Thursday, August 30, 2012 — Most People Get Lucky In Iceland

After a flight enlivened by bone-rat­tling tur­bu­lence and a mad­woman mak­ing a scene in the plane, my first glimpse of Ice­land was, appro­pri­ate­ly, the bright glac­i­er of Snae­fell­sjökell (see pre­vi­ous entry), fol­lowed by a rapid descent into Keflavik. From the air­port, it was a hour´s bus ride across chaot­ic black lava fields to Reykjavik.

Walk­ing the streets of the lit­tle cap­i­tal gave me a strong first impres­sion. Some things here look Euro­pean, but the over­whelm­ing resem­blance is to the towns of East­ern Cana­da. You could eas­i­ly mis­take a block of down­town Reyk­javik for St. John´s, New­found­land, or per­haps Hal­i­fax. The peo­ple even seem to walk the same way, and have the same looks on their faces.

I have already had a most enjoy­able encounter with Sig­ur­dur Jón Ólaf­s­son and Inga Guðb­jarts­dót­tir, who gave me a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the city´s neigh­bour­hoods. This was the first of what I sus­pect will turn out to be many delight­ful and infor­ma­tive conversations.

At the moment, I am jet-lagged, my body demand­ing sleep. But tomor­row, I will beg­ing seri­ous explor­ing on foot.

The title is a direct quote from Inga.

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