ICELAND

Flying into Reykjavik for the first time felt like landing in another realm. The black sand coastline laid in stark contrast to the rising sun and icy blue Atlantic Ocean, and the rocky terrain below stimulated both trepidation and excitement. Once on the ground, every turn on the highway revealed an entirely different landscape - towering mountains, lush waterfalls, frozen rivers and deep green, moss covered terrain. Icelandic horses and grazing sheep dot the landscape, and the few people you encounter on the road are endlessly kind and inviting. Most impressive is how they live in cooperation with nature - there is a respect for the land, what it give and what it takes, that I had not encountered anywhere else. We could all learn a great deal from the Icelandic people about how to honor the environment, sustaining ourselves in partnership rather than in dominance of our surroundings. It is truly humbling to walk over vast swaths of ice and then lie in the underbelly of a glacier, to be pulled by eager pups across an unending landscape of snow, and to drive for miles with nothing more than a paper map and straight line to the horizon.