Iceland is a country that doesn’t seem to get a lot of recognition. It’s sort of just, there. Since I discovered the band Of Monsters And Men, whom are Iceland natives, about two months before their first full length CD was released, I have become, for lack of a better word, obsessed with the country. Iceland only has 350,000 residents, and two-thirds of that population lives in their capital, Reykjavik. I suppose my family got tired of hearing me talk about all the reasons Iceland is a completely wonderful and underappreciated country, so they decided that is where we would go on vacation this year.        
The day we flew in to Reykjavik International Airport, it was overcast and drizzling. I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours due to the time difference and air travel, so I can’t really remember my first few thoughts after we landed. The next thing I knew we were at the rental car place, and then in this car driving down their only highway, appropriately titled route one. My dad plugged in his IPod, and the song Run, by Snow Patrol, came flooding through the car. By this time we were out of Reykjavik, and travelling through a rather desolate landscape of hardened lava, which turns black as it dries. My first clear thought was something about how surreal everything looked, the grey sky, the black and rough land surrounding this highway, and the vibrantly green mountains topped with white glacier in the distance. We got to the house we had rented after about 45 minutes of driving. The house, which had an incredible view, was right outside Selfoss, a small town by our standards, a large town by theirs. It seemed to be a large point of excitement that the town had two grocery stores.
The next day we were again driving down route one, and it suddenly struck me just how many sheep there were. I’ve been to Ireland, I know what a lot of sheep look like, but this was just insane. The sheep weren’t behind any fences, they were just wandering around. I learned on a trip up to a glacier, courtesy of our off-road vehicle driver Jöhn, that the sheep are all let out to roam free around June, and then in around September, sheep farmers and volunteers round up all of the sheep and return them to their owners, thanks to the brand usually on their ears. When we got out of the vehicle on top of this glacier, it was a rather surreal feeling. Glaciers are huge, and I am very small, and you don’t really get just how small you are until you stand on a glacier, look around, and see nothing but ice in every direction.
Over the next few days we visited Viking Longhouses, Icelandic National Parks, saw a waterfall about every 3.2 seconds, and visited Heimaey, one of the Westman Islands. Midway through our trip, we rented a hotel room in the Southeastern part of Iceland, so we could see more waterfalls and Nordic churches. My dad had been talking for several weeks now about how he wanted to go to this volcano named Laki. We had learned, again courtesy of Jöhn, that the gravel and dirt road-esque path was at best, pretty rocky. My dad thought that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to attempt this off road feat in a rental car. Quick reminder, during the summer months in Iceland the sun doesn’t set until around 10:30 or so. Last minute, my dad decided we needed to go see Laki, and thus began the real adventure. The drive to the top, where you can actually see the massive volcano is an hour and a half. Obviously, the drive back is the same. We were looking at a three-hour drive up and back, and then the two-hour drive back to our house. That was only the beginning. The road, if you could even call it that, was really a glorified goat path, or in this case sheep path. It was magnificently sunny that day, albeit also extremely windy. About thirty minutes into the drive, we hit our first little stream we would have to drive across. Each stream we got to was bigger than the last. All in all we crossed four, the last one was a little nerve-racking to say the least. When we finally got to the top (there were sheep even there!) the wind was so loud you couldn’t hear anything else. You could really see everything, this massive hole that had been ripped in the Earth a few hundred years ago by phenomenal amounts of lava. Trying to talk was futile, but you didn’t want to anyway. All I could do was stand and stare. It was entirely desolate, save for about five or six sheep, because like I said, they were everywhere. By the time we got back to the main road, the sun was about to set. Driving home from Laki with the sound of the wind still rushing through my ears was the first time I really saw Iceland in the dark, and it was incredible, almost complete darkness with one or two lights visible in the distance.
While some of the food was a bit odd, they eat horse and decaying shark, they had some of the most spectacular baked goods and pastries I’ve ever eaten. Every day on our way back to our house from whatever adventure we had been on, we’d stop at one of the bakeries in Selfoss and buy several different baked goods each time.
Some time after that, we went back into Reykjavik for a day in the city. We visited the Hallgrimskirkja church, which is modeled after the country’s famous basalt columns. We wandered through the city looking in jewelry shops, saw famous sculptures, and visited the Perlan, a massive dome that, if you stand on the balcony, provides a complete 360-degree view of Reykjavik. Even though it was rainy the day we went, the city was so vibrant and unique.
Our last day in Iceland we went horseback riding. Iceland has it’s own breed of horse, appropriately titled Icelandic horses, and unlike other breeds of horse, Icelandic horses have five gaits, or speeds, instead of three. Roaming around the flatter parts of Iceland gave me yet another view of the country, you could look out and see a wide expanse of nothing on one side and on the other a mountain could be six feet from the trail. Heading back to the airport, all I could think about was when I would be able to come back and experience even more of the culture and scenery.