Iceland – The Basics

I was supposed to go to Iceland in 2020 for my birthday to see the northern lights with a couple of friends. We had to cancel that trip, as well as one to Paris (for their first international trip ever) because of Covid, but I still have been collecting info about Iceland in preparation for going later.

Beautiful Nature

Iceland is a relatively small country but that tiny package packs quite diverse natural areas nevertheless. Glacial lagoons and hot springs are probably the most well-known types, but there are also black sand beaches, lava fields, a dormant volcano, and many waterfalls. It is worth noting that Iceland was one of the training grounds for the lunar landing because of its sheer other-worldly-ness.

Challenging Nature

Iceland is a challenging place to live for its 350,000 residents, with a very short growing season, very dark and cold winters, and the need for massive amounts of imports. Even today, many people are aware of some very odd (at least to outsiders) cuisine options, like the ever-famous fermented shark.

The local Greenland Shark’s meat is poisonous when fresh, but if fermented is edible (albeit smelling strongly of ammonia). If you hadn’t heard of it already, you probably heard about it when the adventurous Anthony Bourdain tried it and declared it the “single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting” food he’d ever tried. Given that he’d had dozens of things many people would find revolting, that’s quite a statement (turns out Namibian warthog rectum is also on his absolute worst list).

Now it’s more of a tourist taunt than an actually eaten food (you can get a barf bag with it if you want), but you get the idea that there wasn’t a lot around to eat in the late winter leading to such culinary choices.

Winter

While the food options over the winter were historically challenging, and there were up to 20 hours of darkness a day, at least they had the northern lights from September to March. The Aurora Borealis is still a big draw for the island with many people visiting primarily just to get a chance to view that spectacular light show. There are tours out to see them when it’s not cloudy and the weather permits, or you can stay at the location where they are easily viewable for a few days to get your chance.

Language Purity

One thing I find particularly interesting about Iceland is the language. Most of the Icelanders still speak the Icelandic language natively, although many also speak English or other languages. The Icelanders decided to keep their language pure by not taking words from other languages, which leads to some interesting names for things like a computer is a “prophetess of numbers”. For more on this see my other article that delves into the fun of the anciently modern Icelandic language.