My view of Iceland in the fog
It was raining and there was fog when I drove up into the Westfjords, the gravel roads pocked and soggy, winding around the cliffs above the black volcanic sand. I squinted through the beaded windshield and slowed around the corners and wondered if I might die. Below, Siberian driftwood on the beaches. What is this place; how is this real. Is my rented Sixt hybrid going to slide off the cliff and into the sea.
I got to Krossneslaug around 10 p.m. and there were a few people there still. I swam to the side of the pool and put my arms over the side and watched the North Atlantic wash over the rocks. Loud. It was cold out but the water from the springs was warm. A faint scent of sulfur. The pool a bare, pale blue rectangle, a chain link fence and then the ocean.A kid was swimming there with his parents. At one point a woman bumped into me by accident in the pool and apologized a million times and I said it was quite all right. Then the man asked if I was American, and where I was from. Wisconsin. He said he had heard of it but could not have found it on a map. I said it was nice, a northern state, green in the summer, a little like Iceland in a way.
He was from Reykjavik and had never visited the Westfjords. We agreed about the Westfjords. He told me about some places in Iceland that I would not have time to visit.
His son, I guess about 7, started chanting “Ice-land, Ice-land.”
The son asked his dad to ask me if I had watched the Icelandic soccer team in the Euro Cup. I had, a little. They were both proud. “Our coach is a dentist!” the man said. I asked who the best players were and what teams they played for when not playing on the national team.
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