back home

In a parking lot outside a big box retailer in a minor Midwestern city I looked around. I could see a few other big chain stores in the midst of strip mall storefronts. The smaller buildings of national chain restaurants stuck up like islands in the larger sea of parking.
I realized, looking at a retail store a few hundred yards from the store I just walked out of, I couldn't walk between the two if I wanted to. At least, not without braving the multiple lanes of traffic in both directions on the arteries cutting through this parking plain. This seems to be a quintessentially American scenario, if perhaps not uniquely American.
A more uniquely American experience came a couple days previously, when a trip to a Super Wal-Mart (the only grocer in town) was preceded by a stop at the gun shop.

last day

Blue Lagoon
Originally uploaded by slack13.

I found myself neck-deep in the local power plant's waste just before leaving Iceland for good.
And I paid to do that.
The penultimate stop on our World Tour was Iceland's Blue Lagoon. The lagoon is the outflow from the local Geothermal Power Plant. Since the waste products that make it to the lagoon are mineral-rich water and heat, someone had the bright idea to turn the spot into a resort and spa.
Apparently it's one of the most-visited spots in Iceland. Since it's between Iceland's international airport and Reykjavic all the bus companies include an optional stop here on the way to or from the airport. We decided to go ahead and take the option on our way out of the country.
So on the morning of Nov. 30 we woke up, hopped in the waiting bus, and headed to the Blue Lagoon.
We arrived around 10:30 a.m. The sun hadn't yet started to color the sky.
It wasn't a perfect day to take the waters. The air temperature when we arrived was something like 34 degrees Farenheit. A hard, icy wind was blowing. Resort attendants walked along the edge of the water in full artic parkas, gloves, boots and earmuffs.
The water itself was warm. The digital readout said it ranged from 95 degrees to 109 degrees by one of the steam vents. However, the bulk of the water wasn't quite warm enough to take away the chill from the air. Especially since you are required to shower before entering the water, so the wind had a better chance of freezing your ears solid. The sauna and steamroom provided momentary welcome respites from the cold, until their heat proved too much for comfort.
The weather gave the place an other-worldly feel. Steam rising off the milky-blue water obscured the other bathers and hid the resort buildings. It combined with the indistinct lighting and volcanic rocks piled along the boundaries of the lagoon for the overall surreal quality.
We spent about three hours at the Blue Lagoon before catching the bus to the airport and waiting for our flight (which ended up being delayed more than an hour by the first snow we'd seen).
As a resort, it was a disappointment. As spot to show off the unique character of Iceland's landscape and weather, it succeeded even despite the handicap of being an artifical landscape.

last day (II)

We sat on the tarmac for about an hour, our time in Iceland slightly extended for de-icing. The flakes were heavy, wet chunks pelting the ground in sheets, propelled by the wind.
On arrival in Baltimore, we were leery of customs. The form asked for all items purchased overseas - we needed extra space just to write the countries visited. Even if I'd wanted to answer completely, I didn't remember exactly what we'd picked up during the year.
No need to worry. Customs didn't even look at the list. They didn't even want to look in the bags, even when we admitted to having food in the bags. We didn't even get an entry stamp in the passport - just a stamp on our customs form and a wave on through.
When we did arrive, my sister was waiting. She had a different idea - she was worried we'd been extensively questioned and searched. The airport had never changed the status of our flight to "delayed." Instead, the board read "on time" for our arrival. We were amazed we cleared passport control, got our bags and cleared customs in a total of maybe 20 minutes. To her, the process apparently took two hours.

a few notes on the first day back

* Baltimore at night was noticeably brighter from the plane, even more so than London. This isn't to say Baltimore has more lights than London, just that it seemed the average output of each light was brighter. There was more bright white light, as opposed to the usual orange glow. I don't think this is a Baltimore problem. I think this is just the way American cities are. I don't know if it's a case of more lights, or brighter lights, or lights that aren't shielded. But it seemed brighter.

* There's too much space between everything on the streets. The roads are amazingly wide; in some places the sidewalk is amazingly as wide as the road; houses are set further away from the street; there are more parking lots. Even in between buildings, the spaces are just bigger.

* It was odd to get my first handful of American change. It seemed old-fashioned, for some reason.

* The night we got in, we landed at 7 p.m. Baltimore time, or 1 a.m. Europe time. We stayed up until nearly midnight (6 a.m. on my body clock). I didn't feel bad last night, but I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning. I'm sure I'm going to have the same problem tomorrow. This always seems to happen when I flew across a bunch of time zones west. When we flew from Beijing to London we were in the air for 10 hours, always in the sunlight (took off about 10 a.m., landed in the afternoon). We were up for more than 24 hours. I couldn't get a long night's sleep for a week afterward. I didn't feel bad most of the time. It was just at about 5 p.m. I'd totally crash, then when I did go to sleep I just couldn't stay that way long enough. I haven't had the crash in the evening this time around. We'll see how long it takes before I can go back to sleeping in. (That was one nice thing about Iceland: when there's no sun, it's easy to sleep).

* I'm going to want to put USA at the end of addresses for a long time yet.

back again

In the States. Flew into Baltimore last night, a little jet-lagged today, but not too bad (a six-hour flight just doesn't seem that long anymore). Haven't really had much time to reflect on the end of the trip - in a lot of ways, it won't seem like we're done traveling until we have a place to stop and settle (which means until we have jobs, somewhere).

Lots more later, I'm sure - I'll be posting all the stories from the last few months which didn't make it to the blog yet as I see fit. So keep checking...