A night at KEF

Tonight I'm standing in Keflavik Internationnal Airport, holding the boardsign of my touring company. In the back of it, I keep the list of the people I'm waiting for. The list is long, so will be the wait. I'm standing among other people like me. I bet we look funny, all at once trying to be visible. I know some of them. Or at least their faces are common. Some give me a sign from the head while I'm arriving taking my spot for the next 3 or 4 hours.

Six times a week I'm coming at KEF. After grabbing my lists and a pen at the office I jump in my car and drive to the airport. The car is very bad. Doors don't close anymore so I don't even need keys to get in. Fortunatly Iceland is a quite safe place, plus I don't know who would bother stealing this garbage. It makes an awful noise, but usually it's enough to drive the 5 kms to the airport. I say usually, because once I had a breakdown right before a roundabout on the way... I wouldn't have expected that I would come to Iceland to drive something worst than my old twingo!

The way to the airport goes through the raw and peaceful lava fields. Sometimes I pass by and scare a family of wild ducks on my way. Soon I find the airport, guarded by a dragon egg. The airport is not big, like every human constructions in Iceland. About 40 kms far from the capital, this is the only internationnal airport, the one of Reykjavik being only used for internal flights, plus flights to Faroese Islands and to Groenland. The airport was built during WWII, by the U.S. military and for military purpose only. In the 50s the terminal found itself positionned in the core of a military complex. This was the start of a big controversy in Iceland as internationnal travellers had to enter military check points. And the U.S. military kept their control on access to and from Iceland until 1987 when the civil terminal was moved. The U.S. actually kept military basis until 2006. This presence was felt by many Icelanders as an occupation and led to numerous protests against the United States and NATO. Every year protesters walked from Reykjavik to the airport, singing Ísland úr NATO, herinn burt (Iceland out of NATO, the military away).

In the airport, the wait is long, as always. Fortunatly I have some people to speak with. My neighbour is a young Icelander. He's amazed by the fact that I "come from Latvia". He's trying to speak with me in russian. His russian sounds ok, but the accent is terrible. Icelandic accent in russian sounds funny. It reminds me of estonian accent. There is also my bus driver (I take my tourists to a bus). I know the one of tonight, she's cool.  She's always so happy to see me, and so kind. She talks a lot about her family and how it is great to spend time with people you love. She also makes me read things she writes. During her long waits at the airport, she is writting stories for children. This one is the story of a polar bear from Groenland who arrives in Iceland on an Iceberg. I read only the begining of the story but it sounds awesome.

Sometimes in my long waits, when I see those many people from around the world, I would like to take off and fly somewhere. I'll have to wait a bit for that. We'll be in Iceland until the autumn. Anyway this week wasn't the best for flying by plane.

Finally my german tourists arrive! I welcome them with my terrible german and explain them they have to wait everyone arrives before to go to Reykjavik. Most of them are nice. Some are very talkative, and I don't get everything but I don't think it matters for them. Some german accents are very hard for me to understand. For instance, berliner german is very easy to get but swiss german I understand only one word every ten words.

All in all it's a funny job (actually only one of my jobs here in Iceland). I like to work at night if I don't have to wake up early the next morning. And I like to pretend I can speak languages! Actually my german is getting much better now with this job...

Épaves

And today we are hitchhiking again! This time, it's not possible to not find a good spot. Up the street where we live stands a signboard with the drawing of a raised thumb and the name of the town we're heading to : Garður. It's noon already, we overslept a little.

The night before we decided to have a look on the nightlife of Keflavík. For the first time since we left Rīga we went to have a drink out. Not much of choice but still it was hard to find a place where to have a drink. We finally enterred a small pub where we could drink some over-priced whiskey and beer. Drinking houses of small towns are always interesting, between a family-like home and a local drinkers' den. Those places seem to be the same everywhere, still they actually vary in each countries to show some kind of truth, the real face of people when they raise their glasses. The place we went in yesterday didn't make the exception. Somehow it reminded me a lot similar places in Finland. I don't know if it was because of the local 30 y.o. metalhead drinking with everyone, because of the 60 y.o. daily-drinker who couldn't stand on his feets or because of the gambling machines in the corner of the room, but there were definitly some similarities between both countries! Only Finland probably goes more epic in the extremes reached from sobriety to drunkenness. Beside that the place had some kind of charm. Everything was made to make the place look like on a ship. The metal balcony was shaped as the deck of a boat, facing the ocean. Inside a blonde girl was singing some pop music covers with acoustic guitar (which reminded me a lot of ship's bars as well). Her very cheerful and very drunk friends were making about 50% of the bar's population. One of them, over-friendly and certainly not sober, invited us to join the group and offered us beer. It was really nice to finally get to meet some real Icelanders. For the first time since we are here I really felt like living in Iceland.

Back on the road, hitchhiking was very easy. In less than five minutes we got a ride! Iceland is the hitchhikers' paradise. Except very often there are just no cars passing at all. But when there is one, it stops. Driver was just like the previous ones we hitchhiked in Iceland : around 50-60, friendly and talkative, explaining us everything there is to know about what is around. Arriving in Garður he showed us an empty former retirement home, and suggested us to start a business running a hotel here. He then dropped us at a lighthouse before to turn back to the direction of Sandgerði. The white lighthouse was closed so we went on the pier. It seems this place is a popular spot where to sight whales, seals and wrecked ships. But with thick fog and no binocculars we sighted nothing. However today we could observe many funny birds. Iceland host a great variety of birds which make the island a great place for bird-watchers.

 
Garður ir ciemats pussalas galā. Pēdējā vieta pirms okeāna. Pēdējā sauszeme pirms Grenlandes. Vietas kontūra un veids man  atgādina Kolku. Sajūta it kā stāvot pasaules galā.

I then had the great idea to walk around the cape to reach the next village and maybe see some shipwrecks. What a mistake! The weather made us fast regret this decision and we arrived entirely soaked in Sandgerði.

Island, kêr-glizh! L'Islande, terre de bruine. A peine avait-on commencer à séloigner de Garður que le crachin nous rattrappa. L'été islandais me rappelle l'hiver breton, avec ses tempêtes qui s'abbattent sur les côtes, les vagues tenant tête aux falaises, l'odeur de l'iode et des algues, l'herbe toujours humide et le ciel inlassablement gris, la pluie ou la bruine qui ne s'arrête jamais vraiment. Même les températures sont à peu près identiques. Nous marchions donc le long de la côte, cherchant les épaves englouties, trempés jusqu'aux os. Cétait déjà pénible, mais ça aurait pû passer si seulement les plages islandaises étaient plus simples à parcourir. Mais non! Ce ne sont pas les larges bandes de sables fin de Kurzeme, mais des amas de pierres volcaniques échouées dans un sable boueux. Malgré tout, ce fut une belle ballade. Douchés mais heureux!

The walk was long and tough before we arrived in an inhabited place. We eventually found a shelter in a seafood restaurant. People there were very nice and welcoming. We had hot chocolate and they showed us their yard where they keep crabs and other sea creatures in small pools filled with seawater. Tince looked quite amazed while holding a sea-cucumber. In this scandinavian-style wooden restaurant we dried and waited our bus back to Keflavík.