The Layover: Reykjavik, Iceland

"Sun Voyager" sculpture on Reykjavik's waterfront

Reykjavik means "smoky cove" in Icelandic, and it certainly appeared smoky from the window as our jet soared down toward Keflavik International Airport. Being in the aisle seat my view downward was largely obscured by other passengers, but with the dreamy, evocative music of Sigur Ros playing in my ears, I could imagine the green and rocky land spread out below the fog.

It was early morning on Sunday, August 12, and I was looking ahead to 10 hours spent in Iceland before jetting off to meet friends in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

I was not sitting anywhere near my travel companion and boyfriend of over a year, Tony, on this flight, and so could not see him, though I'm sure he was smiling as we prepared to land. Last year he and his sister spent 10 days here, and he had fallen in love with the incredible natural beauty of Iceland and the warm people who inhabit this wild land. I knew he was glad to be back.

When we had landed I swung my backpack onto my back, zipped up my sister's borrowed North Face jacket, and slung my purse over my shoulder. When I emerged from the plane, Iceland woke me from my post-rock dream state with a literal slap; I disembarked into the open air, which was cold and blowing a stinging rain in my face. I took the stairs down from the aircraft carefully, then took my first steps on Icelandic soil at a run to for the cover of the airport, where Tony was waiting inside the door.

The unforgiving Icelandic terrain near Keflavik

"Welcome to Iceland!" he said brightly. We hadn't seen each other in over six hours.

After a short trip through border control, whose agents appeared stern but relaxed, we found ourselves in Keflavik's main terminal, where we used the startlingly clean facilities and retrieved Icelandic Krona from an ATM machine. Then it was downstairs past baggage (our bags were being shipped straight on to Amsterdam) to buy a ticket for the Flybus, which would take us 45 minutes away into Reykjavik. Reykjavik does have an airport of its own, but is only used for domestic travel and for shorter flights to Greenland and the nearby Faroe Islands; the rest of us must arrive in Keflavik.

The monitor in our coach bus informed us that it was just after 7:00 in the morning, and the temperature just over 50 degrees Fahrenheit; a far cry from the 90-degree temperatures we had left behind in the states barely seven hours before. Once the bus we full of other yawning passengers, we departed the airport via a dizzying succession of traffic circles and set out into a rocky, moss-covered landscape: the lava fields.

"There are no trees in this country," Tony whispered to me as we drove through the bleak-looking but surprisingly beautiful countryside. "They can't grow here. You barely see a bush out there. You would see some lavender," he said guiltily, "if the rain hadn't smashed it all down!"

Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland's largest church

By "out there" Tony means in the wilderness, which he spent several days driving through in his rented "super Jeep" last year. He and his sister climbed glaciers, napped on the banks a waterfall so impressive I was sure it could only exist in Middle Earth, stayed in a hostel owned by a sheep farmer, and got closer to active volcanoes than most people I know have ever been.

Once we entered into the suburbs of Reykjavik, though, I did spot some hardy-looking trees swaying in the wind, poking up from behind fenced-in yards and in parking lots. "Imported and planted," Tony assured me in response to my raised eyebrows. "Trust me, nothing like that grows out in the wild." This was the first time I had ever really seen a landscape without trees; as I hail from the sylvan lands of Maryland and Pennsylvania, I didn't quite know what to make of it.

It didn't seem as long as 45 minutes before suburbs began to creep upward out of the lava and we found ourselves approaching Reykjavik. Located at just over 64 degrees north, Reykjavik is the world's northernmost capital city. This capital city is located on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay, in the southwest of Iceland. With just over 119,000 residents in the city, and with 200,000 in the greater area, Reykjavik is home to over one third of Iceland's total population. Iceland itself is a fraction of the size of the United States, roughly the size of the state of Kentucky.

It had stopped raining by the time we disembarked at the main bus terminal, and Tony and I hoisted our packs up onto our shoulders and set off for the center of town. We set our sights on the recognizable steeple of Hallgrímskirkja, the largest church in Iceland and the country's only cathedral. It also makes a convenient orientation point for figuring out where you are in the city. Walking toward it on well-trod garden paths and litter-free sidewalks, we passed neat-looking middle-class homes, all of them in shades of off-white; their inhabitants were presumably still asleep, as it was barely 8:00 in the morning. We didn't meet a soul, actually, until we were staring up at the impressive facade of the cathedral, where a woman was watching her granddaughter play at the base of an equally impressive statue of the great explorer, Lief Erickson. Behind Lief, the gray pillars covering the cathedral's sides and stretching into the sky are meant to look like the basalt columns that naturally occur in parts of the country.

Icelanders are an open, accepting people.

From the cathedral we made our way downhill to the water (passing a couple of tourists who still appeared drunk, stumbling down the street), where we encountered the famous Sun Voyager sculpture, and a cloud-obscured view of the Esja Mountains across the water. "Sun Voyager is much more impressive when there is actual sun," mumbled my apologetic boyfriend, who obviously thought the gloomy weather was having a negative impact on my first impressions of Iceland.

Tony remembered a favorite cafe in town from the year before, and we set about locating it to procure some breakfast. Along the way we trod on the remains of rain-sodden, multicolored confetti; apparently we had just missed Reykjavik's annual Gay Pride Parade, which had taken place even as we flew toward it. Nearly every storefront we passed displayed a rainbow flag or other sign of solidarity, and in one souvenir shop a stuffed reindeer showed support of the most blatant kind: a cardboard sign reading "I'm gay" had been balanced on his antlers. Farther along the same street, we found a storefront with a permanent message plastered onto one of the windows: "If you are racist, sexist, homophobic, or an asshole, don't come in." I decided right then and there that I liked Icelanders a lot.

Sun breaks on the Esja Mountains, near Reykjavik

We meandered past an array of sleepy buildings, many of them empty, some of them covered with vibrant graffiti (Iceland is still recovering from a financial crisis of its own),  and worked our way back uphill to the heart of town. We finally stumbled upon Cafe Babalu, but found it was closed until 11:00 in the morning. Our stomachs grumbling audibly, we made our way back to a bakery that we had passed earlier; inside we found an enticing array of still-warm loaves, still-sticky pastries, and sandwiches on freshly-baked rolls. After ordering easily with the blonde, blue-eyed baker (everyone here speaks English; they don't even expect tourists to attempt to speak any Icelandic), we settled into a corner table with sandwiches and small cups of strong, black coffee, and relaxed for a little while. Other tourists with backpacks filtered in and out, clearly illustrating that this was probably the only place in the city that was actually open so early on a Sunday morning. But our simple ham and cheese sandwiches on buttered, cloud-soft white rolls were more than satisfying.

After breakfast we wandered down over the ever-present confetti to the edge of the university neighborhood. There on the lake's edge, we found that even the ducks and pigeons were still asleep; everyone must gotten in late from the parade! This area is on the edge of the old town, where Nordic influence can still be seen in the architecture. After that we made a loop back around the water, past the concert hall/opera house, a modern, black building whose windows appear to change color as you pass by; then decided to make our way back to the bus station.

Before the bus station we made a pit stop; back at Hallgrímskirkja we found the doors of the church had been thrown open, and people were coming and going. Since it was Sunday morning we initially shrank back from the doors, thinking we did not want to disturb any worshipers; however, the two way traffic indicated that we were welcome, so we went in. I've been to a lot of cathedrals and churches in England, France, and Italy, but I had never seen one like this; the ceiling, many stories above us, was vaulted in smooth white, without any of the ornate designs of European cathedrals. In fact, I don't think I saw even a single cross. The interior was smooth, and clean, almost like newly fallen snow had settled over the arches. I huge pipe organ clung to the rear of the church over the doors, in a nest of dark wood that matched the pews. We didn't stay long, but it only took a few moments to absorb the beauty of the place.

Back outside, we listened to the church bells slowly toll ten times as the wind whistled around our shoulders and mussed our already messy hair.  We had already been in Iceland for more than four hours.

Back downhill we went, past the same houses we had passed hours before, but which looked no closer to waking up. As we passed through a small garden, a friendly cat approached us, meowing, and wound itself once around a cringing Tony's ankles before disappearing into the undergrowth. Back at the bus station, we settled into plastic seats while awaiting the bus that would take us to our next destination, and our way of killing time before the airport: the waters of The Blue Lagoon awaited us.