Shan's reflections

   Since our return, numerous people have asked me if I am happy to be back in the States. My honest answer is that the return has been bittersweet.  I was sad to leave Iceland, but I am happy to be home.  We met some wonderful people in Iceland, with whom I enjoyed socializing regularly.  However, we also have some great friends here, and it was very nice to get back to them as well.  My grandmother asked if we intended to move back to Iceland. I was quite surprised, since I have never seriously contemplated becoming at expat.  I suppose that the concept was not quite as foreign to her, since her father immigrated to the U.S.  In any event, I reassured her that we intend to remain permanent residents of the States, although we certainly are interested in future sojourns like our stay in Iceland.  Even the screwy nature of American domestic politics has not yet induced me to seriously consider living abroad permanently.
   If there is one feeling that returns whenever I think about our time in Iceland, it is tranquility. That may seem odd when you consider that we pushed ourselves to see as much as we could and we also fit in a hectic three week visit to Europe.  However, there was just so little stress compared to our lifestyles back in the States.  I think that it is fair to say that I was living an artificially easy life, though, since problems around the apartment were ultimately someone's problems (althouugh I tried to help fix them), the car was a rental that was supplied by Bifröst, and  I did not have a job.  Sally noted to me in September that she is feeling overextended again and the stress of jobs, houses, cars, and the kids in school and extracurricular events certainly does make our time in Iceland feel like nirvana in comparison. It is tempting to think that we could achieve that level of relaxation again by permanently moving to Iceland, but then all of these problems would move over with us permanently and I do not think that it would be quite the same.
   Overall, reintegration back into the fabric of our community has been almost trouble-free.  Our friends welcomed us back and have shown interest in hearing about Iceland.  The girls have fallen right back into the same crowds of kids, with whom they ran before.  Some of Spencer's friends moved out of town, but he seems hardly to have noticed.  He picked right up, playing with many kids he knew before we left and with some new ones whom he had never met before.  Essentially, we have had almost no reverse culture shock, which was a shock in and of itself for Sally and me, because we certainly felt a fair amount of culture shock back when we returned from our study abroad years as undergrads.  I really could not be happier about the ease with which we moved into the community at Bifröst and the ease with which we moved back into our community at home.
   Ultimately, I am very happy that we took the family on this adventure.  The kids gained a much better understanding of the size of the world and the differences between people and cultures.  This sort of knowledge is not particularly valued by our culture, but I think that it should be.  I am proud of my kids for tackling the challenges of moving to a foreign place and interacting with the natives extensively and, ultimately, successfully.  I think that this experience really boosted their self-confidence and gave them a chance to hone their social skills.  They are currently doing well in school, so I do not think that their semester of schooling at Hraunborg and Varmaland negatively impacted their academic progress either.
   All of us want to travel abroad again as soon as possible.  Not surprisingly, the top destination choice is a return to Iceland to see our friends and to visit the places we missed the first time.  Of course, finances and time considerations make such a trip difficult to conceive at this point, but it will be something we will try to manage someday.  We also think that another overseas sabbatical would be nice.  However, as the kids get older and enter high school, it might be more difficult, academically and socially, for them to be gone for a semester or a year.  We figure that we will play it by ear. 
   In the meantime, I am enjoying being home and spending time with our friends and family here. We managed to see all of our Colorado relatives over Thanksgiving, which was nice, since we had not seen some of them since 2011.  For the upcoming Christmas break, we are also hoping to see most of our friends on the Front Range and to do some turkey hunting with Gunnison friends down at my parents' farm.  Since we have all of the Christmas break available to us this year, we went all out when we decorated the house this past weekend.  It helped to make up for the minimal decorating that we did last year, which was necessary so we could get around for the early January departure for Iceland.
   At the same time, we are also attempting to import to our house and lives some of the experiences that made Icelandic life so appealing.  We sporadically speak or read Icelandic to try to become more fluent; we bought an espresso machine, so we can continue to have those early morning espressos and cappuccinos; and we recently got a hot tub.  It is not exactly the same as soaking in Icelandic thermal pools, but it approximates the experience enough to make us happy.  Also, I finally got the trampoline put up that had been sitting around here in pieces for the past few years; since trampolines were nearly ubiquitous in Iceland, the timing seemed appropriate in the end.
   As Janurary 4, 2013 approaches, there is a certain melacholy feeling around the house, since we realize that a whole year will have passed since we first arrived in Iceland.  This melacholy was heightened this past week, when we received a care package of Icelandic candies, drinks, and shirts.  They were gifts from Emma, who mailed them from Washington, D.C, which she and some of Pálmar's female relatives visited to shop the Black Friday sales. They and other Icelandic friends hope to visit us next summer, but airline fares may keep that from happening.  Despite the difficultes of distance, time, and money, I hope that we can maintain our friendships at home and abroad and that our connections to Iceland can be strengthened even as our permanent residence remains in Colorado.

Day(s)-since our return

   Our adventure is behind us.  We have been back home in Colorado for a couple of months now and have settled back in nicely.  It has been nice to rekindle old friendships, to visit old haunts, and to be sleeping in our own beds again.  Nonetheless, we miss the friends we made in Iceland and are already trying to find the time and money to visit again.  Unfortunately, settling back into our "normal" lives has also meant taking on all of the responsibilities of jobs, home-ownership, and auto-ownership, which has meant losing most of the free time that we enjoyed in Iceland.  Incidentally, we can better appreciate now that our fond memories of our stay in Iceland also partially derived from the lower levels of stress that come with fewer responsibilities!
   We hope that our friends and family have enjoyed reading the blog entries and keeping up with our adventures.  We have found ourselves looking back at the entries and reminiscing about the good times we had.  With any luck, each member of the family will find the time to post some sort of final thoughts on our time in Iceland.  After that, we will leave this blog open for a short while so we can use it as a Christmas card supplement of sorts, before closing access to it early in 2013.  Our ultimate goal is to make hard copies for the kids to commemorate this chapter of their lives.

Day 207-leaving Iceland and coming home

Once of the last things we did was tear
down the black plastic bag shades we
had used to keep out the midnight Sun.

   July 29-We tried our best to clean out the fridge of breakfast food this morning.  Sally cooked up bacon and eggs and we ate as much skyr as we could.  Then, we finished packing our bags, Shan did some final cleaning, and Sally washed the dishes that we had dirtied.  Emma, Pálmar, and Þórsteinn came over to pick up some of the stuff that we have bought over here but will not take back to the States, such the sleeping bags, food, and a step-stool for the bathroom sink.  We could not put off our good-byes any longer, so we thanked them for everything and hit the road.  We are so thankful for them and the other wonderful people who we have befriended in our short time over here.  Everyone asks us what we will miss when we leave and our new-found friends certainly top the list.

Emma, Pálmar, Spencer, Alex, Joslyn, and Þórsteinn, as we are about to leave the apartment. 

   As we drove to Borgarnes, it still did not feel like we were really leaving Bifröst for the last time.  We have driven that road and the one to Reykjavík so many times that it felt like any other trip that we have taken.  Nonetheless, we knew we were leaving, so Sally and Shan talked to the kids about the problems of reverse culture-shock on the drive.  Since we each spent a year studying abroad, we have dealt with it before, so we are hoping to lessen the shock for the kids.  We explained that their friends are not likely to understand the “life-changing” experiences that they have had.  They also need to be aware that their friends’ lives have not been held in a state of stasis while they have been gone, and they need to appreciate that changes have occurred in their circles of friends as well.  We are not sure that they quite understand the problems that will crop up.  We tried to impress upon them that they should turn to each other and to us when they need to talk about Iceland and it seems that no one else cares.  In the age of Skype, they also have the possibility of contacting their friends in Iceland relatively easily.

We left our trusty stead of these past seven months, the Toyota Corolla, in the long-term parking lot.

Marilyn and Pam followed us out to the airport with the rest of our baggage. After we checked in, we told them good-bye. These good-byes were certainly the easiest, since the distance between our homes in Gunnison and Laramie is inconsequential compared to the distance between Gunnison and Iceland. 

We went through security without any problems and did a little duty-free shopping. Sally turned in a large number of receipts for refunds of the VAT tax on her woolen purchases, and then we headed through passport control. The plane we boarded was named Hekla, after the Icelandic volcano that is one of the two "known" gateways to Hell.  We hoped that this did not bode ill for our flight........

Those seats were comfy!

   We bought the tickets for this flight back in February when we were checking airfares and discovered that the business class tickets were actually cheaper than any of the economy class tickets.  The best we can figure, someone keyed in the wrong numbers.  Apparently, not many people took advantage of this mistake, because the seats we reserved got moved into economy class and we got scooted forward in the plane.  This actually was even more advantageous, because it meant that two of our seats were suddenly in the seats usually reserved to the “Saga” (1^st) class, where Alex and Sally sat for the first part of the flight.  Spencer and Joslyn sat in the aisle and window seats of the business class, in which there is a center seat, but it contains cup holders and no people.  Shan sat in the exit row in front of the wings and was the only one in all six seats (actually, four seats, since it was also considered to be business class.)

There was tons of leg room and no other passengers in the exit row, so Sally and Alex joined Shan.

   We had free access to the interactive on-board entertainment system, so the kids zoned out in front of the pop-up screens for most of the flight.  We adults also took advantage of them and watched two movies.  We also got free food, which made the eight hour flight a little more bearable.  Overall, the distractions allowed all of us to keep our minds off of the fact that we were leaving Iceland with no idea when we might return.  

This was the view of the former U.S. military base at Keflavík as we took off.

Our final view of Iceland before we entered into the clouds was the eastern tip of the Reykjanes peninsula. The steam rising in the distance emanates from the outflow pond of the Reykjanes geothermal power plant.

The clouds parted briefly as we crossed Greenland, allowing us some nice views of glaciers and icebergs.

The skies also cleared once we got to the United States. Here is the parched ground of eastern Colorado. 

   Once we got back down to the mid-latitudes, we finally got to see some pretty cumulonimbus clouds.  It felt good to be back in the land of thunderstorms, even if we did have to get routed around one particular monster parked in northeastern Colorado.  Another one hit DIA shortly after we landed, so we got to see some lightning and experience that unique smell of rain from a thunderstorm.  It was a nice welcome back to Colorado. 

An even better welcome awaited us once we made the trek through passport control and customs.

Shan’s parents and his sister’s family had come out to the airport and were waiting for us in the terminal.
His nieces, Kailey and Stacia, had made this small banner and hung it on the railing in front of them.   



As can be seen in this picture of Spencer, Joslyn, Stacia, and their grandmother, everyone was happy to see each other. It really helped remind us that there were lots of good reasons to return to Colorado.

    With the extra help, we easily got our bags out to the original trusty steed, our Dodge pickup, which Shan's folks had kept while we were gone and had brought up to the airport.  We were thankful to have such a big vehicle again, since we were able to get all of our bags into the bed of the pickup!  We drove back to the Fritzes’ house and ordered in Pizza Hut pizza.  Shan’s folks also brought up some corn-on-the-cob that they had picked from a neighbor’s field, so we cooked some of those as well.  Eating this food and drinking a Summer Shandy on the Fritzes’ patio in our shorts in the evening definitely made us feel like we were back in Colorado!  Our decision to stay up late at night these past couple of weeks in Iceland appeared to pay off pretty well, because we were able to stay awake fairly easily until it was bedtime, and it was only a few hours after we had been going to bed in Iceland.

Day 206-picking blueberries

 Þórgeður, Alex, and Ástrós.

   July 28-We each did our own things this morning.  Sally and Spencer drove over Bratabrekka to Búðadalur so she could go shopping at the wool handiwork store there.  Alex found Ástrós and Þórgeður and they hiked north of campus looking for blueberries.  It is a little early in the season for them, but there are many around and they taste pretty good.  Eva and Kjartan had picked some fresh and served it in cream the night before for dessert.  Joslyn rode her bike a while and then joined her sister’s berry-gathering pursuit.  Shan continued to work on the blog.  After Sally and Spencer returned, Spencer went bike-riding and berry-picking as well.


Ástrós on the right with her mother, Lára.

   We all congregated back in the apartment for a dinner of lamb.  Yum!  It was Sally’s last chance to cook Icelandic lamb and it tasted wonderful.  She then took the kids to Borgarnes where the local farmer’s co-op was holding a festival.  They arrived just as it was wrapping up, but they still got to see some animals.  They went shopping and came home.


"KB" on the side of this Ford Model A truck stands for "Kaupfélagið Borgarnesi," or Borgarnes' co-op.



Early on, we were mesmerized by this view of Bifröst and its surroundoundings from the south. Since then, we have become used to it, but we are going to surely miss it in the near future.

   Meanwhile, Shan finally got caught up on the blog.  Since he has not been caught up in two months, it felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulder and he got around to take a hike as a reward.  Then, Sigrún Lilja called up to say that we could come over any time for supper, so he put all of the hiking supplies away and spent an hour packing, waiting for the rest of the family to come home.  Once they showed up, we all trooped over to Sigrún Lilja and Einar’s house for supper.  The kids played with Þórgeður and Einar, while the adults sat around talking.  Einar grilled up some fantastic lamb and plenty off side dishes, so we ate well for our last supper in Iceland.  Once we finished up, they turned on the TV to watch the Olympics on BBC.  Since we will only see the Olympics on time-delay once we get back to the States, this was somewhat of a treat.

Shan, Sigrún Lilja, Einar, and Sally.  

Spencer, Alex, Þórgeður, Einar, and Joslyn composed, practiced, and then sang to us a song about the friendship between the two families (and between Alex and Þórgeður, in particular). It was very sweet. 

   Their family is spending a month in Florida over Christmas, so we are hoping to talk them into taking a week out to fly up to Colorado.  Since they are not big fans of winter sports, though, it might be more likely that we get them to come over next summer.  In any event, we think that they are likely to be our guests in Gunnison at some point.  That will be great, because they are wonderful people and we want to host them as well as they have hosted us.
   We finally left the house around midnight and walked back home.  Alex dropped off Sally’s bike and Emma and Pálmar’s house, since we are leaving it for her.  Since the lights were on, she decided to ring the doorbell as well.  She just didn’t think that it was all that late!  When we got back home, we put the kids to work doing the final packing of their bags.  Sally cleaned the dishes and the kitchen, while Shan swept, cleaned the house, and ran the towels and washcloths through the washing machine.  We went to bed, not quite sure that we really believed that this was the last night we would be spending in the apartment!

Day 205-last swim in Borgarnes

Stressing over the blog.

   July 27-Sally took the kids to Borgarnes to swim with Kristín, Imba, and Daníel and then went out to the wool museum/shop at Hvanneyri to buy some more woolen products.  Meanwhile, I spent the day getting caught up on the blog.  This activity has become very tiresome and has sucked time from me that I could have spent doing other things.  I will certainly not be blogging once this adventure is behind us!  However, I stuck with it over here because I know that there are some friends and family who are using it to keep up with us.  Also, we intend to print all of this out and bind it to make a scrapbook of our adventures in Iceland.  So, I hope that everyone who has followed along in our travels has enjoyed the blog posts and I hope that we (and the kids in particular) enjoy this chronicle of our time in Iceland whenever we get the opportunity to peruse it in the future.
   When Sally and the kids returned, we headed over to Pálmar and Emma’s for supper.  They had also invited over their friends Eva and Kjartan.  They live in Sjórnarhóll as well, and we have seen them around and talked to them some.  Their two kids attended Hraunborg as well, so they got to know me while I taught them English.  Their daughter, Guðrún, took a particular interest in me and would always call out to me when she saw me walking on campus.  This was our first chance to do much with their family socially, and we had a nice evening with them and Emma and Pálmar.
   Eva is taking her family on an adventure that will put our family’s to shame.  She has received a scholarship to study for a year in Japan, so the whole family will fly away East come September.  We certainly respect her resolve and determination and wish them the best.  As we left their house, we agreed with Emma that we were not yet ready to say good-bye, so we decided that we would need to see each other at some point again over the two days we have left.

The view of Grábrók and the Bifröst campus from our apartment at 1:30 in the morning.
The clouds are probably noctilucent clouds that are some 45 miles above us.

Day 204-Pam and Marilyn visit

   July 26-We spent the morning getting packed up.  Pam and Marilyin showed up early in the afternoon and we ate dinner.  Since we had gotten most of our work done, we were able to take the afternoon off and show our guests some of the sights around Bifröst.  We headed over to the waterfall where the Kiðá empties into Hreðavatn.  The girls and Shan got to enjoy a bike ride, probably our final one, along the shores of Hreðavatn to get there.  The kids put on their swimming suits and played in the cold river water for a short while.

Pam and Shan discuss academics, while Marilyn enjoys the creek.

We climbed Grábrók for probably the final time this summer as well. Joslyn and Alex are on the rim of Grábrók here with Hraunsnefsöxl behind them. 

We got to pose with the Bifröst campus one last time.

     After all of that work, we were hungry, so we went out to eat at Hraunsnef.  In the off-season, it had been no trouble to walk in and get a table, but the summer is different and the place was full.  Thankfully, the owner recognized us and allowed us to sit in the adjoining building, where Sally used to meet with her knitting group.  We all had a very enjoyable meal and even got to pet the calves and lambs, which was a highlight for the kids and Marilyn.  Shan got a final opportunity to talk to the owner and tell him that we had enjoyed all of the meals we have eaten there.  We particularly appreciated his willingness to talk Icelandic to us, rather than switch into English immediately, like most Icelanders do.
   After supper we returned home for dessert and coffee and good conversation.  The kids got tired around 11:30, so Pam and Marilyn got around to leave.  The main reason that we had packed this morning was that Pam and Marilyn had offered to take some of our luggage to the airport for us.  We were barely able to fit our baggage into the car when we arrived in January and we have increased the amount of stuff to take back quite a bit, so we knew there was no way that we would fit into the car for a return trip.  We had thought that we would need to rent another car to accomplish this, but Pam and Marilyn’s offer solved the problem for us!  After we loaded six bags into their car, they took off for Reykjavík.

Day 203-boating across Breiðafjörður

   July 25-We got up, packed up, and ate breakfast while Helena went to her job at the Tálknafjörður swimming pool.  She came back a short time later to check on Hinrik Nói, who had come down with a fever during the night.

Helena and Börkur rent the white house with the red roof here in Tálknafjörður.



Helena, Hinrik Nói, and Ása.

    We said more tearful good-byes and headed out of town.  We drove north over the mountains and came down into Bíldudalur on Arnarfjörður.  Helena had suggested that we drive west of town to the next valley to enjoy the white sand beaches.  Never ignore the advice of locals!  We spent two hours walking barefoot along the beach, collecting shells, building sand castles, and enjoying the scenery.

   Finally, we pulled ourselves away and continued back west into the highlands of the West Fjords, so we could drop down into Dynjandisvogur to view the amazing Dynjandi waterfall.  It is probably one of the most beautiful waterfalls we have seen in Iceland.

West Fjords highlands.

This is the view down Geirþjósfjörður into the Suðirfirðir and Arnafjörður far beyond.

The spectacular upper falls of Dynjandi.



One of the lower falls of Dynjandi with a rainbow.

   After getting our fill, we loaded back up into the car and drove back to the southern shore of the West Fjords.  Helena had also told us about a hidden hot spring right on the coast below Flókalundur, where roads 60 and 62 intersect.  Hot water from a spring is piped to the spot now, but it does lie right above the high tide mark.  Since we were there at low tide, the sea was about 100 yards away, but it was still a fantastic place to soak.  Some German hikers were there when we first showed up using the place to bathe.  However, there was so much water running through the pool that their soap quickly flowed out, which was good.  We spent about a half hour relaxing in the pool and then we dried off.  Thankfully, the parking lot was empty and not many cars drove by as we changed, since there are no facilities at the site.

   The Brjánslækur ferry dock was only a ten minute drive from there, so we were able to arrive, pick up the tickets we reserved a couple days ago, and board the Baldur ferry without any stress.  The ferry headed south across Breiðafjörður and docked at the island of Flatey an hour later.  People and cars off- and on-loaded very quickly and within ten minutes we were pulling away from the dock.  Helena was a cook on the Baldur for four years and she recommended the chicken salad, so Sally ate that for supper, while the kids ate cheeseburgers and watched “The Incredibles” in the children’s area.  After another hour and a half, we docked in Stykkishólmur.

   The ride across the bay was very nice.  The boat did not rock much, so Sally had no problems with seasickness.  We saw many more puffins and jellyfish as well.  Most interesting, though, were the islands.  There are hundreds of islands spread across Breiðafjörður.  Some are no more than a few rocks that are submerged at high tide.  Others are fairly large and have enough grass to make it worth farmer’s while to ferry their sheep to them in the spring and back home in the fall.  A few are even big enough to support complete farmsteads.

  

Clockwise from upper left: puffins, a coomerant, and a lighthouse on an island in Flatey's harbor.

The island and town of Flatey.

Jellyfish were everywhere in Breiðafjörður.

A view towards Látrabjarg, the westernmost point of Iceland.

The island of Elliðaey has a farmstead and a lighthouse.

A myriad of islands litter Breiðafjörður.

Stykkishólmur.

Are we becoming indifferent to the beauty of Iceland? Well, someone took these pictures......

Our ferry boat, Baldur, docked in Stykkishólmur.

   We drove the south route through Borgarnes and got home around 11pm.  We all agreed that the West Fjords deserve a much longer visit.  We are developing a list of sights, places, and activities that we intended to see or do while we were here but did not and the West Fjords is high on that list!

When we got home this evening, Joslyn noticed that the lights outside the apartments were on. These centrally-controlled lights have not been on for the past couple of months! It definitely is getting somewhat darker at night now and we even have had to turn on the lights on in the apartment in the evening.