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Living in Iceland

by June Lee

“Hurry up, June,” said eight-year-old Carol. “We don't want to be out here when it gets too dark.” Carol shifted in her Girl Scout uniform while holding her sister's hand. Carol and June, two siblings living in the southwestern region of Iceland, had left early in the afternoon to sell Girl Scout cookies around the neighborhood, but after a few short hours, it was already evening. Carol suggested they walk across an untouched clearing covered in snow to go home.

“Are you sure this is the way home?” asked four-year-old June hesitantly. She didn't want to walk across the entire field to find out they were going the wrong way.

“I'm positive,” Carol said firmly. Her tone seemed to reassure June, so they continued trampling on wordlessly. Several moments later, WHOMP! Carol and June sailed through snow and dirt and landed in a pile of more snow and dirt. Little did they know before passing the huge untouched clearing, that it was a construction site.

I still remember it took me a good ten minutes to stop crying while my sister was gleefully laughing at me (she tends to laugh hysterically when she gets nervous). When I finally managed to climb up out of the hole and when I reached down to grab my sister's hand, I fell back. After another period of crying, my sister climbed out and pulled me to safety. We made it home cold, but alive.

Living in Iceland; albeit only for a year, opened many doors to encountering unique experiences that I would have never experienced had I lived elsewhere. Living in Iceland was no doubt a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. Remembering the smoky grey mornings that I woke up to and the long walks to the library through the crunchy snow still ring clearly in my mind after seventeen years. Though I was only there for a year, it will take a long time to erase from my memory.

My experience living in Iceland is perhaps very unlikely to occur in most families. My family moved there from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when my father was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland during his career in the United States Army during 1987-1988. My sister was eight, while I was only four. My memories of Iceland are nothing but amusing. I was old enough to remember all the adventures my sister and I had yet young enough not to go to school and partake in learning.

We lived in an apartment that rose high above a hill and during the winter season, we would take our sled, trek up the hill, and fly down the hillside. Many kids our age lived in our apartment and though there was the problem of a language barrier, we still had fun playing with one another. Their native tongue is Icelandic, which descended from the Norse, but they also speak English, Danish, French, or German.

Because Iceland is located near the North Pole, we rarely saw daylight in the winter while in the summer, we rarely saw the nighttime sky. In the winter, the sun came out around ten in the morning and set around three in the afternoon. During the summer, dusk came late into the early morning and the sun re-appeared around five in the morning. For a few summer months, we actually had no night sky. It was a rather peculiar lifestyle for all of us.

Only forty-five minutes away, we made frequent trips into the capital, Reykjavik, one of the cleanest cities in the Western world. My mother absolutely adored the little shops that sold David Winter Cottages, so she always took me into the stores while I shyly followed behind her, chewing nervously on the ball of my knitted hoodie.

Reykjavik is a colorful and spacious capital with many treats to offer. It holds museums, theatres and opera houses, orchestras, cultural restaurants, and many more exciting things. Iceland is a spectacular island that is home to beautiful mountain ranges, gigantic glaciers, and blue lagoons. Living abroad was a unique experience that I will forever treasure. If traveling to Europe, make sure you stop by Iceland to view its gorgeous landscape and beautiful culture!

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