Day 34 (30 July): Displeasing Departure Day

Being waken up by the alarm clock at 4.30 a.m., I immediately jumped from my bed as I knew that I could fall asleep again very easily and that I would risk missing my flight. In 10 minutes, I finished my daily morning activities and packed my suitcase ready to go. As I was so tired for the late night and too little sleep and knew that the taxi would come at 5.15 a.m., I made super strong coffee, my last cup at Seljavegur 32 in Reykjavik...

When we were downstair, a taxi van was waiting. It was surely large enough for Fergal, his friend and their luggage to fit into the space of the van. Anyway, it was too late to think about it that the taxi we ordered would be a van.

Arriving at BSI Bus Terminal 5.20 a.m., we could take the 5.30 bus instead of the 5.45 one as planned. The bus ride took 45-50 minutes, meaning we arrived at Keflavik Airport before 6.30 a.m.

It was early morning, but the queue for check-in was already very long. A long queue for early morning flights wasn't entirely unexpected and shouldn't be the matter that annoyed me. What disturbed me was human behavior. First, while I was standing at the end of the queue, a man walked into me, causing my passport and ticket fall from my hand. With a brief glance from the man, he said no apology. Although I knew he didn't hit me on purpose, he should have simply said "I'm sorry" which would be the civilized way a human should do in this kind of incident. However, this wasn't the only displeasure... Having queued for the check-in for a while, TT thought of trying to do self check-in on a machine. So, I was left alone with a large suitcase, a large box and a large backpack without a trolley (as there was none at the entrance we entered the airport). At the moment when I was moving the three items, a couple approaching from the left-hand side came to stand in front of me. Simultaneously, another couple, very well-dressed indeed, did the same thing but approached from the right. What happened was truly unbelievable! What a shameless behavior! I was really angry and felt so sorry for those queuing behind me...

Luckily, TT came back with the success of the machine check-in. If he have been back later, I would have said to these two couples "excuse me, I'm queuing for the check-in and please notice that the queue ends far behind me". Well... even if I said this, these uncivilized people would do this on purpose, anyway.

After several days, I realized that this incident had revealed a truth about the world. On this planet, there are numerous people who think that they are smarter than others if they can get whatever they want while means to achieve what they want is unimportant and consequences of what they do on other people aren't their business. This made me understand why the world today is full of problems!

Keflavik Airport was rather small. It was difficult for us to find seats to sit and eat out last Skyr... The Iceland good-bye weather was really nice, warm and sunny.

View of Seltjarnanes Peninsula from above... Seljavegur 32 is situated on the Northwestern bay.

Reykjavik from above looked large and quite densely populated.

Mount Esja (780 m) where TT went yesterday.

The middle of Iceland is a no-man's land. The interior is uninhabited because of the harsh weather due to the high altitude (500-1000 m) and the insufficient water due to the desert highlands.

Views of Vatnajökull...

The rugged Austurland (East Iceland)...

Whirled clouds appeared rather strange...

Finally, I safely arrived at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport at 2.20 p.m. These 34 days in Iceland have granted me superb experiences regardless of exhaustion caused by walking and working... I hope to return to this island in the middle of the ocean some time in the future.

Day 33 (29 July): Presentation Day

Today would be the presentation day; all of artists had to present what they had done during their residency. We were supposed to set our works up at 12 and the presentation would be for public from 6 to 8 p.m. 

After breakfast, I packed the tree in the box I had earlier prepared. TT went to buy rope to tie around the box for carrying. Then, I cleared things and packed a bit.

I left the residence around 11.30 a.m. to SIM office to set up my work.  TT also came with me but he was going to Heimmur to take a bus to Mt. Esja where we was going to hike today.

When I arrived at SIM, Yemima was already there. Soon after, Sonja came, followed by Clair, Jovanna, Tero and Karolina, and Julia. We then divided the space and installed our works.

As I had tried to install the tree,  it was quite easy for me to just do it again. During the installtaion, the yellow kitten in the photos below was around. Kristin told me that he was a lost cat who started to be in SIM's office last week. Unfortunately, he had to be brought to a homeless house for animals soon. The cat was really cute and in good mood... However, he was pretty dirty; his 4 white pawns even changed the color to gray... I wished I could take him to Helsinki.

The installing hours went quite nicely. Everyone just did their work and chatted every once a while... 

Julia was talking with Sonja while she was placing the photos of her paper stone installation she made in Hofhus...

 

Jovanna was arranging her polaroid pictures...

Corey's boat was meant to be a floating trash bin...

View from outside, Clair was chatting with Sonja...

After the setting up, most of the others went swimming in Laugardalur. They seemed to be crazy about swimming pools in Reykjavik as they always carried their swimming suits and towels around... I thought about joining them but to rush to the residence to fetch my swimming suit was a bit too much for me (after the marathon hike yesterday). So, I thought I could check some shops on Laugavegur. 

Mal og Mening, a bookstore, on Laugavegur 13, had a hugh collection of interesting art and design books from around the world. I was specially interested in a book titled "Simply Materials" from a Japanese publisher. However, the book was thick, heavy and expensive. I thought about buying it via Amazon.com when I got back to Helsinki. I got a twill-weave wool skirt (700 ISK) from a second hand store run by the Icelandic red cross.  

Having been shopping for almost 4 hours, I walked back to the residence for a shower around 4.30 p.m. I was supposed to meet TT at 5 p.m at the residence for dinner. However, as we didn't have much time left, we just had Skyr. Then, we left the residence with others (I didn't notice when they came back from the pool).

We arrived at SIM a bit after 6 p.m. All the guests seemed to be artists who had studios in the same building as the residence. 

The tree and I...

Performance of Karolina and Tero...

Helga also briefly visited. I chatted quite long with a textile artist who is also a psychologist. She asked me to visit her studio which was actually in the same building as the residence. Unfortunately, I was leaving tomorrow...

After most of visitors had left, we started to talk with each other... For example, Corey with Jovanna...

 

Clair and others...

As I never like any opening, I went for a walk and to the book store nearby. I returned to SIM when the event was about to end. I chatted with the other in the yard and packed my work. They were going to have dinner and a drink together. I skipped the dinner as I still had to clean and pack...  But I thought I would like to join them later for a drink.

So, as soon as we got back to the residence. I unpacked the tree and repacked it for the flight tomorrow.  TT cleaned the room and the studio. I made dinner (fried white fish and zucchini). After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and emptied the trash bins. Then, I packed my suitcase. It was already 10.30 p.m. when everything in the room and the studio looked tidy and our luggage was ready. Then, we decided to join the others although we were very tired and knew that we had to get up tomorrow at 5 a.m. The bar was somewhere on Laugavegur. After one drink, we said goodbye and walked back to the residence...  

The last night in Reykjavik ended around 12.30 a.m... 

 

Day 32 (28 July): Marathon Lava Field Hiking Day:

Today's blog will be photograph-free post due to the rainy condition that wasn't proper for my camera....

It was a truly  rainy day today. However, we thought that we could still do something. So, we decided that we could rent a car or otherwise take a local bus to a neighboring town. TT called the 4th Floor Hotel to ask about a rental car. They said that they might have a car at 2 p.m. After lunch, we started to walk to the city, planning to first check at the hotel and continue to the bus station in Hiemmur to take a bus to Hafnarfjördur. Unfortunately (or fortunately in terms of money), the hotel didn't have a car. So, we walked to the bus station. Bus 1 was about to leave at 2.12 p.m. I went to ask the bus driver to wait for us as TT was still queueing to buy the one-day passes. A bit more than half an hour later, we arrived at Hafnarfjördur together with the rain... We then had to figure out what to do and how to get to some attractions for example, the hot spring and lava-field hiking trails. We went to the town tourist information center to find out information. The man at the tourist info was nice and tried to suggest us who came to the town without a car. The hot spring was too far to walk and no bus goes there. So, we decided to take Bus 33 to go as close as possible to a hiking trail. Before leaving the tourist info, the kind man told us to take free coffee and bottled water. The town seemed to be wealthy although too little tourists. Before taking the bus, we stopped very briefly at Hafnarborg, Institute of Culture and Fine Art. There were 2 exhibitions: "Wavelength" showed the drawings of the American artist Creighton Michel and the exhibition showed pottery from Nicaragua.  

After the bus ride, we had to walk through the new residential area which was still under construction and then along the main road. TT tried to hitchhike with the hope to get to the hot spring, but there was no luck as only trucks were passing by. Having walked already more than half an hour under the rain, we reached the starting point of the trail. 

The lava field looked interesting because of its various formations of lava rocks slowly cooled. There were also many small caves under the ground. We basically just walked and walked, following a hiking map we got from the tourist info.  

Walking along the trial until it ended, we continued along a small road and then a larger one until we returned to the town at the bus station. We walked (under the rain) altogether perhaps 12 kilometers. What a marathon! I was so happy to see the bus station, because it meant that the hike was ending. Having checked the bus schedule at the bus stop and found that there was still 10 minute time, we went to a hotdog stand nearby and ordered 2 hotdogs (230 ISK each, more expensive than the best one in Reykjavik. The hotdog was good and gave me some energy to continue the day.

We caught bus at 7.52 p.m. back to Reykjavik. We thought that we could take Bus 13 from Laekjatorg to as near as possible the residence. When we arrived at the Laekjatorg stop, we misunderstood that we had to wait 10 minutes for the next bus. So, we went to 10-11 on Austurstraeti to get rid of coins. We ended up buying a yogurt and sliced bread. TT gave the rest of the coins he had to the cashier. The getting-rid-of-coins process took us less than 5 minutes. However, while walking to the bus stop, we saw Bus 13 departing. Then, we realized that we misunderstood the bus schedule. As we didn't want to wait any more, we walked to the residence.

We dropped by at Noutun, a supermarket nearby, to buy food before returning to the residence. I took shower and prepared dinner... After dinner, I started to pack my stuffs...