Whatever the Weather: an Icelandic Honeymoon

Note: All italicised words are hyperlinks.

I find that whenever I am about to start a new post, I am inclined to set my current scene. To remind more than my readers, but myself, where I am currently grounded. At present, I am scanning our Seoulful living room, taking in a plant that flourished over the summer and gazing at a wedding photo that has been newly propped on the entry table between the living room and kitchen.

It was a bit strange to come home this week, after a summer of celebrations and our wedding, and our grand honeymoon — when Dae-Han and I walked into our apartment, now as husband and wife, it actually felt more like “home.” What does that even mean, I ask myself now. It felt strange. Unfamiliar. Stuffy. It caused a bit of an ache in me, not a regret that we were back in Seoul, necessarily, but already a missing for Minnesota. For the familiarity of all of the family around us, and nieces’ and nephews’ voices, and game nights, and my original roots.

While Dae-Han noted the strangeness of the apartment, I have watched him settle into Seoul this week so smoothly. This is an interesting part of our relationship — his connection to the city, and my sometimes uncertainty about my place in it. I do not deem this a “good” or “bad” aspect to our life Korea, that he feels so much comfort here and my relationship to Seoul is a bit more … ambiguous. It just is.

So it just is that I have busied myself this week by nesting back into our apartment, to restore my sense of home here. Returning to Seoul nearly two weeks before school begins is affording me the time to do things slowly, and reacquaint myself with life here with patience for that process. I’ve slow cut veggies, taken slower walks, and continued slow reading books that I began before we left for our big wedding summer.

And I keep slowly going through the photos from our summer. The best summer yet. Remembering Dad’s most wise words, though, the best is always yet to come, so this summer is simply the prelude to many more “best summers yet.”

This Best Summer Yet did include, as noted in that title up there, a honeymoon in Iceland. Iceland was a brilliant choice for our honeymoon, and I think you’ll see why as I take you through our itinerary, whose authors are 1. Lindsay’s good friend, and 2. Dae-Han Song.

Day 1: The arrival

I begin here with a screenshot of the itinerary that Dae-Han created in Google sheets.

Important points to note:

1. Renting a car is wise. It would have been wiser to rent a car with 4-wheel drive because Iceland has some rocky terrain. Additionally, when you rent the car, do not let them talk you into the pre-paid refueling. Your jet-lagged brains may miss the refueling station that is literally outside the door of Alamo, but your alert brain reading this now will know better.

2. Breakfast at the airport, or anywhere, will be delicious, but expensive. Two bagels with cream cheese and lox and two coffees will cost $35 — and that will be cheap for Iceland. Likely the cheapest meal that you eat. Iceland is worth it, though. Hey, that salmon is truly fresh.

I do not remember how much this ice cream cost, but no matter, we both do encourage you to find the Omnom Chocolate store. Zac Efron told us about the shop in his Down to Earth Iceland episode and we are glad we followed his lead.

3. My husband wrote relax on our itinerary. This is big because any tension leading up to the trip was about the pace at which we would explore and experience Iceland. I’m a “show up and see what the day brings” kind of woman, and Dae-Han has been schooled to plan every minute of a trip. As it turned out, the newlyweds did find the Goldilocks approach (and sometimes Dae-Han even wanted to slow down more than me!) that seemed to generally suit both of us.

4. The Edition Marriott — Thank you, Mom and Dad, for this gift that made us feel like royalty. The 5-star experience did not disappoint. The location of the Marriott was clutch — we walked to each part of our itinerary from the hotel to fight our jet-lag.

5. Rainbow Street is really awesome. There are so many shops and restaurants and bars. Also, I’m in this place where it’s really fun and novel to say “husband.”

6. Additionally, Rainbow Street leads to …

Hallgrímskirkja. This Lutheran church extends … really high into the sky and has architecture worthy of much marveling. My photos hardly does its beauty justice. If you’re in Reykjavík, go see her majesty in person.

7. Not listed on the itinerary but coming from us to you with two thumbs up is Loving Hut. We ended up here twice during our time in Reykjavík. Very yummy, very fresh.

8. We loved a store called ZO-ON Iceland. It is family run, sustainable and sells great outdoor gear. We chose hats with the logo “Whatever the Weather.” Our stay in Iceland began with a couple of days of wind advisories, and that was just the beginning. In terms of our marriage, we have all the decades to come to weather all of the weather: rainbows, rains, snow, and sun.

Day 2: Plans foiled, new plans made

It was that wind that kept us from what we kept trying to schedule. The puffins. I wanted to do a tour to see puffins, Iceland’s cool soaring seabird.

Puffins. The cutest. Image from: Arctic Adventures

Even if the best laid plans of honeymooners go askew, we weren’t going to spend too much time pouting over it. We instead relaxed with a massage at the hotel — vacation Dae-Han had found his way to Iceland and let go of the notion that we should fill each moment with sight-seeing. Afterwards, we walked to the nearby maritime museum. We loved the museum — in our experience, all of the museums in Reykjavík were wonderful — the exhibits are interactive and the artifacts so interesting.

After the visit to the museum, we ventured to Fly Over Iceland for quite a flight. This simulation has special effects so that you can smell the flower fields you are “flying” over and the winds through the mountains you are flying through.

A few moments after we took this photo, when we were belted into our seats, Dae-Han leaned over to me and said, “Any regrets about your flight today.” “Nah,” I responded. “Okay, well if you get scared, you can just squeeze your husband’s hand,” he replied chivalrously.

We did hold hands the whole time. One of our hands was very sweaty by the time our flight was complete. It wasn’t mine. Hehehe.

At $40 per ticket, I felt the ride was well worth it. Dae-Han says it was worth it “for a honeymoon.”

After flying over Iceland, we decided to walk along the ocean, embracing the wind and enjoying the sun that doesn’t wholly set in the summer. There was a little rain and a spectacular rainbow. And we were loving Iceland, whatever the weather.

Day 3: When the winds don’t go away; and Snaeffellsnes Peninsula

We had tried to reschedule the tour to see puffins, but it was canceled again because the winds wanted to stay. This kept us indoors for the morning and afternoon, which turned out a little treasure and some more inquiring into Iceland’s history.

I love that my husband is a reader. A lover of books. I have no idea where all of the books that keep arriving to our house are going to go — I think we will have to build furniture out of them. Dae-Han did find a book on Icelandic culture at this bazaar across from our hotel and was peppering me with history for the rest of our trip as he consumed the pages.

With new book in hand, we walked to National Museum of Iceland. We loved this museum too. Something we haven’t seen anywhere else (yet) was a rainbow icon that provided audio for a LGBTQ perspective on that part of history. As an educator, I also loved the inquiry questions posted by certain exhibits.

Learning does create quite an appetite and so we made our way to the cheapest meal of the trip (I was mistaken, it wasn’t the breakfast at the airport), the Bæjarins Beztu, Iceland’s famous hot dogs. So good. I toasted Grandpa Art who watches over us with my Pepsi. He would have loved these dogs too.

It was at this point, around 3 pm, that we decided to start a road trip outside of Reykjavík to the Snaeffellsnes Peninsula. Dae-Han had noted on our itinerary that this was a “full day” of sight-seeing. While it’s really cool that Iceland is the land of the midnight sun, I maybe don’t advice driving back from a road trip at midnight while jet-lagged, but I have no regrets about the beautiful sites we saw from 3:30-11:45 pm.

All of the hours we spent on the Icelandic roads throughout our trip were made interesting by 1. Dae-Han’s singalongs with many songs, and 2. story time that often began with a question from a deck of cards a friend had gifted us for our wedding. My answer to question 2 will come with Day 4 below.

Along our route on this road trip was a cute coffee shop, sweet seals, and a stone statue of a saga character.

On our way back to our hotel, we made our final stop at Mount Kirkjufell, the location of some Game of Throne Scenes. Damn, it was beautiful.

Looks almost mythical, right? Welcome to Iceland, where the land is so beautiful it’s surreal.

Day 4: The day that we went down … down ... down …

the length of a whole Statue of Liberty, to the bottom of the belly of a volcano. Thrihnukagigur is a dormant volcano that erupted 4,000 years ago, leaving this deep subterranean world to be discovered only in the last decades. There is no other site like this in the world. It was the most expensive excursion we did in Iceland at $362 per person, but it was our honeymoon. It was worth the adventure. To answer the question on the card, above, what is the most fun way to spend 5 hours? Going on a novel, once-in-a-lifetime adventure with your husband.

The only tour group that you can do this venture with is Inside the Volcano. The guides are great — knowledgeable and personable. You also get to eat this delicious lamb stew when you come out of the volcano.

Lamb stew can only fill you up for so long, so we capped off the evening with a dinner at Sushi Social. It was some delicious fine dining.

After such an adventuresome day, we went back to the hotel and crashed.

Day 5: Oh, those waterfalls

Another day of road-tripping, this time to Thingvellir National Park. It’s worth it to pay to see the visitor center exhibit on the history of the area. After we were saturated with more Viking chronicles, we began a day of easy hiking to stunning sites.

Öxarárfoss Waterfall, and a Jesus-man interloper.

Gullfoss Waterfall. I just … I mean, can you even? The beauty. It’s so wild. So beyond.

The way back from our Golden Road tour to our last night at the Edition Marriott in Reykjavík had us melting into the thermal waters of The Secret Lagoon.

It had been a good day for a great day of taking in more of Iceland’s beauty. I was looking forward to seeing another part of Iceland when we left for Vik the next day, but I felt a bit sad to say goodbye to Reykjavík, a city that boasts history and culture and food, but also runs at a just-right pace for me. Even in the city, people feel so grounded in Iceland. Time does what Time does, though, and the hour came to part with our loft hotel room and city life.

And we were off on the Part 2 of our honeymoon.

Day 6: A little more moon than honey

Does there always come a point in the honeymoon where, for even a few moments, the sweetness is swallowed and something stubborn surfaces? Well, it was on this day, even as the sun never set, as Dae-Han put it, we had some “more moon than honey” moments. I stand by my mood at these moments.

The day started off just fine. The drive to our new lodging, Grand Guesthouse Gardakot was rather lovely as we continued to chat, sing along with songs, and take in the ever-changing landscape.

The arrival to the guesthouse was wonderful. Super cute room, very cozy house, sweet and friendly owners with very happy free range animals — a dog and a rooster and some chickens. We relaxed and read for a bit in the shared living space as we were the only guests there at this time.

And then Dae-Han decided we should adventure. It was determined — I suppose this was a joint decision of sorts — that rather than drive to the beach, we would walk through the tall grasses. The owner of the art shop connected to the guesthouse had said that at this time of year, we may have to take off our shoes and socks to wade through some water, but that it wouldn’t get too deep. (We later learned that what we waded through is quicksand during the springtime.)

I wasn’t too moony yet here — there was something kind of magical about the walk to the beach. Perhaps I was in my head a bit, romanticising it, thinking about I would walk anywhere, through any sand or soil or muck, with my new husband. And then we got to the beach, and that was really pretty.

Dae-Han had really hit his stride here. Full exuberance mode. It was about now, though, that I started to wan … or wax, really, into moon-y-ness. The ocean is beautiful. It had just taken longer to walk there and then walk towards the cliff, and now we had to walk home. And we didn’t have any Snickers bars. And the bewitching hour was going to be upon us.

It was at this point that my new husband, who had just a week previous, listened to Papa Baci, in his Father-of-the-Bride speech, tell of how terrified I was climbing up a steep mountain in Montana a couple of decades ago, decided we should climb up the grassy side of cliff to the top of the cliff rather than just head home. Full moon coming.

Here is my pleading husband. “Please. I really want to climb it. Hey, if it’s too much, we can turn around. Please. Let’s just try it.” I try to reason with him. “I think you are under-estimating this. It’s really steep.” (Additionally, there is no one else around. We don’t know what we’re doing. The woman at the guesthouse said not to climb it without knowing the path to do so really well.)

I saw I was outnumbered by … all of the cells in his body propelling him to step onto that slope and start ascending.

I followed.

Listen, these photos do not do justice to how steep this climb was. Before leaving on our honeymoon, upon hearing of how much adventuring we would be doing, my grandma says to Dae-Han, “Is this a kill your wife honeymoon?” I mean, I’m here to tell about it, but once again, I found myself on a steep climb terrified for my life. At one point, I was lying on the grasses, clenching them with my fist, trying to figure out how to move myself forward because at that point, going down was going to be even worse than trying to scramble to the top.

Obviously we did make it, and at the top, Dae-Han proclaimed, “We were both right. We could do it, and it was harder than I had anticipated.” I did not have a response. A full moon does not speak.

In my wordlessness, we walked atop the cliff, and what do you know, we got to see some puffins. Watching them soar is something else. Was it worth the steep climb? No. We could have driven to the top of this cliff. But I am glad that they added a bit of levity to this moment. Not quite enough for full sentences yet, but they started my waning phase.

We found the honey pot again over burgers and beers at Smiðjan Brugghús, after we had walked home along the roadside, making friends with a lot of sheep. So many sheep.

Alright, I still look a little tight-lipped here. Once I had consumed that whole beer and burger, the sun was starting to rise in the dusk of this day.

Day 7: Hiking Hatta

We woke up in time for the guesthouse’s 8 am breakfast — yummy fresh bread, cheeses, veggies, granola, and good company. We had loved our time at a 5-star hotel, but the guesthouse was affording us a sense of community. There is connection even in fleeting moments, when you won’t see new acquaintances again, but you’ve broken bread over stories of how you came to be where you are and what you’ve loved of Iceland so far.

After loading our day pack into our cute red car, we drove 15 minutes into the heart of Vik, a small seaside village. Vik offers stunning views from the top of Hatta Mountain. The description of this hike noted that it was challenging and that we would not likely encounter many others on the trail. So we began …

Throughout the honeymoon, I was reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, a nonfiction book that speaks to the beauty and necessity of a relationship of reciprocity between humans and nature. As a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Kimmerer’s book is rich in stories — her own and those of her indigenous brethren and ancestors — of what nature has to teach us, the ways in which we have foresaken our connection to and with nature, and visions of how we can restore our relationship.

As we stepped along an increasingly steep path up the mountain, my heart was pounding, my adrenaline rising, my awe unfolding, and Kimmerer’s words returning to me:

“In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.”

It was not just this moment on the mountain in Iceland, but our entire trip that reminded me of the sanctity of nature. I felt humbled as a human in the face of Her beauty and bounty. In Iceland, the land has been cared for, not overworked or exploited.

So we took step upon step to reach the summit of Hatta, to be able to take in the sea far below from a new vantage point. As the website had read, we did encounter few others on the trail; in fact, just one other couple had begun ahead of us and then our paths had diverged a bit and we had made our way in front of them. The honey having returned to my veins, I started to wonder … what would it be like to have sex on the side of a mountain. I began to try to calculate how far the couple was behind us now. They weren’t even a speck on the trail, which had become increasing more desolate and winding. I scanned around to see if there were any small grassier patches of earth around. Would Dae-Han go for it? He’d been down to scale a grassy cliff the day before, would he be down for hanky-panky on Hatta?

As I was considering all of this, I lost my footing on the next steep step of the trail, the sexy fantasy shattered by the proverbial mountain lion that had jumped on my back. Survival, I thought. More focus on the summit and less on sex, I reminded myself.

By the time we reached the peak of Hatta, I was rather breathless. Dae-Han, though, retained his ability to narrate this moment.

The hike was so worth it — the view … again, Kimmerer’s words come back to me:

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”

Above, Dae-Han is pointing at sheep. The animals are so happy in Iceland; they are all free-roaming, grazing on grasses, living their lovely lives. We loved the sheep, all of them.

In the matter of mere hours, my husband had become a mountain man, and as I crab-walked down parts of that mountain, he took off his shoes and ran down the trail, bounding along like a student just set free from the captivity of a classroom.

As Kimmerer recognizes, nature is the best teacher. We weren’t really rooting around in the soil or surveying the health of an ecosystem like she often is in her book, but we were reminded to appreciate the power of fresh air and presence in the moment, a commune with our first Mother and each other.

We closed this day by returning to the guesthouse and cooking our own pot of Icelandic lamb stew. We may have tinkered with the spices, but I think we still get to claim authenticity. It was delicious.

Day 8: The tip of the iceberg

Well into the real adventure part of our honeymoon, Dae-Han had signed us up for a big day. First, hiking a glacier, followed by kayaking amongst icebergs, capped off with our final Icelandic hike. We used Arctic Adventures to book a package that included the hiking and kayaking.

While the glacier hike wasn’t a highlight for either of us, it certainly wasn’t a loss. It was pretty. We got to drink glacier water. The guides were great.

I think what happened with our perspective on the glacier is that it just couldn’t hold a candle to the rest of the day.

When I hear “tip of the iceberg” it often has an ominous connotation. We may think of the sinking of the Titanic, the captain unaware of the danger of the iceberg because he could not see below the surface of the waters to see how the heavy ice plunged into the dark depths, bringing great danger to the ship and passengers.

Indeed icebergs can be dangerous if we do not know how to navigate around them; if we do not understand how to respect their space in their waters.

Our guide for this two-hour expedition was a French man who had been living in Iceland for 18 years. Laurent told us that we needed to follow his lead carefully, not diverting onto our own path in the water. Sometimes icebergs flip over. This is awe-some to watch, and it is important to keep some distance as “big icebergs have big consequences” when they create waves from their somersaults.

As we glided through the waters for these two hours, what we took in was grandeur, mystery, and pristine beauty. The afternoon inspired teamwork, evoked imagination, and illicited a lot of “ooohs,” “ahhh's” and “wowwws.”

As I look back on this day, I find myself connecting the icebergs and the adventure to marriage. It took skill, care, and consciousness to navigate around the glaciers. It took some patience and communication to coordinate our movements. It is true that an iceberg could have inadvertently tipped our canoe as it turned over in the water, and that would have been perhaps both scary, surprising, and … pretty darn cold. But we would have had the opportunity to help each other right the kayak and get back in, probably shivering for awhile, but synching our paddle strokes to get to land and dry off. (I am certain I will need to return to my own words here when we have our “tippy canoe” days.)

Icebergs are these organic bodies that are both known and enigmatic at once. If you bring your presence as an offering to shared space with them, they gift you breathtaking beauty.

The beauty of our day did not end with the icebergs. I got on board with Dae-Han’s desire for at least one full day of activities, and this led us up a trail to Múlagljúfur Canyon. When you go to Iceland, we recommend you put this hike on your itinerary too.

Day 9: The Blue Lagoon

For our final night in Iceland, we had splurged on a night at the Silica Hotel, a short 200 meter walk from the famed Blue Lagoon. We had sparkling wine and put on face masks while we enjoyed the thermal pools. The Silica does have its own private lagoon as well, which is quieter and maybe a bit more peaceful than the Blue Lagoon, but I am grateful we got to experience both.

Day 10: See you next time, Iceland

Throughout our time in Iceland, I had an ongoing negotiation with Dae-Han in my mind about moving there. It is true that I want to live in all of the places and live all kinds of lives. Perhaps Iceland also spoke to my Scandinavian blood because I just could not stop thinking about a life in this grounded, beautiful, best-kept-secret of a country.

It is also true that Dae-Han and I ground each other in different ways. I know that for the foreseeable future we will be nurturing our Korean nest.

But we did talk about returning to Iceland for our 5-year anniversary. For this second trip, we think we’ll rent a camper van and see more of Iceland by parking at some of its campsites in various national parks.

Looking back over the photos from our trip, I am grateful to be in the canoe with you. Whatever the weather.

---

Bonus Material: A Baci Song Wedding

If you’ve traveled through these 10 days and you are still with me, I wanted to add some notes and photos from our wedding weekend. I was not a woman who had had some clear image of what she wanted her wedding day to look like since she was young, but the youngest of the Bacichx brought to fruition the most beautiful of days. Dae-Han and I have unending gratitude that we essentially rocked into town and asked where we needed to be at what time.

The wedding fun began when the Songs came in from California. I had a hunch that the Song’s and the Baci’s would hit it off, but honestly, what developed between our families has been something so special — we are looking forward to the next time that our nieces and nephews get to play together, and when the adults get to compete in the next game of Pegs and Jokers.

We started our wedding day with a run with a few friends. Dae-Han at first questioned why I would want to expend energy on a run when the day was going to demand so much of us, but after our 5k, he gave the idea two thumbs up.

Oh boy. All of these moments keep squeezing my heart as I pour over these photos.

I think it was a combination of the way there is such an ease between our families, the sisterhood of grandma-mama-sisters-nieces, being 40 years old rather than 24, and marrying my just right man that made me feel so grounded the whole day. People say that your wedding day goes by in a blur. But the thing is, I can remember mostly every moment with clarity.

Like this moment, from the bridal room at our venue, The University Club.

And the moments of The First Look with Dae-Han.

And with my papa.

I remember the texture of these moments as the wedding party lined up to begin the processional, some of our flower children following their fearless leader Natalie, and then Greta leaping into Cassie’s arms as she and Linds and Min-Kuk began their walk.

I remember the moment right before I turned the corner with Dad to walk down the isle, when I saw the emotion on my Aunties’ faces and felt my own emotion broaden and stretch across my heart and chest, bringing deep and happy tears to the surface.

I remember these moments ….

And all of these …

After the ceremony, there were great and funny and sentimental and witty speeches from Min-Kuk, Linds and Cass, and Dad. And then we started the reception with some choreographed dances by Dad and I and Dae-Han and I and our wedding party. So. Much. Fun.

I remember cutting the cake that Natalie made for us. When Natalie and Gia were a bit younger, I would enroll them in Auntie Jamie’s Little Sobrina School of Baking when I was home during the summers. This history made the fact that she baked our cake even sweeter.

This baker has also started her own website called Limitless wherein she seeks to support and share stories of others with spina bifida.

And then there are all the moments in between and before and after all of these that I remember. My gratitude for our friends and family that support us and celebrated with us is so expansive …. like a great big fluffy Minnesota summer cloud. I hope you feel it floating over you now, whether you were there on our wedding day or you are reading this now. We love you. We are so grateful for you.

And my heavens, I am grateful for this man. I hope this sense of wonder that I feel today, that we get to spend the rest of our days together, stretches on and on and on into all of the days to come.

 “And for love, I will be, you will be, we will be.” ~Pablo Neruda