I wasn’t sure how it would feel once the trip had begun, but I sort of pictured I’d be living out a movie. I envisioned a soundtrack playing in the background, me as the narrator, and poetic justice regularly being served via my Instagram. But the song bank in my mind rarely ever got used, and the captions and quotes always seemed to fall short.
Like I’ve been saying, much of what extended travel like this is about, are the things you could have never planned for, dreamt of, or expected. There is nothing interesting or memorable about making every train, always having what you need, and having everything go perfectly to plan. You can’t expect that in life and you can’t expect it here. Abandoning your expectations from the start will relieve your let downs, allow you to enjoy the upsides, and limit stress in general. To fully demonstrate this takeaway, here is what I naively thought would happen on our first day:
- Board plane and, after the first hour or two of excitement, fall asleep.
- Have some down time in Reykjavik airport where I will be able to buy and send a postcard, then look for Papa Johns to take a The Secret Life of Walter Mitty fan photo.
- Sleep on connecting flight to Dublin.
- Take airport transit bus to hostel and check in/drop off bags.
- Explore city.
What actually happened:
- Stay awake the entire flight to Reykjavik.
- Start to see flickers and waves of green out the window, only to realize I’m witnessing the Northern Lights with my own eyes. *Feel an overwhelming sense of amazement and fulfillment that this is happening*
- Deplane on tarmac, wait for shuttle in sleeting/cold conditions. Once in airport, have only enough time to use the bathroom and get in line at connecting gate.
- Stay awake the entire flight to Dublin.
- Aimlessly look around for transport bus and give up. Uber, instead.
- Arrive at hostel (in pouring rain) and find that the door is locked. *Feel an overwhelming lack of control and unpreparedness that this is happening *
Just getting to our first destination, we incurred a lot of stress but also experienced one of my favorite memories of the trip. I had no idea we’d be starving and drained from our flights that we got no sleep on. I thought it would be easy to find signage for the transit bus and expected to only use my phone’s data for “emergencies.” I never once asked myself, “What if we can’t get into the hostel?” or imagined that it would be raining and cold (by far the dumbest expectation of all). But I also never dreamt that I’d be able to see the Northern Lights from our airplane and I have my inability to sleep to thank for that.
I was now free to experience my (better than a movie) life. And instead of dropping off our bags to explore the city, we took them with us—straight to Guinness Storehouse, for a long-awaited meal and two, perfect pints.