Angel doesn’t act like a Type A personality, until it comes to travel.  But he’ll be the first to admit, that if he feels like he’s not getting the absolute most out of the day, he gets moody and irritable.  And usually, the “most” means at least a 6 hour hike.

Don’t get me wrong, I like hiking.  But it’s not the only thing I want to do on vacation.  I want to alternate with city and culture and sights, or even other outdoor adventures (besides just hiking.)  Iceland was our perfect storm for arguments.

There are a million amazing hikes in Iceland, but Angel didn’t have enough time to plan them out.  And there is a lot of driving along the Ring Road circuit, especially since we have decided to come back to Reykjavik for the weekend of Pride. And, because Iceland is so fucking expensive, we didn’t want to plan a ton of pricey activities because we were already spending so much just to eat and sleep.

So, after the first few days, he felt like he was in hiking paradise but he wasn’t going on any long hikes.

So the fights started.  If we did anything besides hikes and the tourist sights, he got irritated.  He couldn’t pass by a waterfall without stopping.  I know that sounds bitchy but the 3^rdwaterfall in one day, after we’ve seen two of the biggest waterfalls already, I start to feel like we are going down a checklist.  How many waterfalls can we mark off today?

We bickered over what to do.  I got frustrated with his moodiness, he got frustrated with my bad attitude.

We weren’t our best selves to each other. And that was one of the first times we felt that way in our year together.  I got frustrated way too easy and spent too much time irritated about what I knew he was going to want.  He was too moody about things out of our control, like the weather, or things out of his control, like what I wanted to do.

—

Flash backward

Sunday

8/6/17

A hike into the green valley of Krusavik, waterfalls drifting like lace across the far mountain walls, led to a large concrete pool built into the hillside.  Natural hot springs feed the pool constantly, and the only facilities are two changing huts. The warm water falls down the rock face on one side, and is also pumped in from a pipe at the far corner.

Local Islendingar mixed with tourists in equal amounts.   A handsome Viking Dad floated in the pool, beset by his three blond daughters.  The Icelandic language sounds like Swedish with Spanish rolling r’s.  Like Swedish (or Danish to a lesser extent), Icelandic seems too melodic to be the language of the Vikings.

The Ring Road is the main (and only) road around the entire island country.  Most of the interior is only accessible with a four-wheel drive, and even the Ring Road degenerates into a pitted gravel road in areas of the east and north.

Seljalandsfoss plummets down a cliffside near the Ring Road. Though not as much water thunders down as at the gigantic Skogafoss down the road, you can walk behind the falls of Seljalandsfoss, as white cold spray whips you, roughly one moment, gently the next.

The geometric columns of the basalt cliffs at Vik.

The tourist stop of Black Sand Beach on the way to Vik is beautiful, and the basalt columned cliffs are dramatic and oddly geometric, but the walk along the equally black sand beach in the town of Vik is less congested with tourists.  Puffins dive into the surf to fish, while terns sweep the waves, wingtips clearing the water by mere inches.

The black sand beach at Vik.

At the bird sanctuary Dyrholaey, puffins land awkwardly on the cliff face or on the grass topped field above, and disappear into burrows or cavelets with their fishy lunch still flopping weakly in their beaks. Tourists manhandling giant telescoping cameras wait for their bird-watching moment of nirvana.

Iceland is fucking expensive.  The scenery is stunning and otherworldly, but the prices are nearly as awe-inspiring.  $15 beers and $30 individual pizza at a neighborhood pizzeria are very normal.  A small package of gravlax at the grocery store was $40.  Our guesthouse room outside of Kirkjubaejarklauster (yeah, try saying that one five times in a row) was almost $200, and we shared a bathroom with 2 other couples.   And the room was a little bigger than our queen size bed.  Suddenly the price of going out for dinner in New York seemed like a bargain.