Date: March 5th, 2023
Location: Selfoss, Iceland
Today was finally the day we made it to Iceland. I flew in and landed at about 5:00 in the morning, local time. But back home it would have just hit midnight. I was two hours early to pick up time so I had to wait a while in one of the airport coffee/juice bars after customs and baggage claim. It was kind of a boring wait, but truthfully I was fueled by excitement by the fact that I was currently in Iceland!!
After a while, more people attending the same program as me started to show up. Some people had gotten to Iceland a couple days early, so they just joined me at the coffee bar after being dropped off by a bus. Though a lot of people were from my school, flying in not too long after me. And I do mean, a lot. About 75% of the group was from Penn State. I got to talk to some of the other participants though. One girl was from a relatively small school in North Carolina and another girl was an engineering major going to community college in California. And another two were a duo from the same aerospace company in England. I thought they were extremely cool- especially when they explained how their company was paying them overtime to take this trip. It's kind of like magic truly is real in Iceland. At least, I don't think I could ever dream of someone my age getting seven days worth of overtime to go hiking and camping in Iceland. But that might be too American of me to think that way. Who knows. I suppose I'll just have to learn more as I get to know them.
After everyone arrived, it was finally time to leave the airport and to stay our program. And to be completely honest? Immediately after getting into the bus and driving out of the parking lot, I realized that at least some parts of Iceland are surprisingly flat. Way more than I expected. All around us, there were very distant mountains which was something I knew I was going to see. But I didn’t anticipate the landscape feeling almost like parts of Oklahoma (minus all the giant Icelandic mountains surrounded by fog). It was a little jarring, but it was still very cool to see. Mostly because I was Iceland. But partially because the landscape wasn't actually something I was too familiar with.
In fact, everything about the landscape and the dominant rock types and just so much about the physical geography of Iceland was completely foreign to me. It was just unlike everything I’ve ever seen- especially the dark black rocks, the black sand and the blue lagoon!
Speaking of those things, the Blue Lagoon was one of the first things we saw when we got on the bus. You can see on the picture I attached to my blog (alongside all the surround black basalt rocks- volcanic stones!!), but it's a bunch of ponds that are an extremely bright blue color. It's a truly gorgeous sight to behold.
We learned while there that the Blue Lagoon is one of the 25 Wonders of the World. Though we did kind of question if it's actually right to call the Blue Lagoon a Wonder considering the fact that it was man-made and happened through an accident regarding drilling underground for water, and trying to let mineral rich water seep down underground through all of Iceland's permeable rocks. Either way, it was incredibly pretty and apparently it's fantastic for the skin and some other health issues if you were to bathe in it! Though the girls who arrived earlier than the rest of the group to sightsee a little said that the price was a little steep so I don't think a blue bath is quite in the cards for me.
A couple stops after we saw the blue lagoon, we went to where we saw the black sand. But this location is a lot more than just black sand (a very common color for sand in this area, likely because of all the mineral and sediment deposits from nearby volcanic activity). This location was actually Miðlína or Leif the Lucky Bridge- a bridge between two major tectonic plates!
You see, Iceland sits something called the Mid-Atlantic ridge. The Mid-Atlantic ridge is a "large" (in geologist eyes, anyways) rift that sits between the North American's tectonic plate and the Eurasia tectonic plate. So technically, even though I was in a European country, I could walk to North America's tectonic plate boundary and back to Eurasia's plate boundary in less than ten seconds. I know to some people, it might not seem like much. But you can honestly think about it as being in two continents at the same time! And to make things even better? I was told Iceland is the only piece of land that goes over the Mid-Atlantic ridge. How cool is that?
All in all, there are just so many things that are different between my home and Iceland. Though out of everything, I’d say the fog and the cold are the most familiar thing to back home. Specifically, they both remind me of the early morning fog and the cold winters we would get at Penn State.
But one thing I wanted to note was American’s influence on Iceland. I knew that a lot of Icelandic people spoke english, but walking out of baggage claim to hear Kendrick Lamar and Drake and just a bunch of other rap songs playing a mostly vegan coffee and just bar was a huge surprise. As it turns out, America had a huge influence on Icelandic culture starting from about the time of the American military occupation of Iceland. It can still be seen today through food items at the grocery stores to music to all sorts of things. Fun fact: did you know that Honey Nut Cheerios are a very popular Icelandic breakfast? And that you can get a big bottle of Heinz ketchup, even at a tiny little grocery store outside of the city? I wouldn't have expected that! But hey! You learn something new every single day!
Through out the bus drive, our guides were doing their best to talk to us about Iceland. They told us all about the sites that we visited. But they also told us about things like their history, everyday and customary practices, myths and folklore, and more! But one thing that makes me even more curious about Icelandic culture after I getting here is their connection to both
land and sea. It sounds like there is a super heavy connection to water and the sea through their heavy reliance and dedication to the fishing industry on top of being an island. But when I hear about their folklore, it sounds mostly related to the earth. Like creatures that live in caves and mountains and things like that. I was always expecting more mythology or folklore stories about the ocean or the sea or even rivers but so far, I haven’t heard that much of anything like that yet. Oh well. I suppose I can always ask about it later. Or even find the answer by myself!
Later in the day, we got to our hostel. It's in Selfoss, but it's not that far from the capital at all! In fact, Reykjavík seems like it's only a half-hour drive away. But our hostel is extremely cute and cozy! It's a bunch of smallish rooms but they're all clean and nicely decorated. The beds are warm and they cook for us too! I think the best part are the dogs about the hostel though. They're really the sweetest! They never bark and all they do is just walk around and explore what the guest are doing before going back to doing their own thing. I swear, the dogs must be a huge selling point for this hostel. It's a nice place, but those dogs are so cute that I wouldn't be surprised if they were a tipping point in the decision for other guests to stay here or not.
Also, I'm sharing a room with the girl from California. Her name is Kim, and she's been a great person to talk to and get to know while on the trip. I love hearing about her background and what she's interested in! I think we'll become close by the end of the trip! That being said, I'm glad we don't have bunk beds. As much as I enjoy Kim's presence, I'm getting too old for bunk beds and I don't care what anyone says. No one past the age of 16 truly has the back or patience for something like that ever again.
Anyways, I was super tired after we got back to our hostel. They kept telling us not to nap because it would make adjusting to jet lag better but it's extremely hard not too considering I had been up for about 24 hours at that point. But the hostel fed us lunch, we had some free time (and I had to do some work for school and my upcoming conference, yawn) and later the program leaders called as back in for dinner and to formally introduce ourselves to each other.
During that time, we said the usual schtick every college student is tired of by the time they finish their first week of University. Name, Major, Where you're from, etc. etc. Though this time, our program leaders wanted us to share what Sustainable Development goal is most important to us!
As someone who wants to go into climatology, I instantly said that the Climate Action Sustainable Development goal is most important to me. So many of the Sustainable Development goals overlap, but because of anthropogenic climate change I feel like we might not truly have a future to try to fix if everyone has to become a climate refugee or once very populated cities face rising costs because of the damages of climate changes.
To some people, this issue may seem so far away but I truly believe that we’ll see some of the effects within our lifetime. And what’s the point for fighting for more safe, more equitable, more affordable world if all our work will be knocked away within decades of being established (or even just mere years depending on how long to fight for justice takes).
After everyone went and introduced ourselves, they began to talk to us about our Capstone projects. Now, the three main points of this trip is to explore Iceland and its culture, explore Iceland's approach to energy (very heavy in geothermal) and to create a project suggesting a business that is sustainable and for the betterment of the energy industry. We have a couple of days to do this project and we're all working in groups so it should be fine. I quickly found a group of girls who had a bit of a similar mindset but different backgrounds from me and we got to work brainstorming and spit balling ideas off of each other for our project!
Right now, my Capstone project is still in the works so I won’t share too much about it. However, it looks like it’s working to address food insecurity and food deserts which is really exciting! My group kind of settled on this topic because after we all came up with kind of a vague idea of what we’re interested in and what we’d like to do, a girl told us about this idea another person had for a simple act of kindness and how we can use the barebones of that idea to help address and assist more people facing food insecurity. This is perfect for me because every though food insecurity isn't that close to climate change, I've always had particular interest in this topic. Plus, I've learned a lot and did a couple of assignments on this topic so I'm prepared to go! Right after I take a nap first, of course.
Well, that's it for now! I might have more for tomorrow. I might not. Honestly, who knows at this point? I'm so tired I'm just about ready to drop, haha! But I do hope you tune in for my next journal! We'll be touring the Iceland School of Energy, the largest geothermal power plant in the country, and hiking to the hot springs. It's an action packed day for sure. Hopefully I can handle it! Wish me luck and thanks for reading! Until next time!
- DD
Picture Sources (in order of appearance):
Blue Lagoon - My photo!
Bridge Between Continents - My photo!
Dogs - My photo!
I'm so proud of you I'm learning so much from this blog so eager to learn more Much Love