A Song of Fire and Ice

The first time I discovered Iceland, it was during a high school project for a class. We were instructed to do research on a country that not a whole lot of people usually think of going to vacation for, and making a vacation commercial and slideshow. A lot of cool countries were already taken, but I remember having listened to Sigur Ros once before when a friend showed me their music in Germany. I was unappreciative at the time, but I remember hearing that Iceland might be an okay place to visit. One of my classmates suggested that we could use music from Jonsi to go along with our commercial, and from the first moment I've listened to one of his songs, I fell in love. This pulled me back into Sigur Ros, and also, into the beauty of Iceland.

I spent the next wake creating a research video, learning everything that I could about the culture, the food, clothing, tourist locations, the people, the geography, the hiking, the music, and everything that I didn't just mention. I started listening to Sigur Ros officially, and I went on and bought “Agaetis Byrjun” by Sigur Ros and go by Jonsi. I was listening to them every single day, and even attempting to learn the language of the locale. Needless to say, because of its similarity to Old Norse, it is a very hard language to acquire.

In times of sorrow, when I wasn't sure where my life is going next, I would do a little bit more research on this fabled land of Fire and Ice. Ironically enough, their biggest volcano Eyjafjallajokull had just erupted approximately a year before I conducted my research for the first time, and now, tourism to Iceland was booming. I went to see Sigur Ros in the states, and they had advertised that they were putting on a 4 Day Festival at Harpa Hall. I took out some extra student loans, bought the tickets, book the rental car and hostel, and all of a sudden, this dream was becoming reality.

One of my first views over Reykjavik from Hallgrímskirkja.

Almost six years after I first dreamed of going to this beautiful country, I was driving to the airport to board an airplane to go there. Airport security coming to and returning from Iceland was very quick and efficient, and the only thing that really sucked was the jet lag. We left at 6 at night and with travel time plus time difference, we arrived at 5 in the morning, and went to the Festival on literally an hour of sleep. There is much more to come on that in the next post.