Population: 117,598
Time of Visit: May 22&23 and June 3, 2007
Technically my Icelandic adventure began at Keflavik International Airport, located about 48km Southwest of Reykjavik. This is where, amidst the haze of the most horrible jet lag I’ve ever experienced, I purchased a $10 cup of the most horrible coffee known to man or beast. So much was wrong with this purchase. For more information see: Black Gold . I had brought my own coffee with me, but wasn’t about to set up my camping stove while standing in line for customs. Such was a theme of this trip…avoid buying much as most items in Iceland are imported and thus, very expensive.
After passing through customs relatively unscathed, I rented my car and home for the next ten days: A Suzuki Jimny. When planning for the trip I had to make some strategic decisions about where to allocate funds…airfare, car rental, gasoline, film? One certain thing was that I needed a 4WD to negotiate potentially difficult driving conditions. In the comforts of my living room with the laptop and cats at my side it made a lot of sense to apply my usual malignant attitude toward SUVs and gas-guzzlers to my rental plans. As a result I ended up with the equivalent of a soup can mounted to a go-cart. Suzuki doesn’t sell this vehicle in the United States. I wonder why? The closest thing would be a Toyota RAV 4 stunted by severe mal-nutrition. With this vehicular haiku, I would have to negotiate some of the most deadly driving conditions in the civilized world, store camera gear, supplies, food, clothes, cook, sleep, live…I mentioned that suffering can be good. I hold on to that ideal...and it begins to slip away... One of my first tasks was to illegally remove the rear seats with some wrenches kindly lent to me by the caretaker of The Egilsborg Guesthouse. When asking what I needed them, I explained. He replied: “Oh, yeah, Suzuki Jimny... Okay.”
Reykjavik is a very interesting city. I spent my first and last two days here either staging my trip or getting ready to go home. I availed myself of the supermarkets, shopping malls and, while I had the chance, a superb vegetarian restaurant, "A Naestu Grosum". Before I returned to The States I had the chance to visit the Reykjavik Museum of Photography as well as the Reykjavik Art Museum , where they had a wonderful exhibit of Roni Horn, one of my favorite conceptual artists.
With my photography, I intended to capture the feel of the streets, people and energy of the city during the brief time I was there. I consider this series a good warm-up and casual journal of my wanderings.
