Last full day in Iceland
September 14, 2021 Filed under Curious, Introspection
It was pretty amusing to be staying in the same hostel from two years ago.
It’s always sunny at the hostel! (Note: Actual sun may vary.)
This time I’d made the reservation longer in advance, though, so I’d been able to get an actual room.
In Iceland, we park bikes wherever. Sometimes we even put locks on them.
Here’s where you check in and get that all-important WIFI password.
Still got that vague hospital vibe.
Small but cozy!
The truly amazing part was being visited by the same cat!
It’s the cat from 2019! Hooray!
Me and the cat enjoyed the sun in the courtyard by the hostel for a while.
I didn’t manage to spot any of these creatures while I was in Iceland.
How many fairies can dance on the top of a vine?
Then I re-attached all my bags to my bike and went cruising around town, feeling thoughtful.
Another of those cool names-as-streets maps.
I remember this path from my last visit!
The evidence of many other tourists was all around me.
Lots of tourists on lots of different vechicles have passed this way!
There were some locals biding their time, as well.
I like this guy. He’s got a cool dog and his shirt roughly translates to “Less talk, more forest.”
Eventually I settled in a restaurant at the center of town, and got down to ruminating.
Ultima 9 used to take a 300-watt tower PC to run. Now I can play it on a laptop in an emulator and it looks just as good. That’s wild.
For the second time in two years, I am at the final day of a bike ride across Iceland. This happened much sooner than I expected: With so many other places in the world to see, I figured I wouldn’t see this country again for a decade or more.
When I reached this point during the first trip, I felt a mixture of satisfaction and regret. The regret was mostly that the journey couldn’t continue indefinitely, since I was so used to being on the bike. Once I boarded the ferry and left the country I had just two weeks to make a whirlwind tour of Europe, which I spent mostly in London and the German city of Lübeck. My mind was a tangle of work obligations and family concerns, and I was struggling with the logistics of getting back to Oakland on a schedule.
I had the same tangle of obligations and concerns in my head this time, but there’s also something very different about my mental state: Even though I am two years older and moving on from my mid-40s, I am bizarrely less concerned about “wasting“ time on the road and missing romantic opportunities at home.
It’s been difficult to avoid the feeling like the last two years have been somehow wasted, in the combination of COVID-19 and the formation and instant destruction of what I thought was a solid romantic relationship. When I arrived in Iceland this time, there was a real risk that I might feel as though I was starting over again. But this time, there was far less doubt and trauma to work through. My journey was more ambitious, more focused, and contained more logistical surprises as well, and I would not have handled those with such grace if I was feeling my way through an emotional disaster. There was no “on Icelandic plains“ moment during this trip.
The closest I got was a far more positive moment, when I found myself riding at night and looked up and was awestruck to see The Milky Way spread across the horizon, underlit by a very dim but unmistakable line of fire from the northern lights, which I was convinced I would never see on this journey. I am grateful that I came back this way during a time in my life when there was less to distract me from its unique beauty. I can now confidently say that I am more familiar with this country than practically all of the other tourists who pass through it, and I feel that has added something to my life.