Recently a follower on Twitter asked me to write about my time in Iceland. [Incidentally, if you don’t follow me on Twitter yet, please do. Now that the 280 character barricade has been breached, I often write tweets almost as long as my pieces here]
It would probably take a few Substacks to give justice to my five year sojourn in the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, in the 1990’s. One of the stories in my book “Dead to Writes” deals with the topic…sorta…kinda… Look it up on Kindle if so inclined.
My very first visit to Reykjavik was in 1978. I was a student in London and was dating an Icelandic girl. She was adamant I visit her homeland and so one day, while she was up there working a short summer stint, I took the subway (aka the Underground) to Heathrow airport and sidled up to the counter of Flugfélag Íslands (“Iceland Flight Company”) and asked if they could put me on stand-by to Reykjavik that same afternoon. Yes, back in the 70’s you could do such crazy tricks and actually stood a chance of getting on board. As an aside, back then Iceland, a country of about 250 thousand inhabitants, had TWO international carriers, the other one being Loftleiðir (“Air Ways”). The airlines merged in 1979 to create Iceland’s national carrier, Icelandair.
The weather in London that day was overcast and cool. When my noisy Boeing 727 landed in Keflavik - about a 45 minute ride from the capital of Reykjavik - the weather was brilliantly sunny and, considering we were now on the 64th parallel, quite warm at 60F/15C. It was odd to fly north out of bad weather into sunshine but I took it to be a good omen.
Reykjavik in those days was basically an overgrown village. The downtown area had a couple of restaurants and a fast food chicken joint where we went for dinner that night. The food was tasty (unlike London) and fresh (also unlike London) and outrageously expensive (also unlike London which in those days was eminently affordable) Our chicken and fries dinner cost something like $40. We’re talking 1978, ladies and gentlemen.
Later that night my girlfriend took me to the “in” club in town, called “Kluburinn” which conveniently means “The Club”. It was there that I got my first hint of Iceland’s utter weirdness. Picture the scene: it’s about 11pm but the sun is still up, trying, but not succeeding, to sink completely below the horizon. It was early July and there is no night to speak of that time of year, just two hours of murky, hazy twilight. Around 2 am the sun decides it’s had enough of hiding and it starts floating back up. At 3 am it’s bright morning. Back to The Club: we were sitting at one of the long tables, wedged between young couples, all dressed as if they were going to a wedding. All the men wore sharp suits and ties; the women - all of them looking like Scarlett Johansen - wore elegant dresses. The music was all the latest disco hits at ear-splitting volume. Young men would stagger in, already inebriated, walk up to the bar and down four or five vodka shots in quick succession. Within a few minutes they were unconcious - on the floor, under a table, or snoring at a table. I had never seen anything like it. People didn’t drink to get happy. They dressed up, drank half a bottle of vodka before leaving home to save money, then went to The Club and drank themselves into a total stupor within a matter of minutes. The women were drunk too, of course, but they stayed awake, stumbling from table to table, flirting extravagantly with whoever was still conscious, then tottering outside to grab a cab home with the blotto stranger in a three piece suit they had just picked up.
I couldn’t sleep that night and not the following four nights I stayed in Reykjavik: it’s extremely difficult to fall asleep when your eyes are telling you it’s dinner time at 11pm and breakfast time at 2am. Notwithstanding my sleep problem, I enjoyed my visit. The weather stayed fine, the temperature climbing into the high 60’s which is about as warm as it can ever get in those latitudes. The food my girlfriend’s aunt and uncle cooked for us was consistently excellent. I had never suspected that simple boiled cod with mashed potatoes and peas can taste so good. Even Icelandic hot dogs tasted nice and Icelandic Coca-Cola was the best! There is a large Coke plant in Reykjavik because Icelanders drink more of the stuff per capita than any other nation on earth.
In 1989, my girlfriend - now my wife - and our two daughters were living in Toronto, Canada where we had moved in 1980. We relocated to Reykjavik in the fall of that year for what was supposed to be a 3-year stay. It stretched into 5 years, by the end of which we had gotten divorced and I traveled back to Toronto, while our daughters stayed behind with my ex…a whole story of its own, naturally.
As I said at the outset, it’s impossible to give justice to my long stay in a short piece; I will try to summarize as best I can. I was employed part-time as an English teacher at a commercial academy. In many ways, it was a dream job: 90% of the student body was female and, as I have already stated, Icelandic women are extraordinarily beautiful, making my time in the classroom quite pleasant. The fresh air, the good diet, the healthy lifestyle (other than heavy weekend drinking) - it’s all reflected in the look of both men and women. Icelanders are alse a tall nation. At 5’9” I was almost invisible. The job paid well and I had the freedom to write my own curriculum. In addition to teaching, I started a band about a year after our arrival. It was a blues trio and we became quite popular on the local music scene. Between my initial visit in 1978 and our arrival in 1989 a great many changes had taken place. Reykjavik looked much more like a city now, with a number of nice coffee shops and restaurants. The prices remained astronomical. A pint of beer cost about $10 as opposed to $4 in Toronto. A nice restaurant meal for two would have been about $150 as compared to less than 50 bucks in Toronto. One great advantage: there is NO tipping in Iceland. You don’t tip waiters, hairdressers or taxi drivers. And sales taxes are included in the price - what you see on the menu is what you pay when you get your check, not a penny more.
Iceland is technologically one of the most advanced places on earth. Their banking system, cell phone network, all things computer and high-tech were miles ahead of North America back in the 1990’s. My school was online in 1994 and people were already using the world wide web and email en masse. Of course, as we now know, this immaculate inter-connectedness can turn nasty quickly. But since in Icleand everyone knows each other anyway (almost) and whatever info you want to publish has already been gossiped about to death, people are less leery of a social credit tyranny than we are.
The public swimming pools in Reykjavik are real jewels. The pools use thermal hot water from the many hot springs all over the country. The same water is used to heat houses and for your bathing/shower needs at home. Be warned: the water comes out of the faucet at upward of 200F - do not “test” it! All the pools have what Icelanders call “hot pots” - jacuzzis where you can luxuriate before and after your swim. Incidentally, all but one pool in the city are open-air. It’s one of the joys of living in Reykjavik. On a dark January afternoon (there are only about 4 hours of daylight in the winter), it may be snowing lightly and the air may be frosty but if you sit in a warm jacuzzi, your body massaged by powerful jets…it’s blissful. The only issue is a short run out of the jacuzzi, through the frosty air to the showers and changing rooms. Speaking of showers: Icelanders suffer none of the silly American prudishness. An attendant makes sure everyone showers fully nude before entering the pool. You can put your bathing suit on when you’re done, but the only suit allowed in the shower is the suit of Adam.
Icelanders still love their booze but the insane drunkenness I had seen in the 70’s is a thing of the past and was already waning when I lived there in the 90’s.
I made lifelong friends in Reykjavik. People talk less than Americans and they smile a lot less but their friendships are solid. It’s almost an otherworldly place with its dark winters and light summers, its ancient Viking culture of stoicism and hard work and equally hard play. That culture is a 1000 years old as is the language. I learned enough of it to get by but it’s a hell of a tongue twister with grammar rules that date back centuries. Everyone speaks good English but after a couple of years of residence you will be expected to speak at least a modicum of Icelandic.
Icelanders know who they are. They often have children at a young age (17 and 18-year old mothers are common) but there is no stigma to having children out of wedlock which extended families help to raise. It’s a very kid positive culture. Consider that the population has grown by more than a third in 25-30 years with almost zero immigration. Speaking of which, Iceland has some of the strictest immigration and citizenship rules in the world.
As positive as my experience was, I couldn’t wait to get back home to Toronto. I missed my Jewish delis, my favorite coffee shops, the jazz bars and the dynamic cultural life of a much larger city. Above all, I missed being able to communicate freely and to avail myself of easy travel to places that can be reached by car. Life in Iceland can be exhaustingly isolating. You’re living on a big rock up there in the North Atlantic, buffeted by Arctic winds, in an insular, ancient community. No wonder Icelanders travel abroad at least two or three times a year. A nice weekend of shopping in London (a 3 hour flight) or a Broadway play (a 5 hour flight) are common pastimes.
I had a good time up there. I was married to two Icelandic women (not concurrently!) and had a torrid affair with another - an affair that ended in heartbreak and pain, as “torrid” affairs are wont to do. I’m still in sporadic touch with a few friends and former bandmates. I have memories of crazy gigs when we played to packed rooms till 4 in the morning. I had some rewarding non-music gigs as well, aside from my regular teaching job. For a year or two, I was tutoring CEO’s of a few banks and large companies, getting them ready for business trips to London or New York. The job paid royal wages for a very pleasant one or two-hour chat with interesting businessmen and women.
The first thing I did when I got back to Toronto was take the subway downtown, grab a table at a proper deli and order a gian pastrami sandwich with a kosher pickle the size of a shovel and a cherry Coke. Back in North America! Yeah, baby!