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Why I left my heart in Iceland
It is 2:03 a.m. I cannot sleep.
I am tossing and turning, and yet it is not some great love or some insurmountable problem that is keeping me awake.
It’s Skyr – that innocuously white, deceptively simple triumph of the Icelandic dairy industry that’s supposedly like yogurt, but not quite. I reminisce about how a little over a week ago, I ate that slightly tart, slightly sweet concoction for the last time. I wonder, if I had known it was to be the last time, and that Skyr isn’t exported to the Philippines, would I have risked taking tubs of Skyr on the long, unrefrigerated, sure-to-spoil-it flight back home? Would I even have left Iceland?
I was wrong. It IS both a great love and an insurmountable problem.
Friends try to comfort me. “Is it like sour cream?”
No.
“Is it like crème fraiche?”
No. Hay.
Like Skyr, there’s a uniqueness about so many things I experienced in Iceland that’s really difficult to compare with other stuff.
A week ago, I was sent there to receive the One World Award from the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers during their conference in the capital city, Reykjavík. I was to receive it on behalf of GMA and Brigada for our work on “Gintong Krudo.”
I was happy to do the task. However, I found that after my trip to Iceland, I would have to leave something behind in exchange for leaving with that trophy. Here goes my list of reasons why I left my heart in Iceland:
1. Landscape
There’s a reason why big Hollywood blockbusters such as "Tomb Raider," "Oblivion," "Noah," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and (the most popular reference) "Game of Thrones" were filmed here.
The scenery truly takes your breath away the first time you see it – lava fields covered with verdant moss, endless expanses of golden-green grass, and in the distance, a snow-dusted mountain. I haven’t even started on the waterfalls. Oh, the waterfalls.
Perhaps it’s due to the fact that, according to 2013 World Bank data, there are only 323,002 people in the entire country (only 0.3 percent of the Philippines’s 98.39 million). Perhaps it’s the idea that just a short ride from the capital city of Reykjavík, there are places where there will literally be no one around you for miles.
Whatever it is, there’s something about this place that makes you feel you’re truly connecting with nature for the first time.
2. Climate
Speaking of connecting, the climate connected with me like a right hook to the face as soon as I landed in Keflavik airport. As a tropical baby, I was most wary about the low temperatures, given Iceland’s place right outside the Arctic Circle. What I didn’t know was that the gulf stream of warm air that passed through the country is having a fist-fight with the cold air, making the weather here unbelievably variable.
There’s a saying in Iceland: “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.” True enough, in the first 5 minutes, we had painfully bright sunlight. In the next 5 minutes, we were having torrential rains with gale-force winds that nearly pushed me several feet back when I tried to stand still and bear it. In another 5 minutes, we were running to the car because hail stones were being hurled at our faces.
Nevertheless, it is easy to forgive Iceland this quirk when you realize that this is the same environment in which the most beautiful of all natural shows occur – the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights.
While the cold will never be for a true Filipina like me, something happened during my last night that put the climate on my list of things to love about Iceland. As I was packing, I received a text from one of my hosts:
“Mica, it’s snowing.”
Just like that, the girl who always wore seven layers of clothing, who wore gloves indoors, ran out in nothing but a light dress and caught all the flakes that fell softly on the ground. It was my first time. It might as well have been magic.
3. Geology
Iceland is the only country that is both in the North American and the European continents. Tectonically, that is. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the North American and Eurasian plates meet runs right across the country. This is also where the plates move apart at a rate of about 2 cm per year, which means there’s an abundance of volcanic and geothermal activity, as well as those cute little geysers that tourists just flock to like moths to a flame. In fact, the geological term “geyser” came from the name of the first recorded erupting hot spring in Iceland, “geysir.”
With the abundance of volcanic activity, this is the first time I saw a nation truly work with the land instead of against it. According to Dr. Guðni Johannesson, the Director General of Orkustofnun (Iceland’s National Energy Authority), almost all of Iceland’s power is a combination of geothermal energy and hydropower. The rest of the energy is derived from other clean and renewable sources such as wind energy.
In the geothermal energy generation process, 200 degrees Celsius water from deep within the earth shoots up as steam to power turbines that heat homes and drive industries. They’re producing so much energy that they’ve surpassed the country’s needs and are now planning to export some of their energy to the UK.
What I love about this land is that nothing goes to waste. After the steam condenses to a more manageable 40-50 degrees, they’re used in the hundreds of hot pools that dot the country, the most popular being the Blue Lagoon in Grindavík. In a country where temperatures in the summer barely go higher than 20 degrees Celsius (that’s Baguio weather, people), you’ll understand why soaking in hot pools has become the “national sport.”
4. Food
When it comes to flavors, the Icelanders like to keep it simple and fresh, so the Filipino palate would be very at home here.
The capital Reykjavík is a harbor town, with many of the restaurants mere meters from the water. This resulted in some of the freshest seafood I’ve ever tasted – which is weird considering I was born in an archipelago.
Surprisingly, it’s not a fancy restaurant that has tourists and locals lining up. Bæjarin’s Beztu Pylsur, which translates to “Town’s Best Hotdog,” is the tiniest little hut in downtown Reykjavík and serves dogs that are a leaner mix of lamb, beef and pork, dashed with a little mayo and onions on top.
It’s the cheapest food here, and yet I promise you, it tastes unlike any other hotdog you’ve had in your life.
5. Society
There is virtually no crime in Iceland. According to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, the country only had 1 recorded homicide case in 2012, or a miniscule homicide rate of 0.3 per 100,000 population. In contrast, the Philippines had 8,484 homicide cases the same year.
While we in the Philippines can only dream of the word “free” – not only in speech but also in health care and education – Icelanders are closer to actually living it. Health care in Iceland is universal, primarily subsidized by the government (with the exception of, according to citizens, “minuscule” service fees), and most schools are state-funded as well.
Perhaps a reflection of the educational system is the fact that the few Icelanders I’ve had the privilege of talking to were all astoundingly brilliant. All were very passionate with a real sense of where they want their country to go, what they want their government to do – a quality, I’m afraid, that is lacking in a lot of Filipinos nowadays as the noise of politics and discontentment leaves us more eager to distract ourselves than to participate in governance.
It’s no surprise, then, that most people I’ve informally surveyed have few complaints with the social services – especially the Filipino migrants, who were wont to punctuate every sentence with “kung sa atin yan….”
As a graduate student of Gender Studies in an unabashedly patriarchal country, I was amazed by the level of recognition of gender rights in Iceland, which legalized same-sex marriages in 2010. Citizens boast that the local Pride parade is more celebrated than the National Day Parade and the whole family – kids, even grandma – are in attendance.
This led to many LGBT Filipinos becoming their “true selves” in Iceland. One such example is Robert Angobong, who not only flourished but was crowned Drag Queen of Iceland 2011 – a far cry from the unico hijo from Liloan, Cebu whose father, he says, beat him up to make him more masculine.
Nevertheless, it’s not like Filipinos have totally assimilated to the Icelandic way of living. In very positive ways, Filipinos here, as with OFWs in other places, have retained and even intensified the culture and sense of community that makes us unique. Pinoys who only met in Iceland have managed to be closer and meet more often than my cousins and I do here in the Philippines.
According to Project Pearl, the umbrella organization for Filipinos in Iceland, our kababayans only number around 1,000 in the entire country. While this number is minuscule compared to Pinoy populations in other nations, Fil-Icelanders are some of the most generous and accommodating folk I’ve ever met. They let me into their businesses, made sure I never got lost and never felt hungry. Albeit 10,000 kms from home, with them, I never felt the cold, never felt the distance. “Malayo man, malapit din.”
People tell me I’ve had the trip of a lifetime, but it’s hard for me to listen to that – not when I want not one, but many trips back to Iceland in this lifetime.
After all, I have to go back for my heart. And Skyr.
P.S. I also left my book in Iceland, I’m guessing in Reykjavík, by Hallgrímskirkja. Give me a heads up if you found it. I’m on twitter at @micaelapapa. — BM/ELR, GMA News
Watch Brigada's Iceland Special on Tuesday (October 14), 8 p.m., on GMA News TV.
