Today is my last full day in Iceland. I have spent the past three days here in Reykjavik, and the few days before I arrived here were spent in Mývatn frantically finishing the processing of our samples, taking down our sites, saying goodbyes and cleaning up the house, barn and field station. This frenetic pace is certainly to blame for my recent lack of posts. I will do a bit of recap of our last days in the North.
About 5 or 6 days before we were to depart Mývatn we were informed that another scientist on our project and his family were to arrive at Kálfaströnd. This usually would be welcome news, but with 3 children already in the house and 3 more arriving we began to be a bit concerned. We three interns and Jamin were asked to move to the field station. Which sounded OK when we discussed it before the arrival, but when the time came it became a bit of a hardship. We kept asking ourselves if we were really to pack our things and move to the field station when we had only 5 nights left in our house? Bre and I had just gotten used to our new quiet space in the attic. And we would come to the house just for meals? And there would be another group cooking in our tiny kitchen? 14 people in our house at meal time? It just didn’t make sense. So we didn’t pack, hoping that we could convince them to go to the field station for a few nights at least. It didn’t work. So we moved. And it turned out to be ok, but at the time none of us were too happy. The field station became a bit of a refugee camp, as the four of us threw all our possessions into bags haphazardly and dumped them on the floor when we arrived in our new home.
Our final days working in Mývatn were quite strenuous. We scrambled finish our samples, and worked ~14 hour days for nearly a week. And while all this was going on we had become addicted to the TV show “Mad Men,” which Kyle had on his computer. This meant we would watch episodes from when we stopped working at 23:00 until at least 1:00 or 2:00. We didn’t exactly get much sleep. Also during these days, I celebrated my birthday, complete with cake and ice cream! I can’t say it was the most special birthday ever, really it was just another day that we were working really hard, but it was certainly nice to be in a beautiful place with people that I like.
We finally finished all our field sampling on the 11th. Which left the morning and early afternoon of the 12th to pack up the lab and clean everything. Which we all thought was never going to happen. But it did. Just in time to drive to Akureyri and pick up our rental car to drive to Reykjavik. The drive south was nice, but the landscape in the west certainly is not as scenic as the drive taking the easterly route. We made it to our temporary home, Oli’s apartment. Which also became something of a refugee camp, as there were 6 people (Oli’s cousin was visiting as well) crammed into his studio. Which incidentally has a single air mattress and a single chair. And a really hard floor. We had a fun night in Reykjavik though. It was great to be there again with good friends. We did the usual bar-hopping, hitting some favorites like Bakkus and Boston. Bre even left a souvenir, which I have passed many times as I walk back and forth from downtown.
The next morning it was time for the crew to take off. Bre, Jamin and Kyle’s flight left four days before mine did, so we said our goodbyes and I was left to hang out with Oli and his cousin Dave for a few days. We also did the typical Reykjavik Friday night, visiting some friends at a “house party” and then heading downtown for some bars and eventually ingesting a hotdog to cap the night off.
The following day I ventured back downtown to walk around and hit a museum or two. I ended up at 871+/- 2, which is the settlement museum. Basically this place is a preserved archeological dig of what is probably the first settlement in Iceland. The museum is really quite well done and it gives some indication about what life was like in the 9th century in Iceland. After this, during my rambling about the city, I ran into Oli and Dave, and we contemplated what to do for dinner. Wit hit the Bónus, and decided on an Icelandic oddity, horse. It really was quite good. Much milder than I expected, and certainly it was not tough. The meat did have a distinct flavor though.
Yesterday I wandered about town again, this time stopping at the National Gallery of Iceland. There was some really great art from Icelandic artists, and a whole lot of it I just didn’t get. I guess that comes with the territory of being a scientist… There also was an exhibit of Edvard Munch, which was quite nice. It contained mostly lithographs and prints he made. Unfortunately “The Scream” was not present.
I returned home and saw Oli and Dave off, as they were heading eastward to camp. And now I am alone in the city, sort of just hanging out. I will hit a couple of more museums, and have a drink with my archeologist friend Frank, who is still in town, but it really is quite lonely. And with that, I am quite ready to head home.
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