solo travel – Go Fiddle Go

Reykjavik Airport and Tales from Iceland

Iceland smells different. I grew up by the coast so I’m familiar with the scents of land meeting the sea, but this is a little bit exotic; the air seems heavier, with a richer mineral content.

Iceland’s tourist industry appears to be alive and well. It makes sense to capitalize on their prime location between Europe and North America, and they are really going for it. All the signs in the airport are bilingual, and the bus from the airport will not only take you straight to your hotel (after the 40-minute drive into town), but will happily drop you straight off at any of a number of tourist destinations instead.

The geology and plant life are fascinating, even out the window at 60 kilometers an hour on the bus. The environment contains elements I’ve experienced before, but never in a combination like this. Dense lichen and moss cover an alien landscape of igneous rock mounds that punctuate a prairie of short, soft grasses and dainty purple flowers, with cinder cone volcanoes dominating the skyline. We passed several stands of miniature conifers, which in North America would clearly be a Christmas tree farm. All this within view of the ocean. It’s at once magnificent and confusing, and I love it.

As we get closer to downtown, however, I am less impressed; I didn’t travel all the way here to see Taco Bell, KFC and Domino’s marring the view. Although I know I shouldn’t worry, as this part of the world has iffy food of their own, I have to cringe again when I think of all the other awful U.S. cultural exports that aren’t viewable from the road. (See reality TV or any current political programming for more details.)

After failing to get a pedicure at the Minneapolis airport despite a 6-hour layover, I thought I’d look into getting one done in Iceland. A preliminary search showed several options within walking distance, including three that were open even though I managed to arrive on Icelandic Labor Day. Now, I’m not very experienced in exchanging foreign currency, but I get the idea (not to mention Google can tell you any current exchange rate in real time). The prices listed were so outrageous that I had to ask Sigrun to verify, thinking I’d done it wrong somehow. No such luck, and I wasn’t about to spend $90 on a pedicure. According to Sigrun, “everything in Iceland is expensive.” Borrowed nail clippers for me, please.

Fortunately, I was able to take the same bus all the way from the airport to “Tales of Iceland,” which is now my Number One Recommended Stop for first-time visitors to the country. The small storefront opens up (abruptly – watch your step) to a rather large room filled with TVs and mismatched couches. Pass the obligatory gift shop on the left to the counter, where you can gain access to a locker (a big plus if you’re coming directly from the airport), as well as catch a glimpse of their local sense of humor.

They are the center of the map, after all.

An interactive love letter to the country, the exhibit consists of sixteen four-minute videos about Iceland, synchronized so that you have 20 seconds to move between videos. On the bottom floor, watch mini-documentaries about the arts, culture and sports of Iceland (did you know that one in 10 Icelanders has published a book? Or that the country has no mosquitoes?), as well as a few little video travelogues in which foreigners document their experience in the country from their unique perspectives. The top floor is full of “Iceland in the News,” each one covering the basics of the country with video footage from the era; topics include volcanic activity, naming conventions, the Cod Wars (s&*k it, Britain), and pop culture (“More than Bjork, Parts 1 and 2”).

In addition to the videos, there are several interactive media opportunities. One is an augmented reality look at Iceland’s thirteen Santa Clauses (none as awful as the Krampus, but still not the jolly fellow of my childhood photo ops). Another is a virtual video experience where you can fly over the country’s breathtaking scenery with a 360 degree view. Finally, there’s a choose-your-own-adventure-background photo booth, where you can pose with a variety of “Viking” props, including a life-sized stuffed sheep on wheels.

Math says it takes just over an hour to complete all the videos, but you can stay as long as you like. Many I found I wanted to watch again, as they were so densely packed with information that I wanted another crack at absorbing it. Thanks to the fascinating content, free WiFi and included snacks and beverages you can take around both floors with you, I happily whiled away close to three hours waiting for Sigrun to return from tour.

It was around the eighth or ninth sheep selfie that Sigrun messaged me to let me know she was home.

Protip: watch your step on the way out, too. Thanks to jet lag (admittedly debatable but I’ll play the card), I tripped in the doorway in both directions.

My boyfriend refers to sleeping as my “superpower,” and once Sigrun and I got settled in and adequately caught up at around 4 pm (sorry, 16:00), I made good use of the rest of the day, and night, and much of the next morning by exercising it.

TAC, and the Minneapolis Airport

There’s something oddly comforting about your computer remembering the WiFi network in a place you haven’t been for a while.

It’s been over a year since I was last at the Minneapolis Airport (for a marathon weekend of a Suzuki Conference followed by a friend’s wedding), but my trusty little laptop was on the job. I love knowing that although so much has changed in the past year, this one little thing is still the same. Feeling grounded at the airport isn’t always a bad thing. #dadjoke

I’d spent the previous week subbing in the house band at the Scottish Country Dance Teachers’ Association of Canada summer school, playing more cello than I ever had in my life, and falling in love with playing something other than fiddle in a fiddle band. Don’t get me wrong; fiddle is my first love, but it’s pretty great not to have to be the musical face of the ensemble for once.

For the record, I also got roped into playing oboe and musical saw. (Read: an instrument I played for about three years in high school, and an “instrument” pulled off the wall of a local’s garage. You guess which is which, ha!) No, there are not going to be videos available. But do check out my first attempted fiddlecam video on the lovely Mount Royal campus!

I taught a few music classes – fiddle, sure, but guys – I actually taught a piano class twice! Think about it – that means they actually let me come back a second time – but largely the week consisted of playing for lots and lots of dance classes. By the end of the week I may have finally gotten the hang of playing cello for the Strathspey, a type of dance and tune unique to Scotland (just in time to leave, ain’t that always the way?). But the highlight of the week, of course, was playing with the full band for the evening dances.

Playing with Reel of Seven is a lot of fun! I’d missed playing with a drummer, and Gary is one of the better folk drummers you can work with. You can’t beat four strong fiddles, each with their own unique background and set of strengths, and Sherryl’s recorder sits nicely on top. Andy is a solid pianist and a good bandleader; he knows what he’s doing and he’s not afraid to apologize when he’s messed up. They even get along well enough to have a band-only party one evening, and everyone seems to actually want to be there (at least enough to work together to sneak extra cookies and pizza from the dining hall for the occasion). A bar set this low may sound like a joke to the uninitiated, but trust me: a long-running ensemble made up of genuine friends is, sadly, not the norm in my experience. All in all, it’s a good situation musically and personally.

But wait, wasn’t that eight people in Reel of Seven?

Yep.

I asked; they don’t remember why.

The week was long, but fun, ending in jam sessions nearly every night. Fortunately Scottish country dancers don’t seem to mind live Scottish music until the wee hours. Check out a video of 3/8ths of Reel of Seven and me playing for an impromptu afterparty dance. As a result, I ran a rough, summer camp-like sleep deficit by the end of the week.

Waiting afterwards at the Calgary airport, I had nearly dozed off when a dancer on my flight approached me. We had been at TAC together all week, but had never been introduced; she recognized me from the band (and I’m sure the fiddle case I had with me helped). Despite copious airport warnings not to watch luggage for strangers, she agreed to keep an eye on my stuff while I ran some errands.

We weren’t seated together, but once we reached Minneapolis we became fast friends. We spent her three-hour layover having a late lunch, introducing her to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and bitching about the state of the world. We’re now Facebook friends.

Once her plane took off, I tried unsuccessfully to get a pedicure (one location was closed and the other was booked up), and then spent the rest of my six-hour layover at the bar, nursing a scotch and troubleshooting the code for this website. (Please pardon the dust – who knew a blog had a higher technical barrier to entry than a YouTube channel? Well, I suppose anyone who’s browsed YouTube for five seconds might have suspected as much, silly me…)

My section of the international terminal was filled with iPads from which you could order food and drink from the restaurant nearby.

The upside: less human interaction, when all you want to do is sleep.

The downside: no one to ask about your onion allergy.

Oh well, at least the presentation was amusing.

Time to settle in for my first Transatlantic flight!

“Diphenhydramines are a girl’s best friend…”

See you in Iceland!

On leaving home, again

It was a humbling experience, after a decade of living on my own, to find myself back in my childhood room. It was clear that it wasn’t just time that had passed – the room that had once been full of my junk was now crammed to the gills with the last crap and testament of nearly half a dozen of my deceased relatives. Fortunately the relatives themselves have all been laid to rest, as my allergies seem to be worsening as I get older.

How a musician packs to travel cross-country

Of course I’d always had the choice not to move back in; I’d had a secure, well-paying job teaching public school music in Colorado Springs. From the outside it appeared that I was pretty well set up ($40K a year will get you pretty far in most of the country) until a combination of burnout, a bad breakup, and my grandpa’s steep decline sent my mom and me hobbling across the Nevada desert in my $1500 overheating-prone Subaru towards home.

*****

Then: my grandparents bought the house I was raised in for $13,000 in 1963.

Now: Today, Zillow prices the house at over half a million dollars. The only thing that has changed about the house itself is that it’s 56 years older.

*****

Thanks to my choice of career (i.e. anything other than tech), living even in a remote corner of the East Bay with several roommates tricky to pull off, and impossible to do so without a job already lined up.

I graduated from college in 2009, when no one was hiring. Most of my high school friends chose to stay in the Bay Area and tech it out, achieving widely varying levels of success. One has bought a house, others are employees at Google, Craigslist and OpenTable. Others are flailing, some even adding to their student loan debt by going back to school, hoping for a better job that will simply allow them to continue to live in the area where they were born and raised. All but one of my high school friends have chosen to put off having kids for the foreseeable future. My graduating classmates and I are 32 years old this year.

There are things to love about the Bay Area, of course

I thought I’d never move back; but here I am, and I’m getting ready to leave again. I’m grateful for this precious time spent at home; I’ve been able to reconnect with my family in a way you can only do as an adult, after years away. It’s because of this, coupled with watching my grandparents age and pass on, that I’ve begun to see my parents in a new light. I now really understand that my parents will not be around forever, and I am grateful for this time spent with them while they still have their faculties.

A benefit to moving back was that I’ve also met the man with whom I’m hoping to spend the rest of my life. He’s the sailor (don’t worry, I’ve taken a few classes) and although this started out as his life’s dream, it’s now our life’s plan. +1 Commitment.

As this brief chapter of my life comes to a close, I tie up what loose ends I can. I scramble madly to finish recording my first-ever solo CD. I madly line up appointments, dental visits and travel vaccinations before my work benefits run out and doing so becomes much more expensive. And, I say goodbye to my grandfather for what turned out to be the last time. Life is long, but life is also short.

Now, tethered to my family only by their Netflix account, I prepare for several years of long-term travel. It is honest-to-goodness cheaper than living here in the Bay Area. What adventures await me? Stay tuned.