Raiding the Icebox

back in the big time

mredovan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:58:00 GMT

Thoughts on two and a half days in Copenhagen:
First and foremost, it was exhilarating to be back in a city. Crowds of people beget a buzzing energy (along with other things, certainly). After a while, the bustling crowdedness of big cities usually weighs on me, but not this time. Although that may have been due to the fact that, despite the ever-filled main street(s) and squares, parts of the city are empty. Nathan and I agreed the city could use maybe 200,000 more people to really feel full (in a good way) (and of course, we have no idea how we decided on 200k).

The city itself is beautiful. Really exquisite architecture, lots of open squares filled with people, many streets that are mostly inaccessible by car. These are just features that I don't find in most American cities. There's a culture of being outside - of sitting in cafes to pass hours.

Far and away my favorite thing about Copenhagen is the prevalence of people on bicycles. Prevalence isn't even the right word. Bikes are ubiquitous. There are HUGE designated bike lanes. Bikes like every street: personal bikes and public bikes waiting to be unlocked and rode around for a small deposit. A few years back the city made these public bikes widely available. Genius. I have never seen more cyclists. They outnumbered cars.

Far and away the strangest thing was the prevalence of 7-11's. Every single corner, man. No joke. Six of them along one main street. I don't get it.

Another great thing, that may not be about Copenhagen, but just about the days we happened to go to museums, is that the two big museums we went to - the National Art Gallery, and the Glyptotek (sculpture) - had other, musical, events going on: a piano recital, and a performance of a famous Danish composer's works. A veritable smorgasbord of culture.

Three things in particular I want to mention. 1) Our second night (Saturday) we went to Tivoli Garden, which is a large garden/amusement park just outside the city center. It was glorious. It had been so many years since I'd been on rides, and never had I been on rides more or less in the middle of a city at 11pm (Copenhagen is further south than Iceland, so it actually got dark for a couple hours, maybe between 12 and 2).

2) Sunday afternoon we walked around town and made our way out to part of the city called Christiania. It's not really "part of the city," though, as in 1971, after it was vacated by the military that had been using the area as a barracks, a contingent of homeless and young persons moved in and declared it a "free city." It operates autonomously of the city. I'm not sure how that works in terms of schools and other social services, but I do know they self-police. In the 80s they internally took care of the growing heroin problem in the neighborhood. Each winter they open up the community and shelter hundreds of homeless people - a task the city proper does not do. The main differences you see between Christiania and the rest of the city are that one, there's more garbage laying about (and I don't mean trash-garbage, just stuff-garbage: heaps of dirt, piles of branches, stacks of unused insulation), and two, drug use is public. It certainly has your stereotypes: I was greeted by a few stands selling hemp clothes, and blaring Bob Marley) but I was struck by the fact that all sorts of people were there. It was actually the most diverse part of the city.

3) Sunday night we watched the Turkey v. Czech Republic EuroCup match. Before this trip I may have watched a total of two hours of soccer in my life. Now, it's an almost nightly event. Anyway, Czech Republic was up 2-0 on Turkey at around the 70th minute when Turkey scored to make it 2-1. Then in the 88th minute Turkey scored again. Bang, 2-2. Then, just as the bonus time started, in the 90th minute, just two minutes after they had scored, Turkey banged another one home. Boom, 2-3. Comeback complete, and Turkey goes on to the quarter finals. Easily the most dramatic soccer game I'd ever seen. Now, I hadn't seen too many Turks around Copenhagen, but they came pouring out of the woodwork after the game. A pack of a dozen guys rolled past the bar singing, so we followed them out and down to the main square. There were more people wearing Turkey gear, and waving Turkish flags in the square, and many, many cars driving around honking their horns, waving their flapping Turkey flags out the windows. I don't care about the EuroCup at all, but it was pretty exciting. Exciting by osmosis.

And that's Copenhagen. So, same question: could I live here? Originally I thought yes, but after seeing Stockholm (where I've been now for three days) it's hard to still feel that way. It'd be a great place to come back to for another, longer stay, but by comparison it's still a small city. If I'm going to be in a city I want a thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis. Copenhagen is a little too provincial for me.

glaciers, geysirs, gullfoss - the last leg

mredovan — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:06:00 GMT

I believe I left off in Akureyri, the "cosmopolitan capital of the North." It certainly was the largest town we'd seen since leaving Reykjavik, and we'd wanted to spend some quality time there, but unfortunately our time constraints required us to rush out of town the next morning.

We gave the Quebecoises a ride to Dettifoss, and said our goodbyes over Digestive cookies (have I mentioned these things? Cookies meant to be eaten with coffee named Digestives - a brilliant marketing idea - 'They're great for you! Cookies that help you digest your meal! Eat them and be healthy!') Hearing stories from these two girls (who have hitched everywhere) I would definitely come back to Iceland and try to hitch around. If you've got a tent you can always pitch it basically anywhere if it gets too late to catch a ride (too late meaning nobody is driving around, not that it's too dark, of course).

Anyway, from there we drove to Egilsstadir and stopped by Eymundur's farm for lunch. The Canadians thought he might be especially glad to see us because he'd be alone, but not so. Well, he was happy to see me and meet Nathan, but there were also 5 other WWOOFers there. Lunch was crowded, but delicious. I hadn't realized how much I'd grown to love daily soups, the daily-baked bread, and the *intensely* garlic-y guacamole.

It was also amazing to see how much everything had grown in 10 days. They were getting ready to plant the beets I'd transplanted; the barley fields were booming; in general, everything had exploded into full bloom. The whole farm had been spray painted green.

It was a nice feeling, too, of returning to a familiar place. As I mentioned, not knowing my surroundings, in a city in particular, really drives me crazy. Related to that is the very positive feeling I get when I return to an area I know. I took special pleasure in pointing things out to Nathan.

We could only stay for a couple hours, our final destination being much further south and west. We hit the road for a couple hours, passing the by-now-typical breath-taking scenery: roadside waterfalls, fjords, mountains, and a general glowing greenness. Way back when I first arrived in Egilsstadir and met Eymundur at the airport, I asked why he liked east Iceland so much. He said its appeal was largely that it was the greenest area, had the most trees (it'd be a stretch to call those tree patches "forrest," however). That was abundantly clear during our drive through the southeast.

Particularly striking were the ruin-esque glaciated mountains. I don't know if they look the way they do because they are so old (east Iceland is the oldest part of the landmass) or so new (there is a huge, and still receding glacier in the area) but they look like massive temple steps. Mayan ruins come to mind (not actual Mayan ruins, which I haven't seen, but pop-culture/Hollywood Mayan ruins, to be sure). A towering, mossy, overgrown temple. The striations came from glaciation, but it certainly looks man-made.

After our long drive we rounded a bend, and there it was: Jökulsárlón. It is a lagoon at the base of a glacier. Every so often a piece of the glacier breaks off and slowly (very slowly) floats through (or around) the lagoon for some time before finally being carried out to the ocean. Somehow, some of the icebergs are the most incredible shades of blue - a sparkling light-blue. Icebergs line the shore as well, making for a ridiculous coastline: black sands, and iridescent blue icebergs. It was really one of the most incomprehensible sights of nature. The sort that requires you to just sit and stare at it for hours - hours. We didn't have that kind of time, sadly (the theme of the day, it seems), and left for Skaftafell National Park after not-quite-an-hour.

Skaftafell is Iceland's largest national park and home to (many, but mainly) two fantastic attractions: Svartifoss, and glaciers. We camped the night in the park and the next morning hit the trails.

Svartifoss is a beautiful, thin waterfall that spills forth over a backdrop of black basalt. It wasn't impressive in the way waterfalls usually are - by their size, shape, volume, power - but the surroundings made it far and away the most memorable waterfall I've seen. After sitting at the base of the falls for a bit we hiked over to the foot (or head, I don't remember which body part they use) of Skaftafellsjökull, one of the many "fingers" of the glacial mass that sits atop and throughout the mountains in the region. It was another one of those pieces of nature that are near-impossible to get your mind around. The glacier just looks like thick, dirty snow, yet its movements (and it is receding at a measurable pace: 1km in the past 50 years) form the land around it. And to think these guys used to cover sections of the glove we now comfortably inhabit... and that in the future this glacier may completely disappear. Well, again, to really get it requires more than that hour and a half we spent walking around it.

After hurrying around so much the previous day we were surprised to find that we had more time than we expected on our hands. We decided on an extra day in Reykjavik and drove west to hit our last major destination - The Golden Circle - before arriving back in the city by night time.

The Golden Circle refers to three large attractions: Gullfoss, Geysir, and Thingvellir (unfortunately I can't make the 'th' symbol on this keyboard). Gullfoss is a double-cascading waterfall that was (I need a thesaurus) beautiful and impressive. It was surprising to find that paths were roped off, as nothing in Iceland is roped off - if you recklessly hang over the edge of a cliff, that's your business as far as Icelanders are concerned. Probably, this one had ropes because it (and the Golden Circle in general) is the main tourist attraction for people staying in Reykjavik for only a few days.

Geysir (GAY-zeer) is the original geysir, the namesake. It used to spurt an astonishing 80 meter stream of water, but got clogged up in the 50s because tourists threw so many rocks in, trying to set it off. An earthquake in 2000 freed it up again, but now it doesn't erupt as high and only goes off two or three times a day. Right next to Geysir, thankfully, is Strokkur, which goes off every five minutes though at a more modest 15-30 meters.

The last stop, Thingvellir, is a national park that surrounds the Althing, the original meeting place of Iceland's thousand year old governing body - the world's first democratic parliament, in fact. Maybe if we hadn't seen so much already (that day, and that week) we would have thought more of it, but as it was, we were ready to head back to the city after a quick walk through Almanngjá fissure, a crack between the North American and European tectonic plates that is growing by 2mm per year.

We spent the night and next day in Reykjavik, seeing some final sights, enjoying the night life, and recouping after our haul (the mundane things like laundry need to get done sometime). One thought on nightlife, though: there is a thriving cafe/bar/club scene in Reykjavik, especially on the weekends, but the fact that it never gets dark at night during the summer takes something away from it. Nathan said it's just not as exciting when it's not dark. I completely agreed. Our first night in Copenhagen a day later confirmed this. Nightlife is just more fun when it's distinctively night.

Our last stop in Iceland before getting on our plane to Denmark was the Blue Lagoon. It is surreally set in the middle of a barren lava field. Nothing for miles, then this space-age complex housing the Blue Lagoon facilities (they really play up the restorative properties of the silica rich mud-water). It's really just a geothermal pool that they've turned into a spa. By far the most touristy and commercial place we'd been, and a crazy juxtaposition with, say, the Latrabjarg cliffs in the Westfjords. But also a necessary stop (like the Eiffel Tower, some say).

And that warps up Iceland. Hard to believe that trip is over after being in the works for two years. The subtitle of this journal is "a visit to countries in which I've often thought of living," so the question: could I live here, in Iceland, in Reykjavik? No. No. Bad weather, grey skies, weird sunlight (I can't imagine how people handle the winter months), everyone looks the same (especially 20something women, who all share the same bleach-blonde hair and facial structure). Yet... Icelanders rank as some of the world's happiest people.

The Grapevine, that English-language culture/arts newspaper I've mentioned, had an article on this seeming paradox. It turns out that three features of Icelandic life correlate highly with happiness: strong communities, extensive civil liberties, and sufficient leisure time. Icelandic communities are very strong, likely since so many Icelanders are related to one another (and interestingly related to the fact that there are high divorce rates, and many unmarried couples with children, yet a strong "familial" structure in which kids grow up). Iceland is extremely progressive with its civil liberties (couples enjoy generous-by-US-standards benefits when they have children, gay couples enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples). And Icelanders enjoy their free time in their pristine outdoors. Still, I'd rather find those things elsewhere... somewhere warmer.

This probably isn't the last time I'll mention Iceland. I think other places will bring my thoughts about Iceland into relief. There'll also be many points of comparison in the coming weeks.

Gallery: Roadtrip Days 9-11

mredovan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:53:00 GMT

The final spurt through the south

a tale of witches, waterfalls, crevices, and non-whales

mredovan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:16:00 GMT

First, some links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26708482@N08/ - Pictures of Graffiti in Reykjavik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zWk1eUYJeM - A movie of Dettifoss, the largest waterfall in Europe (in terms of water volume)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVdS0YBHZcY - A movie of Goðafoss, a horseshoe shaped waterfall that plays a prominent role in Icelandic history. In the year 1000, the Icelandic parliament (the Alþingi) decided to accept Christianity as the official religion. On the way back from this meeting, the head of the governing body (the law-speaker), passed this waterfall and threw in his staff with the engravings of the Norse gods. Goðafoss means Waterfall of the Gods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-9h2_zh4lE - The Latrabjarg cliffs in the Westfjords.

We've been up to a lot since the Westfjords. The morning of the 6th we left Isafjordur and drove to Holmavik. On the way out of town we stopped a couple times for some hikes. The most impressive was the hike up Naustahvilft, or Troll's Seat. It was an extremely warm day, but up in the mountains (at about 250 meters) there was snow on the ground. Bizarre as it was, I hiked around with the jeans rolled up and shirtless, trekking through the snow and the sun.

There isn't much in Holmavik, but the one interesting sight is the Icelandic Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery. Along with the rest of continental Europe and the U.S., Iceland went through a phase of witch hunts. Interestingly, almost all of the witch burnings (21 in all) occurred in the Westfjords, and were initiated by one family (which may not be that surprising since most Icelanders are related to each other). Unsurprisingly, that one family was a rich and powerful land-owning family, and most of the people burned were poor peasants. The typical story goes: something bad happens to someone in the powerful family - a daughter falls ill, crops fail, a house falls down - and they find in a local peasant a scapegoat. These peasants, having a hard life, try any and everything to make life easier, and so at some point have resorted to witchcraft (drawing symbols on stones, chanting incantations over their sheep, etc). Eventually they admit it, and then it's all over. One priest who fell ill had a father and son tried and burned, and then attempted to try the daughter as well. Thank goodness the witch-crazy was contained to one century (a long enough time as it is).

Our next big stop was lake Myvatn, in the north east. Along the way our only detours were to see Goðafoss (linked above) and a few turf-covered buildings. I'm fascinated by these buildings. They look as if they've sprouted up from the ground. Icelanders built such houses due to a paucity of other building materials, and because they insulated well and were pretty durable.

Near Myvatn lies Dettifoss, the largest water-volume waterfall in Europe. It's got nothing on Niagara, and honestly wasn't as impressive as some of the other, smaller, falls we've seen, but one thing did strike me. You know how if you watch a rotating ceiling fan, you only see the blur of the blades, but then all of a sudden your eyes focus on one particular blade for a second, and you follow it around its rotation? I experience the same things watching waterfalls. Most of the time I just see the gestalt - a huge amount of water pouring over a cliff into a basin below. But every so often (more often if I try to do it) I end up focusing on a particular section of water as it rolls over the edge and plummets down. I lose sight of it before it hits the water below, but for those seconds, I'm reminded that the waterfall is actually just a conglomeration of millions/billions/trillions of water molecules. I think of a waterfall as this one, stable thing, but when you really look at it you see how the water never falls in exactly the same way. Sometimes it crashes off the side of the rock wall surrounding it, sometimes it bumps into another stream of water also falling down, ricocheting off in a new direction. It's a constantly-in-flux body of water. So I looked at that for awhile.

We camped at Lake Myvatn for a night, intending to see the sights around the lake the following morning, but it rained all night and into the next morning (a drizzle that brought with it an impenetrable haze). Nathan and I were trying to decide what to do, and as we were carrying our tent and sleeping bags back to our car Rachel and Sabrina from the WWOOF farm popped out of their tent and shouted us down. I had half-planned with them to meet up when I was still on the farm, but it was a great surprise to see them., and they helped us figure out our plan for the day, which is to say they had plans for us. We cut our hiking plans short due to the rain, which was a doubly good idea because Lake Myvatn is infested with small flies - midges - which are unbearable when hiking (but do give rise to the tremendous bird-life around the lake).

The previous day another traveller had shown them the way to a secret place off the main road. Not telling us what it was they directed us there, by car and by foot. We traversed a lava field, and could see steam rising from the ground in the distance. When they proclaimed "we're here!" we were standing next to a crevice, with some planks of wood leading down 20 feet to the bottom. Climbing down, we discovered a geothermal pool - hot, but not too hot. We spent the next hour or so lounging in the water, and at one point Rachel dropped the bombshell on us: the wall on the right side was the European tectonic plate, the wall on the left, the North American tectonic plate. In the truest sense we were floating between continents.

Eventually we had to drag ourselves out of the water and back to the car. Nathan and I had plans to go whale watching the next day from a town further north, Husavik, and wanted to get there that night. The town itself was your typical Icelandic fishing village - a few hundred people, a pretty harbor, a mountainous backdrop (how absurd to become used to such sights!).

The following morning we boarded the boat at 10am, and three hours later rolled back into port having seen nothing more than flocks of birds and a single seal. Hugely, immensely disappointing. But as our guide told us - there are no guarantees in the wild.

Currently, Nathan and I are back in Reykjavik, but the details of where we went between Husavik and now will have to wait for another time.

Gallery: Around Iceland Days 6-8

mredovan — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:42:00 GMT

The central north: Lake Myvatn and Akureyri

Gallery: Around Iceland Days 3-5

mredovan — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:10:00 GMT

The Westfjords

Gallery: Iceland Trip Day 1 & 2

mredovan — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 09:29:00 GMT

Reykjavik and around Snaefellsnes Peninsula

mossy moonscapes, and other dramatic vistas

mredovan — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 01:21:00 GMT

Nathan, a friend from way back when, arrived in Reykjavik on June 2nd. We spent most of the day walking around the city - nothing too intensive as Nathan arrived at 6:30am and hadn't slept much. Really, we spent most of the day in anticipation for our looming drive around Iceland.

The plan: rent a car and drive around Iceland for 10 days. Then spend 3 days in Denmark, 4 days in Sweden, 4 days in Finland, and 6 days in Norway. Nathan flies to Turkey on July 1 and I stay in Norway until the end of August (it occurred to me that I hadn't really spelled out the basic itinerary for the summer before). We're now on day three of the Iceland trip and... well let's just say if the rest of the trip is as intensely dramatic as these days, I'm not sure how I'll make it. I'd like to relate parts of some of these days, but I feel the same way about this attempt as I do when I take pictures of gorgeous scenery - it's nearly impossible to capture and relate it. Well, here goes:

After a little trouble getting out of the city the morning of the 3rd we headed north and east to the first set of many lava fields we were to see that day. This was the second time I laid my eyes on lava fields - the first being in Hawaii this past November. The lava in the Kona region of the Big Island was all bare - just brown and black rock sprawling for miles. Here it's all covered with this blue-green moss. Either way, lava fields call to mind lunar landscapes (not that I have a substantive idea of what the moon's surface looks like), but the fields I've seen out here are more like mossy moonscapes. At any rate, we tried to make our way out to Surtshellir and Stefanshellir - two giant lava tubes, but the road was blocked off. We consoled ourselves by taking the long way around the first fjord we came to and by stopping at one point and walking along the beach.

An aside: I didn't really know what a fjord was until a couple days ago (I mean, I could picture one if you'd asked me to, but couldn't tell you what, exactly, it was if asked). A fjord a body of water - it's a narrow inlet surrounded by steep mountains formed by receding glaciers.

Our goal for the first day was to make it out to the tip of Snaefellsnes Peninsula where there lay a national park and glacier. Apparently the icecap itself is famous for being the setting of Jules Verne's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth." It was impressive, but impregnable. There are not short hikes in/around the mountain and it takes about five hours to reach the glacier. So instead, we located the ancient volcano Eldborg and hiked to the crest. Only a mere 100 meters, but still extremely awing to peer into the dead crater of the volcano.

We bunkered down that night in Olafsvik in our tent (vik, by the way, means bay so there are many towns ending in vik - Reykjavik, Keflavik, even one town just named Vik) and woke the next morning to a brightly shining sun. We hit the road, didn't stop for much, and hopped on a ferry at Stykkisholmur (which is on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula) which jetted us across the large bay to the Westfjords.

See, here's what I mean about things being hard to convey: I said we didn't stop for much, but that doesn't mean we didn't do anything, or didn't see anything. Every single second in the car is seeing/doing. Just driving around the fjords, past waterfalls, past sheep grazing lazily by the side of the road, no other cars for 30, 40, 50 minutes. It's exhausting just looking around. I feel guilty when I get used to the scenery and space out, or when I direct my gaze inside the car to try to find a radio station.

At any rate, we landed in the Westfjords in the evening and drove straight west to Latrabjarg which is the name of a town and lighthouse that occupy the western-most-point of Europe. We made it to the coast, walked out to the cliffs, and found massive, 200 meter sheer dropoffs lined with birds. Hundreds and hundreds of birds. I'm no bird watcher so I couldn't tell you what sorts, but the one I did recognize was the Puffin. They were everywhere. They were also, surprisingly, not afraid of us at all. You could walk within a couple feet of them.

Wind swept cliffs. Many hundreds of birds. Standing close to Puffins. The Western Most Point in Europe. A sun that never sets. These are the tiny summaries into which I have to distill my experience. Ay.

We drove back (I almost forgot to mention that the road was a dirt/gravel path that meandered in and out of the fjord for about 40 km) and camped that night as well. I'll tell you, there is nothing like waking up in a tent, head still fuzzy and foggy from sleep, unzipping the fly, and realizing that you're out in the near-wilderness of Iceland surrounded on all sides by rock and water. Something similar happens when my attention is focused on other things: reading, writing, etc. I finish whatever it is that I'm doing, look up, and realize again where I am. It's astonishing each time.

One last thought: as I was leaving the farm, being driven to the airport, the man driving me, Eymundur's friend, told me that I would really be able to tell the differences between each part of Iceland. I've started to see what he means. In the east, and the southwest near Reykjavik, the mountains lining the fjords are smooth-sided. In the Westfjords they're much more rocky - as if some giant took a sledgehammer to the side of the basalt cliffs and shattered them into thousands of pieces.

So now Nathan and I are in Isafjordur, the largest town in the Westfjords (at a bursting 3,500 people). We'll spend the next couple days here hiking around before heading out to the northeast.

musings on the wwoofing life

mredovan — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 01:18:00 GMT

WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms (link). The way it works is you pay annual dues to be a member, you are provided with a contact list of all the farms in a given country, and then you contact the farms and hopefully arrange a stay. Once you get there you work, usually 30 hours a week, in exchange for housing and food. The farm in Egillstaðir was only the second WWOOF farm I've ever been on, but I'm really struck by one thing in particular...

Isn't WWOOFing just a crazy idea? Can you imagine this working for any other profession (or that it works at all with farming?)? Can you imagine an accounting firm taking on people who know NOTHING about accounting in exchange for food and shelter? That's really the striking thing about it: you, as a WWOOFer, are not expected to know anything about farming (it's even crazy using the word "farming" since there are so many different types/kinds). Granted, some of the time you're doing basic manual labor, but still, you are directly affecting the farm's production. If you don't water those baby beet roots well, they will die. If you forget to cover them at night, they will freeze. If you don't plant those trees correctly, they will not grow (I spent my last few days on the farm planting trees, and discovering last year's failed attempt: rows and rows of brown-dead blue spruce). WWOOFing is certainly more than just an exchange of labor for room and board. One of the implicit ideas is that WWOOFers have an interest in organic farming, and so travel to different farms to learn. When seen in that way, the lack of experience becomes expected. WWOOFing becomes more than just performing farm work. Still, it's a jarring thought to realize that this farmer, who has taken you in, his well being depends on you doing your job well. A job that you sometimes haven't the faintest idea how to do.

The other story I wanted to share has to do with Eymundur, the farm owner. I wrote a bit about him and the farm in the last entry, but at the time didn't realize the full extent of his barley farming dreams.

Eymundur first grew barley to feed his cows (back in the 1970s and 80s). Apparently this is a typical use of barley - as a feed for animals. Honestly, I had no idea what barley was used for, but I guess many Icelanders are more in the know than I am. After Eymundur got rid of his cows, he kept growing barley, and began experimenting using it as a wheat and rice substitute. Now he makes bread with it; he makes a delicious breakfast dish with is; he puts it in soup; he makes several different types of veggie burgers using barley. Eymundur wants to start a barley revolution in Iceland.

He hopes that, by the time he dies (which he believes will be when he is 106 years old), all Icelanders will believe that they have always eaten barley. He wants to raise an entire generation on barley. This may not be as crazy as it sounds, since Iceland only has about 300,000 citizens. But as I said, Icelanders are more accustomed to the traditional uses of barley, which puts up barriers to the idea of eating it themselves. Eymundur said that the most common reaction is "barley? Isn't that what we feed the pigs?"

To overcome this barley stigma, and advertise his product, Eymundur goes on a grocery store tour in the winter months (Dec-Feb). He sets up a stand at the end of one of the aisles, lays out the seven dishes that he most often makes with barley, and doles out samples and advice on how to use barley. He says he has had reasonable success over the years selling his product once he gets people to try it, but what often happens, he laments, is that a year or so after selling barley to someone at the grocery display, he will see that same person and they will come up to him saying, "hey, I remember you! The barley guy! Yeah, I bought your barley, but it's been sitting in the back of my cupboard since then - I don't know how to use it!"

His largest single customer is the Reykjavik Hospital. For the past few years they have purchased thousands of his veggie burgers. Just this past year, however, they decided to stop. Why? Because they were steaming them in a gigantic oven, which is how they cook all their food, and this more or less turned the burgers to mush. Whoops. A friend of Eymundur's has scheduled a meeting with the head chef in the hospital for next month. Hopefully she can talk the chef into trying the barley burgers again, and teach her how to cook them correctly.

Through it all, Eymundur soldiers on. He grows many other crops, as I mentioned. Icelanders are going through a bit of a potato craze, he says, and so his potatoes are in demand. But it's the barley farming that keeps him going. It's what interests him and drives him. Currently he produces 20 tones per year. His next goal is to hit 60 tones. I'm not sure, and don't know if he is sure either, what comes after that. 60 tones is still a long way from feeding the whole country.

Gallery: WWOOF Iceland

mredovan — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:36:00 GMT

Organic Farming in Eastern Iceland

work weeks, light rays, and bird chirps

mredovan — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:34:00 GMT

I've been on a farm in eastern Iceland since Wednesday. The small town nearby is Egilsstaðir (the ð is a cross between a d and a th sound). I say small, but it's the largest town in the east - population of about 2000. The farm, Moðir Jörd (Mother Earth) is 10 miles out of town, and it's pretty large - 350 hectares, which if my conversions are right is almost 850 acres. Eymundur is the farm owner and he's been farming since 1979 and taking on WWOOFers since 2001. He's 53, with 3 kids - two grown and moved away, one teenager who lives with his mother in Reykjavik most of the year but spends summers on the farm. The farm produces potatoes, beets, lettuce, parsley, and other assorted veggies. His main crop, though, is barley. About half the farm is dedicated to barley.

Since arriving less than a week ago I have: constructed a greenhouse, transplanted beets and filled the greenhouses, watered those same beets and other starting-to-sprout plants, pruned Alaskan willows that line the fields and stacked the clipped branches, cooked dinner three times (one utter failure of stuffed peppers, and two mild successes involving 1) tomatoes and zucchini, and 2) potatoes, onions, apples, raisins, and brown sugar), and filled in a sunken grave (there´s a church next to the farm that goes unused, but Eymundur still keeps it looking nice). We work from around 9 to 6, but take many, many breaks: for lunch, for coffee, for water, whatever. We work about 6 hours a day. The meals are vegetarian, which will make my time here the longest I've gone without meat in a couple years.

When I got here, there were six other WWOOFers. All in their twenties, all interesting people, some from the US, some from Canada, one from Germany. As of this afternoon, however, it's just me. Which, as far as work goes, is fine, apparently. It's been colder and wetter than usual (so says Eymundur) and spring is late, so we haven't been able to/still can't do a lot of the planting that would normally be going on at this time of the year. We'll see what the next weeks hold. I'll be here until the 30th.

So much for the requisite introduction to the farm. There are two things that I really want to write about: daylight and waterfalls.

You often hear about northern parts of the world: Alaska, Scandanavia, Iceland - and how they get lots of light during the summer and no light during the winter. Nothing can prepare you for it, though. It's completely surreal. On Friday we (two Canadians, German and I) finished dinner around 9 and decided to go drive out to Hengifoss, a nearby waterfall, and hike to the top. We hiked from around 10pm to midnight... midnight! The sun 'sets' around 11 o'clock, though it stays dusk-light until about 2 when the sun rises again. The really wild part, though, is that the birds chip at all hours of the day. We got back from Hengifoss around 12:30 but stayed up until 2. As I was walking to my room, the birds were going wild. It's as if they decide a rotation of who gets to sleep and who has to chirp for the entire 24 hour day. It's pretty wonderful to be able to go and do things after work, though.

The other really remarkable thing about Iceland, is that water streams from every pore and orifice of this island. Saturday evening, we (German, Eymundur, and I) drove to Seyðisfjörður, a small(er), bohemian, costal town (along a fjord, hence fjörð in the name) with a cool arts scene. There were a couple exhibition openings and, as it turns out, Seyðisfjörður is also where one of Eymundur's daughters lives. Anyway, the drive was about twenty miles and we passed about 25 waterfalls on the way. And I'm talking big waterfalls. On top of that we must have passed countless streams and eddies of running water, not to mention the fjord itself. I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to live in a town that sits at the base of a 1500 foot mountain, on a strip of land that's maybe 200 yards wide (space between the mountain base and the water), which is sandwiched between a fjord and waterfalls.

Note: pictures are still slow to come. I'm on a dialup modem circa 1991. I've been able to add a few pictures of Reykjavik. I'll take some good farm ones and try to add them to. Anyway, that's why I linked to Henifoss and Seyðisfjörður.

Gallery: Reykjavik Take 1

mredovan — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:23:00 GMT

first five days of the trip in Iceland´s capital city

a pre-mature verdict can't be helped

mredovan — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:16:00 GMT

Today is my 5th day in Reykjavik, here's the narrative so far:

I arrived Friday morning and since then have spent my time doing a lot of walking, some sight-seeing, and some cafe-sitting. I've been trying to get over a cold I received courtesy a friend in New York, so I haven't been staying up late. Maybe that's when this town comes to life...

I've been very surprised at how few people I've seen in the streets. On Friday and today one could chalk it up to it being the work week, but Sat-Mon (a religious holiday) didn't bring a visible bustle to the city either. Maybe because it's been cold and partly rainy (a slow drizzle)? Maybe I'm just on the wrong streets? (really, there have been many times when I have literally been the only person in sight) Maybe nobody lives in the city itself, so it's only ever full weekend-night, or in the full swing of tourist season... ah, I could be on to something.

I'm a bit early as tourist season goes, and Reykjavik has been in a development boom for the past two decades. My first morning here I walked out to a path that runs along the bay/harbor (did you know Reykjavik was on the water?) and into the city center and I counted 15 construction cranes. I'm writing this in the city library and across the street a new building is going up. On my bus in from the airport (40 mins southwest of the city) I, at one time, counted a dozen cranes. I picked up the English language pop-culture/what's-happening newspaper, Grapevine, and read an editorial which charged the city with reckless development, and called for a dialogue between city officials, concerned citizens, and artists about self-conscious, sustainable building practices. A lot of sprawl has, well, sprawled out in the past 10-20 years, and with it has gone a lot of the residential population.

I've only been here a few days, but I'd agree that the city planners do need a vision for future development. The area around Reykjavik is extremely raw and beautiful. From the path I mentioned, you can see to the north, across the bay, spiking, snow-stained mountains. The contrast between that view and the cityscape to the south is pretty striking. It's what gives the city its certain mystique. But maintaining that means precisely not overdeveloping, or thoughtlessly developing.

There's a very visible tension in the city between the past and the future - between the tradition of being a fishing city, and the possible future of being a Modern city (the day I got here there was the 2nd part of a conference titled 'What Does It Mean to be a Modern Harbor City'). The Viking museum is pretty far out of town. Traditional architecture (thin strips of wood for the walls, tin for the roof) has been spurned in favor of basalt and lots of glass (the recently built City Hall is the perfect example). There's a very strong feeling of pushing for modernization, without a lot of thought regarding tradition, roots, history. I guess this isn't that unusual, just unusually evident.

This is the first time I've been in a foreign city by myself for more than one day. I've already learned a few things about myself.

I don't like speaking English in countries where it isn't the primary language. This is absurd in Iceland, however, because almost everyone here speaks English (and usually a couple more languages as well). My days have all begun with a trip to the grocery store to buy breakfast-stuffs. If I can help it, I do not say a word other than 'Hi.' The first day I learned the process: the cashier says hi (hi); he asks if you'd like a bag (head nod or shake); he tells you the total (hand him the credit card); he asks if you want your receipt (again, head nod or shake); that's that. It's bizarre of me, I know. I'm embarrassed to admit it.

The other thing I've learned is what type of traveller I am. There are many types: the sight-seer, the adventurer, the hiker/cyclist, the nature-enthusiast, the high-end tourist, the wine-and-diner. I myself am an imposter-citizen type. I like to establish a rhythm and routine. I like to walk the city, not so much to see the sights: monuments, famous buildings, etc., but to get a feel for the city as a whole, and to get, as quickly as a I, away from looking at maps. I like establishing a path. I like finding a few things that I really like, and do them each day. (Maybe this is why I don't like speaking English - it ruins my guise)

My routine has been: wake; walk to the grocery store for breakfast; walk to the path I mentioned and sit on a bench and eat breakfast; walk into town, usually with a destination in mind: a museum, the giant cathedral, a cafe, a park; I sit and read, write, or look at people - I do this for quite a while; walk more; eat; walk more. That's mostly it. Not terribly exciting, but it feels good to do it.

That routine ends tomorrow when I fly to Eglisstadir (on the east side of Iceland), where I'll be for the next two weeks. It's a WWOOF farm. I'm looking forward to it. Like many urban places, I find the people a little chilly: a lot less likely to look you in the eye, say hello, smile, or generally recognize your existence.

Two other quick things that surprised me:

1) Reykjavik is covered in graffiti. COVERED. Some of it is very cool and amazingly done, but the majority of it is just stupid tags. It's really on everything.

2) The streets are strewn with so much trash. So much! Today I saw a group of kids outside the grocery store, and as they were all leaving, two of them threw their milk cartons on the ground. I don't understand. What's ironic is that at the hostel, there is a group of about 20 international students/young adults (18-24 I'd say) that is here for 6 months learning about environmentalism.

Oh, and I've got many pictures, but have had no means of uploading them yet. There will be a ton of graffiti pics, and some pictures of the things I mentioned above: city hall, big cathedral, construction cranes, etc. Hopefully soon they'll be up.