I have arrived.

Flight was fairly unremarkable – the usual “something always happens” – this time being that when I got to the airport in PITTSBURG a torrential downpour started so I was soaking wet by the time I got to security – and FYI: wet clothing = pat down.  Apparently the wetness causes the security system to see “density” so it is as if you have something illegal but actually you are just wet from the rain.

Landed.  One of the easiest entries into a country EVER – was actually greeted like a human and spoke to pleasantly without any suspicious undertones.  Got car.  All still fairly unremarkable.  Car is small Ford maybe?  Keyless ignition kind of throws me – and it is manual which is great but I was a little rusty.  I think I should go back to a manual car again as I can’t eat as easily or talk on the phone when driving a manual.  Maybe that is what we should just do; make everyone drive a manual car (until the automatic cars arrive that is – once they get here, who cares?).

Drove for about an hour or so.  Went through my first really long tunnel – it had to be 2 miles long – looked just like I was driving into a big hill with a mouth.  Tunnel made me tired so I pulled off the road at a scenic lookout spot to take a nap.  And it wasn’t a bad nap for a nap inside a small car using the driver’s seat as a bed.  I slept for probably 3 hours – maybe more?  However long it was, it was long enough for the battery to die.  Never leave the headlights on when taking a nap…lesson for today.

But I am in Iceland, and the people here are super nice and everyone speaks English (and many speak flawless English – it is scary how well it is spoken ).  So I asked a lovely Icelandic family if they could possibly give me a jump, which they did.  They were quite the stereotype of what a lovely Icelandic family should look like – tall blond wearing cool clothing.  The story is not as exciting as the time a one armed man changed my car tire, but I am glad they all had all of their limbs just the same.

I decided to drive without stopping the rest of the way.  Below are pictures that I took from my car during my drive (I did stop the car to take them, don’t worry).  Iceland is not only populated with nice people, it is also jaw droppingly beautiful.  I have been other places that have bits of this scenery: Hawaii, Mongolia, Ireland all come to mind.  But I have never been anywhere that has this much amazing scenery coupled with the lack of humans.  I guess Mongolia was pretty sparsely populated but no ocean.  Hawaii and Ireland both have the ocean and the green, but there are people there.  I saw at least 10 times more sheep today than I did people.

So I drove the 470 kilometers with nearly zero stops (I was feared to turn the car off again:) except brief photos.  My drive had a bit of an over the top ending in that when I was about 20 kilometers from the village (called Sudureyri), I had to enter another long tunnel.  This time I drove for about 2 miles and then had a left hand turn to make!  Of course I missed it because when do you ever turn left or right in a tunnel????  Never – unless you want to ram into the rock wall.  So I had to drive all the way through, turn around, and come back to make the turn.  Then I had to drive another 2 miles before popping out some kilometers away from Sudureyri.  Sheesh.

Right.  Well, I off for a dander down the street to see if the hot pool is open.  I definitely think a long soak is in order; even if it wasn’t, when in Rome…

In two short days I am off to Iceland.  It is the kind of place that you say you are going to, and people kind of look at you like, “Iceland?!? Really?!? Why?”

Of course my instinct is to say, “Why not?”

But I have to try to drive down my cheekiness so will give a less caustic response.

I took a Nordic Mythology class in college – during my quest to dabble in every single field – and I loved it, truly, madly deeply.

How could you not love culture whose creation story begins with a cow licking its way to create the earth?

As John Muir wrote, “I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in creation’s dawn.”

And this is Nordic mythology (for me), in a nutshell.  The earth was not created and activity ended…no no no.  The earth is in creation phase and we are all seeing this happen every day.  We are all a part of it.

This non-static, changing, moving way of viewing the world spoke to me in college.

Then there is Iceland itself….what an interesting place, indeed!  Let’s talk natural resources and energy use for a moment:

“During the course of the 20th century, Iceland went from what was one of Europe’s poorest countries, dependent upon peat and imported coal for its energy, to a country with a high standard of living where practically all stationary energy is derived from renewable resources. In 2014, roughly 85% of primary energy use in Iceland came from indigenous renewable resources. There of 66% was from geothermal.” (From the National Energy Authority of Iceland )

(I will refrain from making any obvious political connections so as not to offend anyone with my first post.)

How could you not love a place where you can sit in warm, blue water while snowflakes dance on your eyelashes?

 

This is the place to be for sunset if you are visiting the Angkor Wat area. I did the climb up the mountain to find a rather long line. Which I waited in for about an hour or so. As I was waiting, I found out that they only allow 300 people to go up to the top of the temple at a time. So it was a bit of a nail biter for me. I wasn’t sure if I would be one of the lucky ones. At around 6:05, the line really started moving, and lo and behold, I was able to climb the many stairs to reach the ultimate sunset viewing spot. Now, the only problem was clouds! It was to cloudy to see a sunset but a beautiful experience nonetheless.

   
             

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte 

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey 

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

We Are Not Oursleves by Matthew Thomas

Summer House With A Swimming Pool by Herman Koch

Freedom by Jonathon Franzen

We Are Asked To Rise by Laura McBride

And then whatever book I will start next, possibly Behindlings by Nicola Barker.  All books were good – We Are Not… Was very sad, The Vacationers was fairly predictable, and Summer House… was a good mystery. The Girl With…was very good as was Freedom.

Any suggestions?

My visit to Angor Wat and the temples of Angor Thom was pretty fabulous. Though I questioned my sanity at certain points of the day, bike riding was truly the way to go.

I took a tuk tuk from my hotel (which is insanely lavish and only $25 a night as it is off season here) into town (Siem Reap) to meet my tour guide from Grasshopper Tours. Sambo, my guide, and I left town at about 7:15 a.m. to begin our 30KM ride To and around the temples. I was the only person on the tour on this particular day so I got lots of information about the history of the temples and Cambodia in general. I forgot most of it. The clash between Hinduism and Buddhism was quite interesting to learn about.

Here is the text from the Grasshopper website about the tour:

Escape the crowds, the busy roads and the well worn trail at Angkor. Cycle the small tracks and minor roads to see a different side of the Angkor Temples. This is a guided tour of the most intriguing of the major temples. We visit Tha Prom, The Elephant Terrace and the Bayon as well as a couple of less visited ones along the way. We finish with a ride on small trails through the villages and back to town. This is a truly enjoyable ride on a good bike with a friendly Cambodian cycling guide. 

Anyhow, on to the pics as that is really the best part of most blogs.