Modesty-schmodesty.

A vibrant pool culture is as Icelandic as pylsur and hangikjöt. You find outdoor swimming pools in nearly every teeny tiny nook and cranny of the country. Icelanders go to the pool no matter the weather or time of year. Here, you don’t need an occasion to go to the pool. Exercise? Visit with friends? Something to do with the kids? To get away from the kids? Doesn’t matter, a pool around the corner is waiting for you.

While there is a lot I have to say about pool culture and the relationship between Icelandic people and their bathing, this time I want to hang out in the locker room and talk about naked bodies. Nudity. Exposure, body image, confidence, and community.

Long ago, on my first trip to visit Iceland, my sweet sister in law graciously offered to take me on a trip to the pool. As we were walking in, she turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “I know it is a bit strange, but in Iceland, you have to take a shower without a bathing suit on before you can go in the pool.” I nodded vigorously. My internal monologue running something like, “No problem. Message received. I am a totally hip-and-with-it traveler. Nothing to hide. I can do like the Europeans. So liberal. I am like that, too!”

We found our lockers and started to disrobe, and like a brainwashed puritan robot, I immediately started to step into my bathing suit, towel carefully draped around my shoulders to obscure my naughty bits. Bits that had never before seen sunlight.

My sister in law stopped me and said, patiently, “Um, no. No bathing suit.” Her eyes swept the room, and I took her cue and glanced around. I saw naked mothers sitting on towels with naked babies on their laps. Naked kids pushing one another into lockers. Naked teenagers blow drying their hair. Naked grandmothers rubbing lotion on their arms. Naked women everywhere I looked. Bodies out. My heart jumped into my throat. 

Then, it hit me like a freight train how stupid I looked hunched over and delicately concealing my precious hidden private parts, for fear….of what? That someone would see me? Judge me? Reject me? I don’t even know. Where I am from, this is just not something you do. People do not get naked in front of one another. Maybe if you are about to have sex, but then typically with the lights off and the covers up to your chin. I was stepping into new territory, and didn’t even have panties to back me up.

Safe to say that my acceptance of the naked Icelandic locker room practice was rapid and drastic. The kids and I now race to see who can get undressed first when we take a trip to the pool together. I have (on more than one occasion) shared a naked hug with a friend I bumped into in the showers. I like to consider that I have turned into an advocate, of sorts, for being naked around other people. In fact, I like it so much that I hardly ever think about it anymore. Maybe I have become Icelandic in that way.

To summarize, this is why I think we should all get naked.

You quickly realize that nobody gives a shit what you look like. Seriously. Nobody is staring at you. A quick glance through the locker room and you realize that everybody has scars, wrinkles, juggle bits, saggy bits, bumpy bits, hairy bits. Yours is just one of those bodies that is perfectly, imperfect. You are a human! 

It is empowering to see people up close and personal. I don’t think many people have the chance to see examples of real, strong women in the nude. We see women in a pushup bikini laying on the hood of a car, holding a hamburger while somebody pours a beer over them, but we don’t see Mrs. Henderson from down the street in her altogether. In the showers in Iceland, I have seen breast cancer survivors, disabled women, catheter bags, and women who have been on earth so long that they take a nurse with them to the pool so they can stand in the shower. 

Once, while I was struggling to breastfeed my newborn daughter, I took my crewed up, bloody, shredded nipples to the pool with my mom who was visiting at the time. While we were in the shower, we saw a woman holding a baby who was a couple of months older than my daughter. "See?" my mother commented as she glanced across the shower, "That mama's nipples are tough as nails. Yours will be too. Just wait." She was right. And given how close I was to giving up on the whole thing, I don't know if I would have believed it was possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

Growing up exposed to the diversity of human bodies gives you a more realistic sense of your own. When I was younger, I didn't understand what airbrushing was. It didn't occur to me that it wasn't possible for me or any other human being to look like people in the magazines. I didn't like how I looked, and didn't understand why I was so different than the beautiful people. I didn't realize that I was being sold something (makeup, lotion, perfume, a watch, a purse, shoes) and that the people looking up at me from the pages were more advertising art than human being. 

I imagine that both my daughter and my son will benefit from growing up in a society in which they see naked people. As they watch their own bodies grow and change, I hope that they can accept themselves with grace and confidence.

Someone in Iceland

I have lived in Iceland for nearly seven years. In that time, Iceland has become my home. My kids live here, my work is here, my friends and community. My commute, my bills, my doctor’s office, my taxes, my library, my bar, my stupid infuriating politicians. You know…my home. 

 

Iceland fascinates me, which is good, because otherwise it would be a boring, depressing place. This is a land of contradiction that somehow persists in a strange ethereal balance. Here you sit outside in a hailstorm soaking in a hot tub. You open the windows in the wintertime because it is so warm inside. You walk out along the pier in the evening, as I did yesterday, and see the whale watching boat on the right and the whale hunting boat on the left. Iceland is at once inviting and harsh. A long winter here can leave you feeling shredded and grateful. So it’s no doubt that so many people want to experience this weirdness and decide to pay us northern wildlings a visit.

Anyone who has, like me, put some roots down in this cold volcanic rock has undoubtedly gotten the random facebook message or email from a distance acquaintance or relative who has another distant acquaintance or relative who is coming to Iceland in a few weeks and just wanted to put you all in touch. I imagine that the conversation goes something like this, “Oh! How cool! You’re going to Iceland! (flips through Rolodex in brain and finds my name) I know someone in Iceland! I should put you two in touch!”

I love this place, and I am happy that other people want to come and experience the cold, powerful natural glory that is the Land of Fire/Ice/Midnight Sun/Björk/Northern Lights/elves/all that… so I always respond to these little introductions. It’s great that people want to come here. I try and give the best advice I can about what to see, where to eat, where to drink, where to stay, what to skip, what not to skip, blah blah blah. 

Recently, however, likely as a combined function of the tourism boom and the length of time I have lived here, I have found myself writing the same fucking email over and over again. The connection through social media brings us face-to-face on a regular basis with people who in generations past would have slipped through our lives and then gracefully fizzled into rusty memories. In the past week and a half, I have gotten messages from my brother’s friend’s sister, my college roommate’s sister-in-law, my ex-boyfriend’s friend’s cousin, my grandmother’s bridge buddy, and a college classmate’s cousin. All of them are coming to Iceland. All of them have the best intentions in asking a trusted “local” what not to miss. I want them all to have a glorious time. So I write to them. Every. Single. One. 

To make my life easier, I have decided that it is time to write a form letter for these “what should I do in Iceland?” situations. Think of it as a friendly intro-level ice(land)-breaker.

Goes like this:

Congratulations on your choice of country to visit! Iceland is an amazing place, and I hope you have a memorable time here. 

As for stuff to do, you should definitely hop on a Golden Circle tour. You will see the Thingvellir national park, a geothermal area called Geysir (there is a geyser there) and the Golden Waterfall. This takes about a day, but it is pretty. 

The Blue Lagoon is beautiful, but pricey. You can visit the Earth Baths near Myvatn in the north, which is like a smaller less expensive version of that, or you can just do what the Icelanders do and go to one of our many outdoor swimming pools. No matter where you bathe, remember that Icelanders require you to shower naked before you suit up and jump in! Think of it as part of the experience of our liberal, progressive Scandinavian culture. 

If you plan to rent a car, it is fairly easy to drive around the whole country in a week. You will need to check the weather conditions, though, since the roads can sometimes be very dangerous and the conditions can change quickly. If the road people tell you not to go somewhere, don't go there. You are not as tough as you think you are. ALSO, Iceland has no army or other government-sponsored search and rescue operation. That means that all the over-ambitious individuals who find themselves stuck on a glacier, an impassable road, in the middle of a blizzard on a hike, are rescued by a heroic VOLUNTEER rescue team. If you like Iceland, you should give the rescue teams money. Click here.

Snæfelsness, the Westfjords, Myvatn, Jökulsárlon, Þórsmörk…all gorgeous natural spaces definitely worth a visit if you have time. 

If you drink, buy alcohol at the duty free shop at the airport when you arrive, since it is really expensive here. Alcohol is not sold in grocery stores, but exclusively at Vinbud, which is closed on Sunday, so plan accordingly!

Also, I recommend that you experience the Reykjavik downtown Friday/Saturday after-midnight scene, if only for the pure anthropological wonder at witnessing the debauchery. Remind yourself, Scandinavians, and Icelanders in particular, have a difficult time with expressing emotions. Drinking here is like a form of self-expression. 

Don't ever, ever, ever, EVER! let someone sell you bottled water in Iceland. They just fill it from the tap (which is excellent). If you go hiking, you can drink straight from clear streams. 

NO! BAD TOURIST! BAD! PUT IT BACK!

....Now step awaaaay from the non biodegradable petroleum-based container of children's tears.....Good.  Find a drinking fountain or a faucet, you parched little rascal, you!

The flea market Kolaportið is downtown and open in Saturday and Sunday. They will give you a sample of shark if you want to be able to impress people by telling them you have tasted it. Be brave. It tastes like (I imagine) piss. Icelanders don't actually eat this, they just give it to tourists to watch the stupid faces you make. If weird food is you thing, you can eat puffin, whale, ram testicles, sheep's face, and horse here.

If all that grosses you out too much, then the fish and lamb in Iceland are superb.

The Grapevine is a weekly English publication that has great information about concerts, restaurants, galleries, and other good stuff going on in town (grapevine.is).

Have fun, and spend that foreign currency! We love that…