Finding the Farm
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 @ daveNY37
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Iceland turned out to be quite the experience for me. It’s always great when you walk away from something having learned more about yourself. My former bosses Ben and Colin gave me the most challenging mental work I’ve ever done (way harder than anything in college), and this past week Kjartan gave me some of the most physically challenging work I’ve ever done (way harder than anything in college). Wait a sec, what the heck am I still making those student loan payments for?
Steve and I hopped on to our bus, which was about ready to leave for Selfoss. It was much smaller than I pictured. There were only 6 other people on board, including the driver. We drove thru the east side of town, which was cool to see, and it gradually turned into more of a suburban feel. We actually passed a Taco Bell, upon which I freaked-out and was tempted to hop-off. But I restrained myself. Very quickly the surroundings became very rural. Very rural and very cool. Things flattened out, and stretched off to snow covered hills and mountains in the distance. Between here and there, the ground was covered with scattered chunks of rocks that seemed to be of volcanic origin. Then on top of most of those rocks as well as the ground itself, a light-greenish moss grew all over. It was eerie almost. It was such a unique landscape to view. I wanted to just hike out there into it and see for myself. I couldn’t do that, because this bus was on a non-stop mission to deliver us to a town I had never been too. Eventually another little town came-up but we passed through that. After a ways we came to a big decline, and the road wound down to another town at the bottom. We traversed all that, crossed a bridge and came to stop between a quickee-mart, and surprisingly, a KFC. This was the Selfoss bus stop I guess. At this point we hopped out and I surveyed the situation. Dorothee, from our work-exchange, had given us an address. I walked up to a couple drivers and was able to find out which bus would bring could bring us to that stop. Both guys actually knew where that farm was. We were off again in less that 15 minutes. It was Steve, me, and a bunch of teenagers fresh from school on this ride. After another 10 minutes we were out in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. The immediate terrain around us had changed to fields full of this tan grass that went off in all directions. The bus came to a stop and the driver turned to motion that this was our stop. We hopped off, the bus pulled away, and here we were.
It was a gorgeous spot, but uh, where exactly were we? I noticed a sign to my left, across the road. It was at the end of a very long driveway, and off in the distance I could see a house. It read,” Longumyuri,” and that was the name of our farm. So we grabbed our gear and started to walk down the driveway. The wind was blowing fiercely that day, and across these open fields it backed quite the punch. Off to our right in the distance lay some gorgeous mountains (one was a volcano, which I’d come to find out was becoming active again…cool!), and to our right was a field of some Icelandic horses. They came over to check us out, and up close you could really see what makes them distinctive, and quite beautiful. Up ahead lay our destination, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had pulled ahead of Steve and made it to the house first. There was a lot of various farm equipment lying around, 5 cars in the driveway, a big barn with a silo, a refrigeration car with a shed behind it, lots of mud, and a decent tiny farmhouse. With all those cars in the driveway I figured there would be a bunch of people out and about, but there wasn’t anyone. I walked up to the front door and rang the bell…no answer. Hmm, I tried again with the same result. Interesting. I went over to Steve as he came up and we tried to figure out what to do from here.
Suddenly I heard a voice and turned around to see a man and child walking towards the house. I approached them to say hi. It was Kjartan and Sunna. Kjartan looked to be late 40′s and we found out that Sunna was a proud 5 years old. Once inside we met Linnea, a very cool chick from Sweden. She was 21 and planning to be in Iceland for 10 weeks. She gave us a mini tour of the place and hung out for a while. Steve and I had our own bedroom with a bunk bed and futon-type thing. Dorothee wouldn’t be around until the following day. We had a semi-awkward dinner, the 5 of us (Kjartan wasn’t much of a talker). After that Sunna and I played for a bit, and then Linnea, Steve and I hung out some more. With no tv and limited internet access, you can spend time together or maybe read. Not necessarily a bad thing. The 3 of us instantly clicked as a group, which was good. We’d be doing a lot of work together that week.
When we went to bed that night I was pretty curious to see what the week would hold. I had a hard time grasping the fact that this family had just brought us into their home, and didn’t really know us at all. I’m really not sure if I’d be comfortable doing that myself if the tables were turned. Well, I did know I wanted to do what I could to make our stay worthwhile in their eyes. Free food, a free place to stay, I wanted to earn my keep. Turns out I didn’t have to worry about any of that, because they would definitely give me a chance to earn it all!
Comments (1)
yes, Icelandic horses are quite pretty! =)