Day 2: Reykjavik

Day 1: Keflavík, Grindavík, and Blue Lagoon

Keflavík and Grindavík

We arrived at the airport in Keflavik, an area that from 1951-2006 also housed an American military base.

The land around us was flat and open, like being in the American Southwest; you can see to the mountains at the horizon. Buildings, usually only one-story high, barely interrupt it. The landscape was more covered by rocks than plants. Occasional groves of stunted pine trees were the only plants taller than ankle-height. No wonder Iceland isn’t known for any vegetable dishes, we realized, it barely has vegetation.

Fishing Town’s Café

We landed in early morning – 7am. According to my guide book, nothing in Iceland seemed to be open before 10am.  A short drive through Keflavik’s deserted streets confirmed it. It may just have been that everyone was off fishing.

Eventually we found signs of life at Café Bryggjan in nearby Grindavík, a small cod fishing town whose members have lived here for generations. The café was by two brothers, one of whom was extremely friendly and gave us advice on our visit.

We bought coffee and got our first Icelandic food. I tried a slice of a sort of 3-layer pancake sandwich. In between layers was a cream sauce mixed with capers and ham bits. Pretty good. It being a fishing town, lox salmon was also offered, and we tried skyr, which is one of those stereotypical Icelandic foods. It tastes just like non-tangy Greek yogurt and in addition to the typical flavors, comes pear and melon.  (IceNews claims the difference is Skyr is in fact thicker and slightly more protein-packed than Greek yogurt. It also seems to be fewer calories/quantity).

Iceland, the owner told us, is full of tourists. If you want somewhere non-touristy, try “a school. Or grocery store”. This café, tucked away as it was and popular with fishermen before they set off to work,

According to my 2010-edition guide book, though Iceland continues commercial whaling, they do it more out of a sense of tradition, national pride, and nostalgia than practicality, as only 1.1% of Icelanders eat whale on a regular basis. This seems out of date. The owner said it’s whale season now and advised us to buy some of the popular humpback whale in the grocery stores. Fin whale is also hunted, but exported (I have no idea where to).

Blue Lagoon

One of those places you have to go if you’re an Icelandic tourist, Blue Lagoon is an expansive hot lake/spa nestled between tall mounds of black lava rock. It’s a great place for people who have ever been cold and want to forget what that feels like. The lagoon is fed by a geothermal spring and water ranges from pleasantly warm to if-I-wade-in-any-further-this-will-scald-my-skin-off. Right by the pipes, it’s almost unbearably hot, as water pours in close to boiling temperature. Clouds of steam pour off the source and float down the lake, dragging with them the eggy smell of sulfur. When you’re close enough, steam washes over you, blinding you with white. The water itself is a foggy white and if you drag up sand from the bottom, it’ll be shiny black grains or a silken gray-black clay. In many places the clay has plugged crannies in the lava rocks and formed smooth, rubbery white layers. The temperature’s cold enough for coats in Iceland, around low 40's (Fahrenheit), and we got a bit of hail today. Standing up out of the water was bracing, but refreshing. We were all feeling sleep deprived when we landed, and lazing about floating on the current was a great way to spend the afternoon. I also checked out the sauna. As I stepped inside, my limbs immediately felt heavy and I decided it would be an easy place to faint and die. I tried the steam bath next, basically a room filled with a hot steam cloud. It felt like being in a rain forest. Occasionally steam condensed on the roof and fall like a scattered hot rain.

One of the cool parts of Blue Lagoon is you get a waterproof wrist band and everything you buy (the spa also includes a bar, which is an interesting choice for people who are swimming . . .) is paid for by scanning your band. Very futuristic.

Traveler’s Tips

You can rent bathing suits, towels, bathrobes, etc. at Blue Lagoon but you’ll save if you have space in your luggage to bring your own.

Despite it’s reputation as a tourist hot spot, Blue Lagoon was not too crowded (at least not on a Tuesday morning).

I found out after the fact that while Blue Lagoon water is said to be great for your skin, but not your hair. Rumor has it that if you don't want your hair to come out matted and weird, put conditioner in it before entering the waters.

Day Two: Golan Heights

Ein a-Tina

We took a nature hike through one are of the Golan Height region, a park called Ein a-Tina. We waded through a river and up to an irrigation pipe. The farmers aren’t allowed to draw away all the spring’s water for their crops, so on random days they open the pipe’s extension and let water flow free to the surrounding plants. The tan reeds and scrub-like trees surrounding the river seemed perfect for lions and straight out of a religious painting. (Which is naïve of me to say, of course, as this is Israel, after all).  It was actually several days before I saw green grass.

 We were out here at the same time as many native Israelis were vacationing. Hassidic Jews waded into the water in full skirts and headscarves for women, pressed black pants and white button-downs for men. I’m told boys don’t cut their hair until they are three years old, and then they leave just the front curls untouched. If their hair grows straight, they twist it into curls.

Droze, a minority religious group, live in this area. They are very secretive and one can only read the holy book after converting. I wonder if anyone leaves after realizing what the beliefs they’d signed on to actually are.  

(Another very secretive group is a Jewish mysticism sect which only men who were over 40, married with kids, and very religious were allowed to read the holy book). 

Day One: kibbutz, Ceasarea, Baha'i Gardens

On the first day, we stopped by kibbutz, one of the community-run farms, for brunch. I’d read that the kibbutz had become so financially successful in Israel that it was starting to tear them apart: now that the communities brought in money enough for necessities and more, disagreements were arising over how to spend the surplus. If you don’t have much money, it’s easy to choose to spend it on food. If you have extra, it’s harder to decide buying stocks versus a new car versus anything else.

 I don’t know anything specific on how this kibbutz was run. It was a pretty site of low white buildings and greenery, but we met few Israelis. 

Next up was the amphitheater in Ceasarea (below photo),  once a notable Roman seaport.

Then to the Baha’i Gardens. At the time, I’m not sure we knew much about the place besides that it was holy, lush, and immaculately maintained.  This garden, I read in my guide book, was made to mark the tomb of a Baha’i spiritual leader.

Israel Birthright: Jew-ish

This trip is long overdue for a write up, and I’m afraid my memories are a bit jumbled. Still I’ve got my notes, so let’s see what I can spin from a ten days in Israel last August . . .

Jew-ish

I told a classmate that I only celebrate a secular version of Hanukkah, and that’s only when my family remembers.

“That’s not so bad,” he said, “Hanukkah’s not a very important holiday.”

What I’d meant was that was the only Jewish thing I did.

Thanks to my half Russian Jew ancestry, I qualified to go on the birthright trip with a close college friend. The night before our flight, we used an ironing board to barricade the door of our slightly seedy hotel, located in the middle of a sea of concrete that is now my only image of Newark, New Jersey.

Up until I was seated on the plane to Israel, I was afraid that someone would call me out as a fake Jew and kick me to the street. Certainly, it was intimidating. The Israel Outdoors phone interview was followed up by a close questioning at the airport. Both coming and going, Israel security quizzed us on topics ranging from if we had friends in Palestine, to what our grandfathers’ names were (“Buell”, apparently, was innocuous enough). I was relieved to find a baptized and communioned girl on my trip: finally, someone more tenuously Jewish than me.

Rumors abound about the birthright trips, and I entered expecting the whole thing to be a grand (and very generous) recruitment effort to convert me to active Judaism and to putting down roots in Israel. I’d even heard that the trips paired each of us up with an opposite gender soldier, in an attempt to seduce us into staying (Myth: busted). My mindset was, “Israel, thank you so much for this trip! Also, you don’t own me!”

Traveler’s Tips

My guide book for this time was Insight Guide’s Israel. This one's particularly great in the photos arena,  and some nice cultural info. It's drawback is that it occasionally tries a little too hard to put a positive spin on all aspects of Israel. 

Iceland: Before I Go, Part 4/4: History Time

History in Brief

Size and Population Today

Iceland is 39,756 sq. miles, about as big as England, with .006% as many people. Or in American terms, that's 4 times the size of Massachusetts and with one-fifth of the people.  Most people live on the coast as the interior highland is uninhabitable, consisting largely of glaciers, lakes, lava, and sand.

First Settlement

Iceland is thought to have been briefly settled by Irish Monks, who then no doubt realized the country was trying to kill them, and moved on. Norse came over and permanently settled down, forming several chiefdoms that eventually were united under the what is the world’s oldest parliament.

Vikings

In early America, restless, landless young men dealt with being restless, landless young men by going west and conquering the frontier and mining for gold. In Iceland, they became Vikings. Taking advantage of new, faster ships, they raided monasteries along Britain’s coasts, before venturing as far as the Middle East and Russia. Raiding wasn’t unusual at the time; what was unusual was that the Vikings were so damn good at it.

Losing Independence

The chiefs decided, for the sake of unity, that they couldn’t be a part-pagan, part-Christian country and opted for Christianity. Around the 1200’s everything dissolved into battles between chiefs and Iceland saw a chance to restore order by accepting the Norwegian king’s rule. In the late 1300’s, Norway sold Iceland to Denmark, who imposes oppressive trading restrictions.

Regaining Independence

In 1918, Iceland became an independent state of Denmark, and move increasingly towards independence during World War 2 (in which it attempted to be neutral). In 1944, Iceland achieved official independent status, though that didn’t stop other countries from interfering in its international affairs. Britain and America occupied Iceland during WWII, and the USA would return to occupy a military base there during the Cold War.

Today

2008 marked Iceland’s major banking collapse and financial crisis. Iceland is currently trying to become part of the EU.

Iceland: Before I Go, Part 3/4: Why Iceland?

So why Iceland?

Beauty

Most of all, Iceland’s beautiful. Everyone cites the waterfalls, the glaciers, the hot springs and geysers, the lava formations and volcanoes*. It’s been a hot spot for filming movies, too. If you’re outdoorsy, Iceland sounds like a great place to go.

* Some of the volcanoes are still active. Because beautiful beautiful Iceland still wants to kill us.

Music

Iceland’s known for music, which is unexpected given that instruments were something of a luxury for much of Iceland’s history, as the people were preoccupied with not starving/freezing/smothering-under-ash to death. What people did do, though, was sign, and in the 1900’s rock hit it off in Iceland. There seems to be a whole lot of energy and diversity pouring into the music scene now.

Thanks to its relative isolation from Europe, Iceland has retained a lot of tradition, including centuries-old singing styles and a written/spoken language that’s so similar to Old Norse, Icelanders can read sagas in the original language.

Elves

Iceland has rich stories about all kinds of fairy folk, including ghosts who age and islands dotted by the forms of petrified trolls. Many Icelanders truly believe that elves and faeries exist and there are plenty of stories of construction companies having to re-plan their road building in order not to disrupt an elf house and anger the occupants. (If you do mess with an elf’s dwelling, expect accidents and setbacks).