Post Iceland reflections

We had a safe and uneventful trip back. Actually, the airline had overbooked our flight by 40 people and we did consider volunteering for getting a later flight back to London so that we could get 4 free tickets anywhere Iceland Air flies!! But in the end we just kept our seats and got back to Heathrow around 1pm so that we got back home around 3pm. My cousin Egan was due to arrive just a few hours later to stay the weekend, so we didn't want to miss meeting him.

We all loved being in Iceland, though of course we all took away different highlights and memories. The kids talk about the bus driver with only one finger and how Dad fell off his horse into the poo.
Rhodri loved the varied pace of the week - the ideal blend of seeing stuff, doing stuff, relaxing, squeezing lots of activities in, traveling and staying put.
My highlight was x-c skiing, going into all the geothermal hot springs and being in this landscape that is so alive and special. And also I loved meeting Lene who has her own tannery.

I think that there are a lot less degrees of separation between the people here and the landscape/ natural world here. I was really struck by how aware of the processes and implications for this or that people are, or how knowledge about natural local phenomena, flora, and fauna is just built into general knowledge. For example, when people who live near Lake Myvatn were talking about all the midges that swarm there in the summer, the comments about how annoying they are were followed immediately by pointing out the subsequent rich vegetation (from dead midges falling and fertilizing the ground) and the important food source for birds and fish. And all the volcanoes who are "due" for eruption and have female names with their own eruption behaviors (i.e. how much notice they give before erupting) seem to be well known by everybody and is talked about in a very familiar, matter-of-fact way. So I think actually the people here are much closer and more attuned to the earth here, and I think that is really special.