Naked in Public, and Other Thoughts

There have been a great many things to consider, lately. Heading soon into my eighth month living in Iceland, this has kind of become my life now and my home now and there is this huge, massive chasm between being on holiday here and having a kennitala and a legal address in 101 RVK. And the fact that I have over a year left leaves a sweet taste in my mouth as I wonder what kind of person I'll be if, when I'm ready to move on. 

So until then, here's my seven month summary of life in everybody's favorite (sub)arctic island.

...thinking very important expatriate thoughts in my natural habitat

1. I can't eat "American" food anymore.

Like, I know that we have prime access to perfectly healthy foods in the US (outside of food deserts) so calm down. This is not about that.

Andi came to Iceland and brought me a gigantic bag of M&Ms (which I will never not be able to eat) but she also brought 5 delicious boxes of Kraft Mac n' Cheese. Swoon. 

I know that this is only "food" by the loosest of standards, but everybody loves a good box of mac every so often. As down-home delightful as those cheesy noodles were, though, they just like...sat in my tummy like a rock. And didn't really go away. And I've been eating plastic carbs all week and now I'm bloaty and sore. 

Not surprised, but it means that my body has changed.

For the better, obviously.

Like, my tolerance for fillers and pseudofood and other such junk has drastically declined, and I'm not mad about it, but I am kind of surprised. I don't eat less chocolate or ice cream or hot dogs (arguably way more hot dogs, I mean, come on) or snacks than usual, but they must be...different somehow.

I am, though, sad about the dwindling likelihood that I can once again dominate the world when I'm back in the States this August and inevitably end up at Asian Buffet with my dad. I'll have to train for weeks. 

Oh well. I guess I'm not that upset. 

2. I am still not used to living in a peaceful country and everyone is over it.

Every time I bring this up with an American, they get it. Every time I bring this up with a Nordic person, they do not. Why must I always expect tragedy such that when tragedy befalls, I think I'm ready? For what do I think I'm preparing? Why don't I just calm down? Nobody needs my frantic alertness or my surplus of compassion. Well, nobody besides myself. But I'd rather give it to somebody else. And everybody else is pretty much fine, and pretty much over my more-bloody-than-rosy worldview.

Especially my friends whom I am constantly watching, like, text me when you get home.

Text me when you get home.

Text. Me. When. You. Get. Home.

Hey, instead of not texting me when you get home, you could try texting me when you get home.

Otherwise I will assume that you're dead, and will prepare myself to search for your body in the swamp. And the thing is, I really don't think that it's all that paranoid to think so.

Well, maybe in Reykjavík. But it only takes one second of becoming complacent, dropping your guard, putting weak faith in the presumed security of a given location for that security to go away. You will never, ever, ever convince me otherwise. 

So, yeah. I know you can walk home by your own damn self like a grown-ass adult, but you are also grown enough to text me when you get home.

3. I have been naked in public a lot, and I kind of love it.

Not in the ~feminist utopia~ sense that a lot of you probably picture Iceland to be (it isn't.) But because an enormous part of Icelandic culture is deeply rooted in access to geothermal hot pots, visiting public pools is essential. And to have public pools that aren't full of hot grimy wastewater, you have to clean yourself before entering. And to clean yourself well, you can't be wearing anything while you do it.

Simple, really.

Although it's pretty blatantly obvious when you think about it, I hadn't truly internalized the depth to which the United States sexualizes bodies from an incredibly young age. Like, why? Stop doing that, pervy grease-ball United States. Stop it. It's unnecessary. And it leads to all sorts of problems and abuse and shame and then everybody acts all surprised when actually, the root of the problem has been right in front of our noses since the days we were born.

Since nudity is not a big deal in Iceland, and really it's just about keeping public pools clean enough to use, bodies are not overtly sexualized here. That has been refreshing for me, and very body positive. Sex is actually kind of an interesting topic here; sometimes it's casual and sometimes it's extremely exclusive. Starting a family at a relatively young age is pretty commonplace, and the entire structure of the way this country is run centers on access to childcare and work day/school day flexibility to make sure the kids are picked up on time. Family is important here; everyone is pretty much related anyway, so it's easy to see why that is!

4. Graduate school has been easier than high school and it's really weird.

Last time I was in graduate school, I worked incredibly hard and felt awful about myself. Currently in graduate school, the amount of effort necessary to get by is essentially zero, and I feel like a queen.

I like this, and I don't.

I like it because I'm in virtually no danger of burning out and have a solid support system here, but I don't like it because when things do not meet a certain threshold of challenge, I lose interest and fail to absorb or learn or excel.

Luckily, this is graduate school, not high school. I have the opportunity to take charge of at least half of my degree, the half that involves my research project. In this half, I can truly grow and learn and self-lead. 

See, I like it when I can see growth, and I can. So I'm holding on to that for now, and working on accepting the fact that this is what a non-hostile work environment, more or less, looks like. Note that I am not meaning to confuse a non-hostile work environment with administrative competency, but that, as they say, is a horse of a different color. 

There is enormous room for improvement anywhere, but I think I can figure out how to come out on top here. And that's incredible, for grad school. 

5. The extraordinary has become my new ordinary, and I'm trying not to let it ruin me.

Yes, geothermal rivers in the middle of rolling basaltic hills are an hour's drive away. Yes, I can go glacier hiking if I want to. Yes, my everyday mountainous view from Reykjavík is spectacular. Yes, the northern lights here are tricolor undulations that will knock you straight to your knees.

This place is so full of natural wonders it's incredible that the entire island isn't a federally protected park. 

I mean, besides the fact that we kind of need some of those natural wonders to heat our homes, but ya know. Take the good with the bad; the free heat with the sulphur smell and the impending threat of volcanic eruption and glacial flooding. 

Reykjavík is one of my favorite places ever, but it tends to close in on a person. The darkness does, too, so I'm glad that we're nearing midnight-sun season! It's so important to get out of town as often as the opportunities arise, because once you do, you can find the most amazing things! I hope I never grow out of my sense of wonder, even if I've seen Gullfoss for the millionth time or the continental fissures and moss-covered lava fields for the zillionth. 

I'm just going to let it amaze me every time. Even if there is a perfectly valid explanation for that volcanic crater being right there, or that hot spring. I still think it's the cat's pajamas and I always, always will.

So, come visit me. Visit me so that I can show you these things and experience them all over again. Visit me so that I can tell you about all of the strange things that come with living here; all the strange, wonderful, beautiful things. See it, feel it, taste it with me.

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Western Iceland

First of all, I don't hitchhike. 

Take me with you? Photo: Johanna Matjaz

That is, I didn't until this past weekend.

See, I'm American and we can't do these things. People in the USA think that I'm "crazy" or "reckless" for sleeping at rest stops, in my very own locked car, where there are often security personnel present. As a woman, I mean. Women are vulnerable and weak, am I right? We can't handle ourselves, right? (Note that the previous two sentences are obviously brought to you by my main sponsor Sarcasm™) Traveling by thumb is a death wish; picking up a hitchhiker an act of prime stupidity. In fact, I recently watched a (really bad) film about a killer glacier that makes Day After Tomorrow look like a thoroughly-researched documentary, and the most realistic scene included an armed and dangerous hitchhiker. I had absolutely no trouble believing this, and this was an extremely bad film described by one reviewer as "cinematic trash."

So anyway. I don't hitchhike, and I was nervous. And I one hundred percent expected to have to fight my way out of some kind of situation, but I figured I could rely on my pent-up rage and stress from the previous academic week and out-of-whack hormones to swing a fist or two if necessary.  

But I went anyway. I'm all about grace, and this was a travel-by-grace situation. 

The plan was to split up into pairs and hitchhike up to the Westfjords region of Iceland, beginning around 9AM on Saturday morning and then come back sometime on Sunday. 

I met up with my teammate Johanna and two other teams at the Ártún bus station, and hopped onto the countryside bus to Borgarnes. 

From Borgarnes, Johanna and I walked until we were outside of town then flagged down our first lift of the day! Our driver was a lovely Icelandic woman who was teaching through the university's Lifelong Learning Program in the next town. She told us all about how her teaching methods; how she teaches courses like Research Methodology, Creative Leadership, and Stress Management and how she enjoys learning together with her students. She told us about a nice hike around a volcanic crater, and dropped us off there before her lecture began.

We took the opportunity to enjoy a walk in the sunshine, stashed our packs in the neighboring lava field, and ate our lunch at the shallow summit of the volcano.

View of the Ring Road from the volcanic crater

View towards Borgarnes from the volcanic crater

Neighboring volcanic crater

View into the volcanic crater, plus surrounding formations

Johanna and I enjoy a midday lunch in the sunshine!

From there, we walked all the way to Route 60 where we were to veer north towards the Westfjords. On the way, we enjoyed some sunshine, snow, and Icelandic horses. It was quite a while before we found our second lift, but we were in high spirits because we hadn't seen sun like this in such a long time!

The stunning volcanic landscape

A long walk in the sun   Photo: Johanna Matjaz

little floofs 

A subarctic paradise

The lovely rhyolite mountain Baula

dream team    Photo: Johanna Matjaz

Our second lift showed up eventually (after a few missed opportunities due to us running down into the ditch to take pictures of particularly lovely ice crystals) and drove us up to the lovely coastal town of Búðardalur. He was a friendly Icelandic man who has a snow removal company, and he mentioned that he was still tired from dealing with last Sunday's snow storm. He pointed out loads of farms on the way and told us who lived there, and where we could get ice cream (v. important!) When we got to Búðardalur, we stopped for a little break. It was also there that we discovered that Malin and Tim had already made it to the Westfjords, but didn't recommend that we try to get there because there are so few cars up there; if we all showed up, it might be nearly impossible to get everybody back to Reykjavík the next day! 

Thanks to Johanna's map of Icelandic hot pots and the kindness of a woman at the gas station, we decided to head north to a settlement called Laugar, home of Iceland's Laxdæla saga and Guðrún's natural bathing pool. This was about 15 km north of Búðardalur, so we pointed our windburned faces toward the polar front and pressed on for some time. We found our third and final lift of the day; three American girls who were headed north to explore the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft. This sounded awesome, but we opted to stay the course so we could set up camp in the remaining daylight! 

A perfect blue fjord just north of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula and Búðardalur

We set up camp and set off to find a hot water creek to soak our feet, and that's when Malin and Tim showed up. They told us that Guðrún's bathing pool was just up the hill and that we could sleep in the changing room shelter, a nice viking hut that was insulated with grass and sheep's wool, with a geothermal line running under the stone floor. So, we carried our tent full of supplies up to the hut, stripped down, and soaked in the geothermal pool while the sun disappeared. We relaxed, refueled, and gazed at the starry night sky while the northern lights danced in white, green, and purple curtains above us. Eventually, we fell asleep tucked inside our cozy shelter, saved from the wind and frost just outside. Waking up the next morning was easy and golden, like honey, and it felt like we were still dreaming our sweet dreams!

Soaking our feet in a hot river at the end of a long hitchhike, emphasis on "hike"

Our cozy little hut provided the warmth that we needed on a frigid night     Photo: Tim 

Morning in Laugar     Photo: Johanna Matjaz 

Our little home for the night

Guðrún's Bathing Pool 

Packing up and heading out

Wondering how all four of us would catch a lift home but keeping it bright and sunny anyway, we set off back toward the main road. When we reached the junction, Johanna and I hung back while Malin and Tim went ahead, just to increase our chances of finding a lift. I don't think it was five minutes, though, before Johanna and I flagged down a car driven by a man called Kristjón, who welcomed us into his car and even had room for Malin and Tim, too! He is a 72 year old Icelander who founded an electrical power company back in the 70's which powers the entire island. He spoke broken English and I can speak a few words in Icelandic, so I sat up front and tried to explain to him who we were. He was on his way back from his summer house and was happy to take us back to Reykjavík, but he asked if he could show us a few things first. Of course, we agreed! He took us back to Búðardalur to show us where he used to live, then across the land where his grandfather had a farm to an Arctic ocean fjord. Then, he asked to buy us lunch to refuel; responding to my "Takk fyrir matur" with a "Takk sömuleiðis," it became clear that he was as happy to find us as we were to find him!

The intersection of Route 589 and Route 60

My very first view of the Arctic Ocean       Photo: Tim

What everybody thinks Iceland looks like, probably

After lunch, we really got busy! Kristjón took us around Borgarfjörður along Hvítá (White River) to Barnafoss (Children's Falls) and Hraunfoss (Lava Falls,) to Húsafell near "my" glacier Langjökull, through Reykholt, and over to the Deildartunguhver geothermal spring.  

Driving along Hvítá

Ice formations at Barnafoss

Looking toward Hraunfoss

Hraunfoss

Gorgeous, red Lava Falls

Icicles at the falls

Just west of Langjökull

Shoutout to Langjökull for being a babe

Huge energy potential in the Deildartunguhver geothermal area

Bubbling geothermal energy at Deildartunguhver

Then, we took the long way down around Hvalfjörður to Þingvellir National Park to finish off our day along the continental rift.

Hvalfjörður reflections

Remains of a US military base

Always moving fjordward

Frozen, dreamy Öxaráfoss

Johanna and Malin moving through the divide

Fissures. Fissures as far as the eye can see.

All of a sudden, it was five in the evening and we were all tired out and ready for home. Kristjón took us all back to Reykjavík and dropped us off, door side service, like we were fancy diplomats or something! Tim and I actually met up with him again today; he took us to Hafnafjörður to tour his electrical power company and then down to Reykjanes to see some hot springs. I have a feeling that this won't be the last we see of him! 

This is probably the part during which I'm supposed to write about how my perspective was rocked and my world view changed, and it was, but I think I learned that this is more about wide open expectations than anything. 

Because even though we didn't make it to the place we thought we'd end up, everything was just fine. Wonderful, perfect even. My expectation, and I think our collective expectation, was to just go. Just go, take a long walk, bask in some long-overdue sunshine, and find something new. Do something new. Meet someone new. Go hitchhiking, you unstable American, and survive it. Expect to grow, but not drastically. Expect to learn, but not so much. Expect to bond, because that's what humans do when they take long walks and choose, actually choose, to exist in a vulnerable space together. Expect to unwind, enough to go back to Reykjavík and be okay with that. Expect to expect nothing, and gain everything that we needed. Nothing much, just enough.

And now we have stories to tell, a little more courage, and a new Icelandic grandpa. And I think that's rad. 

For Science, At Least

I am in that nebulous void between feeling like I need to run a marathon that ends with stripping naked and plunging my bare ass into the north Atlantic, and feeling like I need a several day nap. The weather apparently feels like this as well; it has been an ice rink out there maintained by precipitation that must be hovering somewhere around freezing point. Not really rain, not really snow, but either way, you'll probably slip and fall in the parking lot. I'm in between having no words, and having too many. I am righteously angry for so many reasons, but I think that I really need to write about one of them now. I'll be brief. 

I have slowly been warming up to the realization that I am not coming home.

And no, thanks very much; it is not out of mere disappointment. It's not because I am feeling "whiny" or like a "special snowflake" or whatever term the insecure, privileged few have deigned to assign the organized many who have spoken out over the past several months. 

I am not coming home because I can't come home.

Not if I wish to be a good steward of the lot I've been given. Not if I wish not to negate my life's work, nor if I wish to continue it. I am currently working towards an advanced degree in geophysics, specializing in glaciology; a field that requires me to take climate data and interpret it. A project that needs me to feed that data, taken from actual weather stations at Langjökull glacier, into a numerical model that uses those data sets as initial and boundary conditions in order to solve a complicated (albeit mathematically sound) set of equations which in turn help us understand what the flow dynamics of that glacial ice will look like in ten, fifty, one hundred years. Spoiler alert: the glacier will disappear, but this is another matter.

The point is that I have agreed to take a project that is a climate science project, that is hinged on our ability to fund the maintenance of said weather stations, that directly depends on our freedom as scientists to openly communicate our findings and collaborate with other scientists worldwide. A field that must be fundamentally unbiased and would ideally be largely apolitical.

So, why does the change in administration matter at all in this respect?

First of all, it seems at first that I can sit in my privilege from a relatively safe spot. The POTUS and his tyrannical order to bar the EPA from openly discussing their research findings (in direct violation of the EPA's scientific integrity policy) as well as delivering a devastating blow to EPA research grants (on which, by the way, many graduate students and professional researchers depend) does not necessarily directly affect me in Iceland. It would seem that I dodged an incoming cornucopia of bullets when I moved abroad, however accidental, because I held onto the belief that we would grow out of our embarrassing position as one of the only developed nations that still seems to have an issue placing scientific work and the environmental well being (read: our well being) over profit. 

However idealistic that may have been is irrelevant now, since things are far worse than I had allowed myself to imagine. If you are having trouble mustering up some concern about a slash to the EPA budget, consider this: the budget cuts are not only for services that contain the "climate" buzz word. These are studies involving weather patterns, water table restoration (remember Flint?) air quality data, radon testing, and a wealth of environmental exploration that is critical to the services we use, consciously or not, on the daily. But, I suppose, if you refuse to admit that funding such projects is important while simultaneously demanding the use of your favorite weather app, then you simply cannot be convinced. I wash my hands of trying, and I will be over here, doing the work.

On a more personal note though, where there is no funding, there are no graduate students. There are no researchers, there is no growth, there is very little science that can be done, and there is a lapse in precious time that cannot truly be bought back. I am a graduate student. I am a graduate student who studies science. I am a graduate student who studies climate science; ipso facto, there is no place for me in the USA. The USA, which we so boldly proclaim has provided the world with smoke detectors and ear thermometers (that was NASA, by the way.) The USA, so industrious, so forward-thinking, such a superpower. 

Except we are not. Not when we allow blatant attacks on the resources needed by our forward thinkers. Did you know this? Did you know that if or when you voted for the POTUS, you voted to keep me away from the USA? You voted to drastically reduce my opportunities to come home and find a job within my field. You voted to quench scientific advancement of the two pillars that it needs: funding and communication. You voted with your heart, for whatever reason you had, and maybe that's valid. It is. But I can't in good conscience return, as a scientist, to an environment that does not respect science nor will provide opportunities for the resources that I will need as a working scientist. The unintended consequence of your vote is that it will keep me looking elsewhere, so do not, don't you dare, tell me that you miss me.

You'll just have to get used to it.