Final Thoughts

Iceland. There are 171,476 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, and I don't think any of them could effectively sum up the spirit of this volcanic rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It is truly a place with a personality of its own, and as you move your eyes over every part of it - every tearjerker of a sunset, every horse in every lush pasture, every frozen peak piercing the clouds, every menacing volcanic silhouette looming in the distance - you feel as if you're engaged in a dialogue with the Earth itself, telling you the secrets of its past, present, and future. It is a place simultaneously young and fiery but also frozen and eternal. Its harshness and remoteness might lead one to be amazed at the sociability and warmth of its people. Over the last millennium they have learned not to wrestle with the sometimes cruel nature of their motherland, but to recognize and respect her temperaments. She first took them in as weary seafarers and has allowed them to thrive on her natural bounty ever since, and in return they pay homage to her in their legends and architecture. They are fiercely proud of their home and their history, and it shows in their desire to both share it, and protect it.

I was humbled by Iceland at every turn. No picture can do it justice, and no force of man can tame it. It inspired me to take a deeper interest in my field, and to continue to travel to far-flung corners of the world to better understand the living, breathing planet we so often take for granted. As for my 19 travelling companions, I could not imagine a better group to share in this experience with. All of them are amazing people, all totally and perfectly unique. I am proud to call them my friends. To the professors, Dr. Suresh and Dr. Ranson, you are the ones who really made this trip. Needless to say, none of this would have been possible without you, and I am so grateful for the amount of work that you put into this trip, and the work you put into being teachers, mentors, and friends every day.

This has been Mitchell Freyermuth. I hope you've enjoyed reading. May your travels take you farther from your cares, and nearer to yourself.

Day 20 (final day in Iceland)

Our final day in Iceland found us reunited with the city where it all began, Reykjavik. We had departed from our prior hostel early that morning and made the two hour drive to make sure that we had the entire day to spend in the capital city. Our first stop was supposed to be at an art exhibit, but we found it to be closed. Instead we went to the hostel, which was the first hostel we had stayed at, and dropped our bags of in the luggage storage room, making sure to only bring what we wished to carry.For me, that was my phone and my wallet. After driving to the central square in one of Reykjavik's most touristy areas, we first ate lunch at a delicious pizza joint, which marks probably the eighth and last time I ate pizza on the trip. After lunch, we were essentially set free in a foreign city to our own devices. Of course immediately the group splintered off into subgroups. The group I was initially with wanted to shop at one of the overpriced tourist shops, and I wasn't having it, so I left with Lettie, Sarina, and Emily R. The only issue was we didn't have a town map, so we took a look at a directory and decided to swing it from there. We knew we were at least headed in the direction of the University of Reykjavik, which was next to our eventual meeting place, the Nordic House. We spent our time mostly at the local beach, collecting stones and talking funny stories and tattoos. We then took a mostly guessing walk to the Nordic House, finding ourselves to be early. We took the opportunity to try some delicious desserts and coffee at the house's cafe. Eventually everyone turned up, and we were given the option to either continue to explore Reykjavik, or go whale watching. It wasn't a very hard decision. Our old friend Thorleifur drove six of us to the harbor and we boarded our vessel. I had never been whale watching before, so I didn't know what to expect. I knew not to expect too much though, because sometimes the whales don't show up. But my skepticism had been squashed by a dream  had the night before in which I had seen 3 whale tails of different sizes, one huge, one a little smaller, and one small, rising out of the ocean. Surely enough, we quickly came upon some white-nosed dolphins numbering about 10. While the dolphins were cool, I wanted more. I wanted a whale. Pretty soon, I got one. A tumult around the ship alerted me to a humpback whale that had surfaced directly in front of the boat. After 10 minutes or so, it surfaced again, and I was awestruck at its size and beauty. It even treated us to a good view of its iconic tail fluke. We pursued the humpback for a while, but eventually it evaded us. Further out we crossed paths with another whale species, the minky whale, a small relative of the blue whale. As quickly as it appeared, it had gone. But in the end, my dream had come true. I had seen 3 whale species of 3 different sizes, representing the 3 differently sized whale tales I saw in my dream. Sailing back towards the harbor with the sun setting at our backs, I remember thinking it was a poetic, satisfying end to an unforgettable adventure.

Day 16 (a picture of a blog post)

Day 11

We took a look at the Gabrokargigar Craters Natural Monument. These picturesque scoria cones represent some of the most recent eruptions of their type in Iceland, estimated to be less than 3600 years old. There are three craters in total: Stora Gabrok (big), Litla Gabrok (small), and Gabrokarfell (just right). By 1962, Litla had mostly disappeared due to gravel mining, a popular industry in Iceland due to the abundance of volcanic rock which is of commercial value. The cones are composed of alkal olivine basalt, which is common for similar cones in Iceland. At the top of the largest cone we took a moment to discuss its formation and magmatic composition, taking a closer look at the olivine and plagioclase phenocrysts scattered throughout the rock with our hand lenses. We also partook in an activity where we tried to reconstruct the geologic timeline of the area using only our eyes to scan the geological features around us, hoping to put arrange these features by age of formation from oldest to youngest. It is a nearly impossible task in reality, given our distance from the features themselves (sans the craters) and lack of sophisticated dating techniques, but we ended up coming up with some conclusions that were almost certain and some that were at least believable. It was really a moment where we got the entire group, including the SUS majors, to think like real world earth scientists doing field observations, and it was nice to apply something I had practiced doing with pictures in the classroom to a real world setting.