Vivian's Artistic Adventures: The French Lady Lied

It's 7pm here in Iceland and, after two full days of travel, I finally have a chance to sit and write a few things down. The trip itself stressed me out- what with trains to catch, planes to board, and busses to schedule and all. In between the BIG forms of transportation were shuttles, taxis, and other means of mini-transport- expensive, but mini just the same.

I made it to my artist residency here just 70 km outside of Reykjavik. If you think I'm being vague about where I am staying, you're right, I don't want to give the latitude and longitudinal coordinates of my location- for obvious reasons.
I arrived here at about noon and have spent the day getting unpacked and... well, I don't really want to get into the nitty gritty here in the second paragraph of this blog, so I'll save it for a few paragraphs down.

First, let's talk about the trip from Motala to Reykjavik and then we'll talk about the rest.

I caught the train in Motala just fine, made the necessary stops and transfers and all that jazz with ease and grace (yes, grace). My disgustingly huge art bag, however made me look like an ass more than once and, as you'll soon find out, continued to make me look like an even bigger ass the next day too.

My last night in Stockholm was uneventful- the best part was when I treated myself to a chocolate croissant and a shot of espresso as my little reward for making it safely back to where this trip all started and, to be perfectly honest, chocolate sounded really good, so I went for it.

Fast forward through the evening....bad night's sleep because my bunk mate sawed logs like a Paul Bunyan...okay...blah deee blah. Ding- morning!
I got up on Sunday, walked around town for a few minutes, and then headed to the airport with my luggage in tow. I rode a shuttle with the nicest driver on the planet. He, I'm not kidding' was like Jesus...with a taxi driver's license...and an accent- but, now that I think about it, I bet Jesus had an accent too. Anyway- you get the idea. He was the nicest man ever and told me all about taxis and how some drivers are crooks and some are honest, etc. I gave him a tip and told him to have a nice day and thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have Open Mouth Man as my driver, which would have made things a little more stressful.

I stood in line to check my luggage for a good 45 minutes. By the time I reached the counter, I was in serious business mode.

"Ok, I have these two bags going to Reykjavik."

The ticket agent, a balding mid-50s man with a mustache, looked at me, took a gander at my passport, printed out my boarding pass and then dropped a bomb on my day.
"You can only have one bag. Two bags will cost you. $15 per kilo in your second bag."
I reacted with a not-so-subtle "FIFTEEN DOLLARS PER KILO!?!?!?!?!?!?"
My eyes got a little blurry staring back at him. I knew that both my bags weighed close to 20 kilos each- which means that my second bag- the one with all my personal belongings for the next 5 months was about to cost me a whopping $300 just to check it to Iceland. This boggled my mind because Icelandic Air let me check two bags coming over to Europe, but now they wanted to charge me for two- WTFREAK!?!?!

I discussed this with the balding ticket agent- I'm sure my state of financial panic didn't help his hair loss at all. He thought for a few moments and then let out a sigh, like air being let out of a bicycle tire.

"I'll give you a special deal and only charge you $100."

It was better than $300. I took him up on it- letting a small whimper escape as I imagined a $100 bill being flushed down the airport toilet... which pretty much was happening right before my eyes. Grateful for the man, but filled with a fiery hate for Icelandic Air, I stomped to my gate, and fumed while I waited to board my plane to stupid Reykjavik. "I hate Iceland. I hate everyone in Iceland. I hate baggage. I hate this trip. I hate myself. OOOOH, I hate my hair and my jacket and art and...". After about 30 seconds of self-pity, I got over it and repented for my icky hateful moment. Truth was, I loved this trip, but I was feeling pretty down about my money not going very far AND now I have to find some way to fit all my stuff into one bag and still keep it under the mandated weight limit...which means that Vivian will be walking around in public barefoot and in her underwear for the next 5 months because everything else weighs too much.

My flight to Reykjavik went smoothly; I didn't say a single word to either person next to me. Noticing that the girl to my right was from the US, I thought about talking to her and then I realized that she was so focused on her broken acrylic nail that she'd probably not be interested in a deep conversation. This thought was confirmed when her friend came by mid-flight and they had a 5 minute conversation about whether it was better to FILE your nails or just bite them off. Then, the girl who was sitting next to me, pulled out a bag of dried fruit, took a giant bite of a dried peach, chewed on it for a while and then she scrunched up her face and said "What is this?" She must have liked it because, when her friend didn't know the answer, the eating girl just kept on eating.

I pulled my jacket over my shoulders and slept the rest of the way.

(I am going to stop mid-blog and apologize for how long this is getting, you have my full permission to stop reading anytime you feel like it). Fast-forward through a bunch of stuff you don't really need to know.....baggage claim, ATM, catching a shuttle...

Ok, I caught a shuttle into town...actually, it was a giant bus, but they called it a shuttle. There were only 6 of us on the entire bus and our driver didn't speak English very well. He navigated the streets of Reykjavik and started dropping passengers off at their hotels. Then, he pulled into a giant parking lot and said "My bus can't go any further. Streets too narrow. You can walk."

Huh?

I'm sorry, Mr. Driver, in case you haven't noticed, I am a single female in a foreign country. And not only that, but I have luggage, large luggage. I don't think that wandering through the streets of a foreign city on my own with that doe-eyed "I'm not from around here' look on my face is a very good idea, especially since it is getting dark and we're in the parking lot of an establishment that has "LEAD US UNTO TEMPTATION" written in large font right across the window. I might be a tourist, and I might be a small town girl, but I paid seventeen hard-earned dollars to be dropped off at my hostel and by-God you've got to hold up your end of the bargain.

Others walked to their hotel which they could see from the parking lot. When the driver pointed and said "Your place is that way", I got that "I'm going to be murdered tonight" feeling in my gut and politely explained that I needed a ride.

The driver stood in the parking lot and lit a cigarette. He smoked for a few seconds and agreed that, after he'd finished his smoke, he'd drive me. My gut untwisted a half-turn and I decided to try to soften him up with a little chit-chat.

"So, nice weather, huh?" I said, unsure about what else to talk about.
"Oh, yes. Nice weather. Wery nice weather. Wery nice weather today." I don't think he could say his 'Vs' wery easily- must not be an Icelandic consonant that's used wery much. He said his bit about the weather, dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with the toe of his dress shoe.

He dropped me off just fine. The bus navigated the streets fairly easily. I thanked him and said goodbye.

So, that was last night. I went to the hostel, threw my bags down, went to the grocery store and headed back to the hostel kitchen to eat.

In the kitchen, I found a woman stirring rice with a fork, swirling it around in the water, whipping the rice around and around and around. I noticed this and said "Rice, huh?"- like that was a good way to introduce myself to a stranger. The rice lady looked at me and explained in broken English that she was French and the best way to make rice is to wash it 4 or 5 times, cover it with just a slight covering of water, boil for one minute, cover it, turn the heat off and in 20 minutes, BAM!:delicious rice- the best ever!

Well, she looked like she knew what she was doing, so I believed her. But, after trying her little rice recipe tonight, I realize that FRENCH LADY LIED! I didn't get the best rice ever, I got crunchy, half-cooked rice that did not please the palate, trust me.

My night at the hostel was fine, I got up this morning, caught a bus out to my destination, had a very pleasant conversation with the bus driver, learned some information about Iceland, and viewed some of the most gorgeous landscapes I've ever seen with my eyes. The contrast between the land and the sky and the various bodies of water is enough to make you feel small and insignificant. I'm not kidding- Iceland does look like Mordor from Lord of the Rings, but that's because of the giant up heaving mountains, low growing vegetation, and dark looming clouds, but- even with all the Mordor-like qualities, Iceland's terrain and raw state is so inspiring, I think I could spend an entire lifetime here painting and not get sick of it. There's beauty here, and feel privileged to be able to come see it for myself.
There's tons more to say, but I need to stop typing. Here are some pictures for you and a video of me trying to bike into town this afternoon.

Tomorrow, I’ll explain more about the residency