Iceland. Karmel Schreyer recounts the summer she took her family on a field trip to the Land of Fire and Ice.

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2 Walking Iceland on Karmel Schreyer recounts the summer she took her family on a field trip to the Land of Fire and Ice. A s my children advanced in their schooling and their love of learning became ever more apparent, I decided to plan an educational trip of my own, and to Iceland we went. I chose Iceland because I wanted my daughters to know a place that was far from Hong Kong in a variety of ways. There were the environmental and geographical aspects: clean, cool air, fresh water, and a low-rise, crowdfree, wide-open landscape, in addition to the novelties of a volcanic setting and the summertime midnight sun. But there were also important social aspects I wanted them to experience: to be immersed, if only for a summer, in a society that was historically geared towards notions of equality. By the time we touched down at Keflavik International Airport, my children knew that Iceland was the birthplace of democracy. They knew that Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was the world s first democratically elected female head of state. They knew that her surname Finnbogadóttir was not just a coincidence; it meant that she was the daughter of Finnbogi. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights, too, are enshrined in many ways: same-sex union was made legal in 1996, and same-sex couples are eligible for adoption and surrogacy, as well as IVF treatments. And what about economic equality? My daughters knew the terms income disparity and even Gini coefficient. In all of these matters, Hong Kong and Iceland are worlds apart. January

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4 Summer stop The capital city of Reykjavik, in the summer, is an ocean playground. It is a walk in the park. The world s most northerly capital is a city of gardens, and the air smells of lilac and honeysuckle. Visitors would be forgiven if they thought they were imagining this, perhaps under the influence of midnight-sun sleep deprivation. But the place is festooned in fragrant colour, reminding those of us who were schooled in the lore of the Vikings as school kids that Greenland is ice / Iceland is green. As you make your way past the city hall to the national museum along little Lake Tjörnin, for instance, or stroll through the city s outstanding botanic gardens next to the zoo, you can t help but think how true that old saying is. How sublimely true. Iceland smells green. And it is green in more ways than one. Homes are heated by renewable geothermal energy and, for a time (before the 2008 economic meltdown) the city had hydrogenpowered public transit. Egalitarianism is reinforced in one of the country s most beloved traditions, a daily dip in the neighbourhood geo-thermally heated outdoor pool. The price can t be beat, at around 600 krónur for adults (about HK$30) and much less for children. In a country where swimming is the national sport, the pool rules are strict: first-timers are given a card on entry showing you (and telling you in five languages) that you must shower, and where you must soap yourself down before entering the pool. You must be naked when doing this, and you must use the industrial-sized phosphatefree-soap dispensers. You must wash your hairy parts well. There is a shower-room official on hand, whose office is right there (it may or may not have a glass window) and if you are not doing a good enough job she will come out and set you straight. Then you can get your kit back on and run out to enjoy a swim. Or, you might choose a soak in a shallow pool (where everyone is lying down) or a sit shoulder-to-shoulder in one of four hotpots, ranging in temperature from 36 to 44 degrees Celsius. All the guidebooks will tell you that if you want to meet a real Icelander, then this is the place to be. There are seven swimming pools in Reykjavik alone, Árbæjarlaug was our favourite, in the western suburb of Árbær with its lovely woodsy setting, while Laugardalslaug is the largest and best-known, located in Reykjavik s main park Laugardalur, which is as wonderful as New York City s iconic Central Park. Continental journey We also walked from North America to Europe. Yes, it s true. The study of tectonic plate movement will likely be on your child s curriculum, if they haven t already studied it, and Iceland is a great place to see Pangaea in action. There are two main bus-tour companies, and both offer a Golden Circle Tour, taking you to Geysir, (the Icelandic language graciously loaned this word to the English) to see bubbling mudpots, and several steamy vents exploding every few minutes. A few miles down the road is Gullfoss waterfall, roaring and misting ferociously. On the return leg you pass through Thingvellir National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is the place where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is above ground, and your guide will invite you to take a ten-minute walk from the North American Plate to the Eurasian Plate, hence, North America to Europe. Corny, but cool! January

5 We also stood at the birthplace of democracy. The Vikings called it Althing and still do, although now it is housed in a rather unassuming wooden parliament building in downtown Reykjavik. But the original place, where the people of Iceland first met in 930 to discuss policy and vote on legislation, is also located at Thingvellir National Park with those above-mentioned tectonic plates as a backdrop. Iceland is, arguably, the world s oldest democracy, and is still showing the rest of the world how it is done: According to Wikipedia, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir served as the fourth President of Iceland from 1980 to In addition to being both Iceland and Europe s first female president, she was the world s first democratically elected female head of state. With a presidency of exactly 16 years, she also remains the longestserving elected female head of state of any country to date. And in 2009, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the first openly gay person in the world to be elected head of government. Amazing adventures We considered eating a puffin, but opted to go puffin-watching instead. Yes, you can partake of puffin, shark or whale (or all three) as contentious as it may be. Puffins are not yet on any endangered list and are still regularly harvested by Iceland s rural folk, who are becoming endangered, as Iceland becomes increasingly urbanised. We perused the menu at the iconic Lækjarbrekka Restaurant on Bankastræti, Reykjavik s main drag. Look at the menu online and you ll see: fermented shark, hotsmoked puffin with crowberries and seaweed crisp, birch-glazed minke whale, wind-dried fish, cognac-cured horse and skyr (an Icelandic form of yoghurt) mousse! If you like to travel to explore new things and understand what Mother Earth has to offer gastronomically-speaking, you cannot deny that THAT is a menu worth travelling across the planet for! We stayed for a month and our long summer days were jam-packed. We swam in the Blue Lagoon, smearing our faces with white silica mud. We visited the self-described world s first sustainable eco-village, Sólheimar, where sustainability is, first and foremost, about people. Integrating people with special needs is the founding concept of the community of over 100, who are employed in their own hydroponic greenhouses, as well as at the organic cafe and gift shop. We played golf under the midnight sun. We sat at the desk of Iceland s Nobel Laureate Halldór Laxness (1955, for literature) at his home/museum. We toured the Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Station. We sat-in during a peaceful protest against plans for a new aluminium smelting plant (raw bauxite is shipped in from as far away as Australia to feed Iceland s smelters!). We rode tiny purebred Icelandic horses, unchanged since the time of the Vikings. At the quaint town of Stykkishólmur, we visited the Library of Water. And we drank water straight from the tap. At Thórsmörk, we got close to that famous volcano with a nearly unpronounceable name Eyjafjallajökull which, in 2010, caused the largest air-traffic shutdown since World War II. We slept in tiny wooden huts where the heat cut out at midnight and I had to hug my youngest like a hot-water bottle (she didn t mind). We rode mountain bikes (left on the paths, free to use) on the tiny island of Videy, and we climbed the famed Mt Esja that forms the backdrop to Reykjavik. We ate scallops and sea urchin, straight from the sea, and a bit of fermented shark while visiting a shark-fishing camp (a traditional Icelandic delicacy). On Snæfellsnes peninsula, we journeyed to the Centre of the Earth, or at least to the place where the movie of that name was filmed, and we marvelled at the empty black lava beaches, and the vast beautiful desolation of it all. My daughters and I often talk about returning to Iceland because, believe it or not, there s even more to see than we could fit into our summer. Next time, we ll be sure to bring Daddy.