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| Cultural Hybridity: I import Hipster glasses, Brennavín and lava-smoked schnapps to our English tea party, and Emily brings the Pineapple, Ireland's native fruit (thanks to Julia's instagram skillz...you're a propa hipster blud) |
been six months since I first willingly marooned myself on this coffee-obsessed island in the North Atlantic, a hipster-haven dominated by granny cardigans and dodgily drawn-on eyebrows. I think that three months of eternal darkness, howling winds and sporadic snow blizzards have finally cracked me : I am now the owner of hipster glasses and Timberland boots. I look like the sad love-child of Napoleon Dynamite and Indiana Jones. I am not proud, but alas the god of Icelandic fashion finally pointed his finger and declared me, my wellies and spectacles ‘uncool’ . Feeling the wrath of the fashion god as he rampaged against any sense of individuality that my choice of attire may once have possessed, this has actually been to my advantage. Icelanders now automatically assume that, as their fellow clone, I too am Icelandic.
For example, just yesterday when I rushed over to help what
I thought was a lovely old man having a heart-attack outside the liquor-store Vínbúðin (when in fact he was just rat-arsed
drunk), I was able to hold a conversation fully in Icelandic without
automatically being asked that same sodding question: " aah, Britain , so that
means you are from London, yes? " (NO I’M NOT FROM LONDON ENGLAND IS NOT LIKE
ICELAND THERE ARE OTHER PLACES IN THE COUNTRY THAN THE CAPITAL CITY YOU KNOW). To
be honest, I’m not sure that humouring the drunken ramblings of an Icelandic
hobo really qualifies as a conversation, but still, my new ‘ Icelandic ’ look is
a useful disguise which tricks unwitting Icelanders into speaking Icelandic
with me and not automatically switching to English like they normally do. Sometimes,
if my hipster glasses are being really disguise-y, I am even privy to an
Icelandic rolling of the eyes and a sarcastic remark behind a tourist’s back : "uuh,
útlendingar" (‘foreigners’). I am
even able to have conversations about the weather. It is all very exciting. Now
that the sun is returning to the land of fire and ice (as in , I no longer have
to carry a flashlight to work) and Iceland is emerging from long, dark, wintery
hibernation, I am tempted to push the fashion boundaries here and see how
Icelanders react to my bright-orange hareem pants and innumerable flowery scarves.
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| Riding on Ice: Jo and I rocking the boiler suit look |
One look that I particularly enjoyed rocking out was the
fur-lined boiler suit, thermal underwear and man-boots that my friend Jo and I
donned on our most recent horsey escapade. We may have looked ridiculous,
but I swear that outfit stopped every single one of my toes turning into mini-icicles
and dropping off like suicidal cocktail sausages. We were horse riding amidst
snow-capped mountains and frozen lava fields in southern Iceland near Hveragerði and , beautiful though it may
have been , it was fricking baltic. After six hours of hard-core tölting (the special gait that only
Icelandic horses can do) across the wintery Icelandic countryside , however , fashion was
the last thing I cared about. Survival and avoiding death-by-snow were more of
a priority, to be honest. I was in good hands though as my noble steed, Margeir, was a bolshy litter critter who
was more than happy to plunge head-first into oncoming snow drifts and slide down
frozen mountain sides.
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| Sexy horse, less sexy rider (I am squinting because of the snow, and I'm a little bit special) |
At one point, he even managed to get me across a
partially frozen river in one piece. Testing the ice by pawing at
the river with his hoof, Margeir decided
to put some weight on the ice and see what happened. He fell through. Now, any
British horse that I know would have had some sort of mild seizure by now, and
be pining desperately for the comfort of their snazzy stable-rug , some soft
meadow hay and a dry martini. Margeir,
however, was not a fashion conscious horse and so, head-down arse-up, my four-legged
friend proceeded to wade through the water, quite unabashed by the blustery
gale and strong undercurrent that was trying desperately to drag him downstream
until we made it back to the farm, thermal underwear and all.
Horse riding in Iceland during the depths of winter is
certainly not glamorous, although it is fun to get back into Reykjavík and go
into a trendy café stinking of horses. I’m not sure that boiler-suits and hard
hats will ever really be fashionable in a city dominated by brogues and
vintage satchels, but it is nice to know that the country side offers an escape
route and brief reprieve from all the trendy-wendys and skinkas (skinka means ‘ ham ’ in Iceland , and is a nickname for Reykjavík chavettes). I think it is totally legit to fuse
Icelandic wilderness with Reykjavík urbanity . So from now on, I shall don my
farmer jacket, attire myself in floral scarves and wear my wellies with pride.
