I Thought I Had Glaucoma, But It Turned Out To Be A Stye

My husband and I got back from our vacation a few days ago and have both been a little under the weather. I've been managing my symptoms of early-onset glaucoma/or a stye as the doctor liked to call it, and he's had a bad cold, but we're still feeling the happy glow of a few days away. We went to Iceland to enjoy precious wildlife sightings, gorgeous untouched natural landscapes dramatically unfolding for miles without another person in sight, and delicious Icelandic fish soup and bread. We rented a car and saw about 50% of the inhabited portion of the island.

We would have circled the whole country, but we made a last minute decision to take a boat up into the Arctic Circle for a day on Grimsey Island. The boat ride ferried about 200 people across the sea for three hours in a rough, rocking and roiling path leaving about 75% of the ship barfing into paper bags. Unfortunately, they ran out of those paper bags and entire sections of the ship became off-limits.

I'm not prone to sea-sickness, but the stench of vomit can churn my stomach. My husband is prone to sea-sickness and while we were napping warmly in the cabin, the sounds of heavy coughing and choking woke us up and then my husband had to stand outside in the freezing arctic wind to maintain his stomach composure because it was actually a group of small children throwing up on themselves and into the last of the paper bags. I was worried that he'd be too sick to get back on the boat, and was ready to find him a flight back to Iceland off of the tiny air strip in the middle of the island because the whole puke-fest ship was such a mess. Something tells me that snack bar didn't make too much money off of our lot. When we finally arrived and disembarked, he turned to me and said "well, we live here now. Hope you like it."

Lucky for me, the island is a bird sanctuary and my husband is also terrified of birds, so I knew I'd be getting home eventually. I didn't know he was terrified of birds until he ran down a walking trail yelling and screaming, batting wildly at his head, because he was convinced a bird was attacking and chasing him. I almost fell over into a pile of sheep poop laughing so hard because it was like a scene from a movie, before adding the computer animation showing an attacking pterodactyl or something. Also, the Arctic Circle turned out to be the hottest place we visited. Temps were low all week, around 45, and we had lots of rain, and I prepped for the island by putting on three shirts, a scarf, two pairs of pants, thick socks and boots. I wish I only wore one pair of pants because it was about 70 on that stupid island. We did see adorable puffins, though:

Apart from a couple of minor freak-outs, like whether we would run out of gas in the middle of the Westfjords and have to walk 30+ miles in the rain to civilization and then wait for Monday to get gas, and whether we'd be eaten by trolls if we hiked off alone on a poorly marked trail, the trip was serene and relaxing. The one museum we made it to, detailing the history of viking culture and settlement in Iceland, as well as a regional saga from a local poet, basically taught us that Icelanders/Scandinavians were once really murderous and built some of the fastest ships in the world just so they could sail off and kill more people faster. They just really liked killing. The saga of Ale from Borgarnes told of his first kill, at the age of 7, when he lost a hockey game. Today, the people are extremely friendly and confidently wear a wide array of fashions from H&M.

I'm Going Elf Hunting

Saturday, my bff and I are leaving for Iceland to kick the crap out of some whitewalkers. Just kidding, whitewalkers aren't real, but at one time Iceland was ruled by elves, according to their national history. Apparently, you can still see elves and trolls in certain remote areas not accessible by pegasus. My guidebook says 90% of the population still believes in elves.

I want to go to Iceland for a few reasons, mostly landscape related. There are glaciers, geysers, salt lagoons, looming cliffs, steaming waterfalls, puffins, whales, seals, and of course that whole elf/troll situation mentioned earlier. I've never been in a fjord. The last time I experienced a truly dramatic landscape was in New Zealand, where I ended up kind of by accident. In 2005, I was working for a university in China and had a trip planned to the South Pacific, but a week before I was set to leave, a teacher in my department got drunk at our end-of-semester party, followed me home on his bicycle, forced his way into my apartment and attempted to have a "nonconsensual" extra-marital affair. We call that something here, but in China, according to my Dean, it was a joke because he couldn't possibly have been attracted to me and I misunderstood the whole situation because I know nothing about Chinese men. Hah. Good one. So I jumped on the first flight I could to Hong Kong and spent 9 days in New Zealand. I joined a hiking group to do the Tongariro Crossing, which is essentially the hike to Mount Doom from "Lord of the Rings." I was the least fit member of the group (as usual) and over the course of the hike, I was convinced they were going to kill and eat me for survival, since I was the meatiest. I puffed and sweated my chunky ass to the top of a volcano.

It's a stunning country. It was a great trip and when I got back to my job 7 weeks later, the Dean had me make-up with my co-worker who attempted the "nonconsensual affair" by insisting we play ping pong together. And smile. Just a joke! I'm a modern woman and know that rape is mostly bullshit anyway, so shut up, sluts.

Anyway, so Iceland should be cool. We rented a car from a place called SadCars that specializes in old and dented models. Perfect for me. It's even a Subaru!

We successfully purchased a brand new Subaru a few days ago, at $1,000 below MSRP. I haggled my black, crusty heart out and spoke with about five dealerships across the State. My husband didn't enjoy any of that. He would have preferred to rush in waving his checkbook yelling "I'll pay anything, just give me a car!" to avoid dealing with my haggling over $200 (which I did do). My friend Marisa applauded my efforts and said I had ovaries of steel. In the end, my husband was happy with our deal and now we're ready to celebrate in a fjord in the Arctic Circle. I was going to post a picture, or better yet, a video of him writhing around on the hood of the car like a Whitesnake video, but he has yet to commit to a filming schedule.

I was talking to my mom about our trip and she said "you be careful with all of that adventure travel stuff and don't fall off any glaciers!" and just for her lack of faith in my ability to no longer fall off of stuff since I do yoga and have improved my balance since falling off of Machu Pichu, she's not getting a pet elf. For realz, though, it would be cool if my vacation photos didn't look like this: