And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Currently, I am in the back of a car with two people we've never met. There is this website called BlaBla Car throughout Europe that creates space for rideshares across countries. Pretty great. Saves money, time, and provides refuge from all the trains and planes we've been in.
We are on our way to Italy, the 5th country of our escapades. Needless to say, I fully intend on gorging myself with gourmet pizza and cheap wine on every street corner. We've been in Europe now for a month... Or more, or less, or something along those lines. I have no sense of direction or time out here.
I want to write about our travels from beginning to end. Instead of heading full blown into a ten page post, I'll take it one bit at a time. So... ICELAND.
We had our first day ((of many to follow)) of struggling to communicate, feeling like total idiots, and realizing ((once again)) how biased, elementary, and discriminatory United States schooling is. Why Americans think the only language necessary to speak is English, I do not know. Most of the people we have met out here speak not 2, but 3 and 4+ languages......... Not ONE ((and a half for Elle's Spanish. Hehe.))
Anyhow, we found a cheap bus from the airport to a bus station, where our "rental car" was waiting.
Well... We found the car on Airbnb for $50 bones a day, no ridiculous insurance fees, no multiple driver fees, no checking into our driving records. What could be better?! Just a random kid renting out his little VW for traveling broke people, like us!
He told us he would just leave the car at the station and to have fun! We, ((lacking forward thinking, once again,)) didn't think of the fact that we had only seen one photo of the car, that 90% of cars in Iceland are Volkswagens, and that we would be standing, looking as touristy as possible, at 6 AM in the freezing Iceland air, lost in a sea of hundreds of cars... That all looked the same. How we found our ride, I do not know.
Laughing out loud, we started walking around. We thought we remembered it being gold......... And, sure enough, parked extremely illegally, was a beat up, gold VW waiting patiently. Windshield ice covered and looking like heaven, just for us. We decided to try the door and yep, the keys were under the mat with a long, blue fuzzy tail attached. Hell yeah!
Throwing our stuff in the back and snapping some embarrassing GoPro photos, we hopped in. Rumbling engine with broken exhaust, we puffed our way out of the station and began exploring.
Hey! What can I say, I learned to drive in Utah. Iceland drivers are about the same as Utah drivers... They suck ;)
Pulling loudly up to our Airbnb, we saw our adorable host, Reynir, poking his head up over the fence. Watching us wearily with wide eyes as we park nearly on the curb, clumsily drag our backpacks out of the car and yell "Hi!" Waving to him. I think we may have woken up the entire neighborhood....
We grew on Reynir. He tried to teach us Icelandic and........ I sounded like a 1 year old trying to learn to speak. When I told him "my tongue just doesn't move that way!" He laughed and basically looked at me like, "yeah... You should just stop trying. Right now."
Reynir was an amazing host. He had another foreign exchange student living with him, and the house was IMMACULATELY clean. I mean... As clean as my Grandmother's home ((and that's hard to beat.))
We had a fantastic few nights in Reykjavik. Drove all up and down the West Coast of Iceland, saw breathtaking views and scenery, jumping out of the car to take photos, only to ((quite literally,)) be blown back into the car by the insane Icelandic wind. We went into the city every night, met other travelers, ate Reindeer, and lamb, and burgers with buns black from Octopus Ink ((my one sin, I know.)) We marveled at the MASSIVE freaking fish in backs of trucks near the oceans, and found a super dark, sort of ratty, totally our atmosphere hostel to kick it at night in. We jammed out in our VW to music from our phones, as apparently Iceland radio plays the same crap that's played on American radios??
Iceland was celebrating the anniversary of women fighting for and scoring the right to vote, which was awesome. We went to the gallery and gazed into the photographed faces of so many strong women.
Our Airbnb had a communal pool all geothermal heated. Needless to say, we soaked under the Icelandic starry night sky surrounded by naturally warm water.
... On our second to last day, we awoke ((early to cram driving up and down the coast in.)) Well... I suppose "early" is a relative term... Reynir wouldn't call it early. He thought we were as lazy as could be, sleeping in every day haha. Each morning as we would stumble half awake out of bed in our boxers searching for coffee, he would look at us, look down at his watch, and look at us again. One eyebrow raised that said it all without saying a word.
Anyway!! One morning, we backed the car out and began driving, only to realize... We had a flat. Ughhhhhh.
The conversation went pretty much like this... We looked at each other and knew the worst was true. "Do you know how to change a flat?" "No...." "Shiiiiiiiz. Me either." Laughing at ourselves for propelling the STUPID stereotype that women don't know how to change tires, we trudged back home to call Reynir from the wifi.
He walked in about 30 minutes later, "So, two helpless women, eh?" If I didn't find him so endearing I would have slapped him across the face. But Reynir was amazing, and we laughed at the truthfulness of it all, both knowing 100% that we would never again need help to change a tire.
He showed us the tricks (that weren't at all tricks and were quite obvious actually once we saw it done...) all 3 of us got down and dirty, lots of grease and a few easy steps later, we had a new tire. He went with us to buy a new spare, as we were going to be driving up and down the coast and, now we knew what to do if we got another one! Trusting that Vigmer, our car guy, would reimburse us, we forked out the cash and got on our way.
Being the ridiculous tourists we are, we stopped off the side of the road probably hundreds of times to take photos of sheep, adorable Icelandic horses, rolling green hills, and waterfalls galore. Iceland was absolutely breathtaking. It reminded me so much of New Zealand, and made me miss my travels there immensely.
We found a little organic farm off some back side road on our journey, and met the sweetest woman who gave us tomatoes and peppers and had pet pigs. When we went to look at the pigs, they came running, sloshing through mud and manure and were snorting up at us, begging for food. They remind me of my dogs.
We didn't get to see the Northern Lights, which was a bummer. We also would have loved to see the massive glacier in the SouthEast of Iceland, but unfortunately, a few days in each country isn't enough to see the whole of the landscape.
All in all, we loved Iceland. Our flights were unbelievably inexpensive out there, and I totally recommend going. Bring a windbreaker!