you do the wind will knock your glasses off and pelt you with sharp snow.
Socially, Iceland and I simply don’t get each other. I respect, and wish I could better connect with, the slow and comfortable pace in Icelandic life. Where things will get done when they get done, work is just work, and play is more important. If you want to spend a few hours simply sitting and making a scarf, go for it. I tried that one. The relaxation scarf making. I ended up assigning myself the job of making 18 scarves with a steep deadline. By the time I was done I had burns on my fingers and a creak in my wrist from the constant non-stop knitting work. I think I did it wrong.
The biggest difference Chris and I have seen in Icelandic life is at the movie theater. For one, you never walk into a theater and look for the easiest escape in a shooting. But you also never get an audience so jazzed about a premier that they clap at the beginning and laugh out loud in the theater. It was during one of these date nights that I knew I wanted to write about dating Iceland. Because as Christian and I went to our first movie here we laughed, loudly, in all the wrong places. We were not understood by our fellow movie-goers. When we saw Star Wars (a day before America at the Icelandic premier-which we bought tickets for THAT DAY), with tears of joy streaming down our face as the yellow words displayed the story we were about to be shown, the almost-but-not-totally filled room was silent. In fact, the only moment in the entire movie when we heard the crowd laugh aloud was when Chewie complained about the cold. Iceland gets cold, but they don’t get movies.
All this being said, I might be in an unrealistic, at times abusive relationship, but I sure don’t want to get out of it. The promise of jobs and 24 hour Chinese take out may have swayed us to move back to the states. But we’ll be back to visit soon. Until then we’ll be dreaming about a life where we ate lunch on a cliff at an abandoned lagoon. Where we happened upon a 3 mile deep cave while driving to a fish drying farm. Where we see houses, constantly, the size of a dog house where the Hundefolk live. We have loved living in a place where the government protects moss covered rocks because it is thought to be a church of the elves. Or really, simply, because it is beautiful. We’ve loved living where New Years lasts a month because so many fireworks were purchased there were not enough hours in the day to use them. Where the landscape is so unique movies use it to represent other worlds. We love it here. We will miss it. And we will be back very soon. (I’ll probably bring my computer along on that trip though).
