Iceland: Our thoughts

After being back for a couple days and telling our stories to our friends and coworkers, both of us have boiled down what our impressions of the trip and of what we thought of Iceland.

Iceland is full of wonderful natural sights. We had gone there expecting to almost be tripping over things to see, such as waterfalls, geysers, caves, volcanoes, glaciers, lava, and hot springs. We were to some degree, especially in the western peninsula. I have to recommend going there just to see the otherworldly geology and unbelievably dramatic landscapes. Many of the views could have been out of Lord of the Rings.

Unfortunately, we were also tripping over other tourists. Our hope had been that the island would still be an unknown destination, but it is absolutely true that Iceland's tourism industry has exploded the last few years. Over half of the fellow travelers on our flight to Reykjavik were young backpackers. The south coast had been very busy and many of the cars on the road had been tourists. Reykjavik had been positively crawling with them, and it isn't even their high season yet; I cannot imagine how swamped it is in mid-summer. It was also harder to pin down any sort of character that Reykjavik had, because all we could see were tourists and tourist traps. This is just a fact of the matter at present, but we couldn't help but be disappointed in not having more to ourselves.

One of my favorite aspects of traveling is being around completely new people and ways of life. Both of us found Icelanders to be hesitant to engage tourists, and tended to stick to themselves. When asking a question, I wasn't called stupid, but the Icelanders' tones rather suggested it. These two traits came off as abrasive, whether it was truly the case or not. There are a thousand reasons this could be, such as the people's views on tourism, my questions legitimately being stupid, or the particular person's day. This was just a first impression after only being there a week, but I wasn't as endeared to Icelandic culture because of this and don't have much desire to go back. This is not the case for any of the other countries I've been to, including places I've had much tougher times.

We only came across one Icelander who spoke no English. Most others spoke very good English, even better than their Icelandic or so they claimed. We heard many languages there, which is always fascinating. A good portion of the tourists were Americans, but most countries in western Europe were also represented, along with several Asian countries.

Farming is very common there. I saw no row crops, likely due to the short season. They cut a lot of grass for forage, the lion's share of it being silaged. I expected to see lots of sheep, and did see a few small bands; cattle were sparse, and horses were everywhere. Horse rental to tourists is very common, but I can't imagine a few tourists a day would warrant the fifty head herds we often saw. Horse slaughter is legal in Iceland, and it is even served in restaurants, so I suspect some may be raised for meat, though I cannot confirm this. I wanted to try it, but was unable to find it in my few searches.

After arriving, we needed a hot breakfast to travel on, but learned another reality quickly: Iceland is expensive. A not fancy or particularly good breakfast with coffee cost us $35, and blanched us a bit. We stopped at a grocery store in Selfoss and stocked up on sandwich supplies, yogurt and granola for breakfasts, and other snacks to make meals more reasonable and to allow for some flexibility if we were hungry between stops. We got into a groove after a meal or two, but couldn't help but feel a little like I was letting my new wife down by taking her on a honeymoon but only buying her sandwiches.

We didn't eat out a lot, but we found that, hold tight with me here, Iceland's hotdogs are quite good and they are proud of them. It sounds like an oxymoron, but fancy hotdogs are easy to find in both gas stations and out of food trucks.

Iceland produces quality dairy products, especially yogurt. We started most days with a Skyr yogurt with granola mixed in. One can be fooled though: at breakfast at our first hotel, I spooned myself a bowlful of what I thought was yogurt, but turned out to be buttermilk. I was very close to being turned off Icelandic yogurt had Sarah not read the sign and informed me after I'd tried it.

Iceland has a small beer industry, and what they make is respectable. We didn't explore this thoroughly, but we both had Viking, Gull, Kaldi, and Tuborg varieties, and were generally satisfied.

Our last dinner there, we decided to have a good, hearty, Icelandic meal to end the trip on. At a cafe by our hotel, overlooking the harbor and the north Atlantic, we were lost in Icelandic lobster, shrimp, scallops, and mussels to start, Sarah had a substantial fish called Place, and I had Minke whale, because I could. All were delicious. The whale was a red meat, and had I not known it what it was, I'd have guessed it was lamb.

I enjoyed the cars there. I recognized many European brands I'd seen on other travels, and like pointing out differences between the versions America gets compared to the rest of the world. The cars in Iceland are heavily European, but there were many American trucks there. I would suppose this is because of the need for farm use, and also for off-roading and driving on glaciers.

I had seriously considered renting a diesel Toyota Hilux, the version of the Toyota Tacoma that the rest of the world gets, because they are at the top of my favorite vehicles in the world. I am glad that we didn't in retrospect because they would not have offered a good backup sleeping option far from hotels, and they would have been thirstier in a country where diesel was $5.75 a gallon. Iceland was also curiously the only place in the world I've been where they have both Hiluxes and Tacomas. We both loved our little Dacia. It was comfortable, had plenty of room for our stuff, had a snappy little diesel, had four-wheel drive for the couple times we needed it, and had folding seats for room to sleep in it.

All this paints a rather mixed picture, but maybe that's the point, and a good lesson to learn on a honeymoon.
It's OK to be a pansy about camping in winds strong enough to blow a tent away.
There are people out there who aren't what you expect.
There are party crashers out there who show up without you inviting them.
There are people who mean well, but will crash your party anyway by doing the exact same thing you're doing.
Life is expensive if you aren't careful, but that's another critical line to toe: to be careful, but not cheap.
Pull off the road and take a look more often.
Feel lucky to be married to someone who is on the same page as you on every subject: someone that appreciates adventures, the unknown, experiences over things, and finding situations you never expected and will likely never see again. We both knew this wasn't going to be a pre-planned, doze on the beach, all-smooth sort of trip, that's exactly what we wanted and got, and we were happy to have each other.