Vacation Blues

It's been far too long since I've posted here.  I have no excuse - other than jet-lag, a 1,000 mile round-trip car ride to recover my children from their grandmother, work duties, domestic duties, reminding my friends that I haven't forgotten their existence and actually do care about them, and just generally trying to get my life back on track since returning from almost 5 weeks away from home.  So, yeah, really no excuse at all for my hiatus.  Sorry! 

Anyway, you may be thinking that this post refers to the post-vacation blues.  Well, not so much.  I'm referring more to the during-the-vacation vacation blues.  The thing is, I really wanted to love Iceland.  And before I go any further, let me just say that Iceland was GORGEOUS and its people were nothing but kind and accomodating to us.  The fault for not loving it entirely was mine and mine alone.  My unpreparedness, my frailties, and my inability to adapt is the only reason that I didn't fall head over heels in ÍSLAND love.  

So let me just break it down.  Iceland is COLD.  I know, you're thinking, "Um, yeah, that's why it's called ICE-land..."  No, you don't get it.  It is SUPER-FREAKING COLD.  And this is only their summer weather!  I've always prided myself on my adapatbility so I thought the weather would be no problem, especially since I was visiting in June and July, their warmest months.  Weather.com predicted days in the 60's and nights in the 40's.  And I used to work outside all day in the Kentucky winters when it was so cold that my breath would freeze on its way up my face and frost my eyelashes and eyebrows.  So surely a little outdoor Icelandic sightseeing in my heavy parka wouldn't bother me, right?  Yeah, it did bother me.  A lot.  

Although weather.com predicted 60+ degree days, it actually never got out of the 50's and of course the nights were colder.  But what weather.com didn't factor in - or I didn't look for - was the windchill factor.  Windchill became my most hated and feared nemesis. Maybe my ability to tolerate the cold is forever ruined because I've lived in toasty warm South Carolina for thirteen years now.  Or maybe I just couldn't make the transition from hot southern US summer to kind of warm UK summer to cold Icelandic summer.  Regardless of the reason, I suffered!  It also didn't help that I picked up a stomach bug before leaving the UK, which didn't kick in until my second day in Iceland.  Cold wind and rain really doesn't help much when you're clinging to porcelain, just wishing it would all end, one way or another.  

So, yeah, let me just go ahead and say right now that I am not as sturdy as I thought and that if our country ever gets into a "situation" with Iceland, we should just go ahead and surrender immediately because these people will kick our fancy-car-seat-warmed tushies - while eating ice cream and clad in nothing but Speedos.  Our only hope would be to lure them into a desert and melt them...  But being from the land of volcanoes, I'm not sure that would bother them either!  

This picture just kind of says it all... ;)