Written by:
Katia Hetter
Photographer:
Randall Hyman
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 12#5
As I opened the hood of our borrowed jeep two hours outside Reykjavik, coolant bubbled onto the side of a dirt road. It was then that I noticed the coolant “cover” was actually a plastic bag.
I gave a recently emptied sandwich bag to my friend Mina, but she had a better idea. “Get the Ramolade cap,” she said, removing the copper wire that had held the old plastic bag (now burst) in place.
Ramolade is a mayonnaise-like substance popular in Europe for smothering hot dogs and other meats. Given my paranoia about refrigeration, I would never take it for an overnight journey with no means of keeping it cool. Our plan wasn’t to stroll the volcanic ruins carrying gourmet lunches in coolers.
We had already eaten well during our stay in the cosmopolitan, gay-friendly city of Reykjavik. We had traveled to Iceland for my friend Mina’s performance at Gay Pride Reykjavik. The mayor marched in the parade the next day, which was led by one lone motorcycle cop through the main city streets. It seemed like the entire town had turned out for the parade, waving Icelandic and Pride flags. The country’s biggest pop and television stars performed at the festival at the town square, including the country’s openly gay version of Mr. Rogers.
After a few days of gay paradise — where same-sex marriage is legal and no one notices two women holding hands in the street — we hoped to wander the Icelandic countryside for a few days.
With temperatures ranging from the 50s and 60s during the day and dropping to the 30s at night, this was the best time to see Iceland. Some parts simply shut down during the long winter. We planned to hike mountains, ford rivers, see glaciers, find volcanic ash and get blown off black sand beaches.
So far, our trip had been blessed.
Everywhere we went, Icelandic lesbians and gay men had enhanced our trip and prevented disaster. We met wonderful new friends, danced up a storm, ate large meals in peoples’ homes and found fresh food in a country where most vegetables are imported.
During our day trips to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa and other sights, our Icelandic hosts took us almost everywhere. Even when we got lost taking the bus to an outdoor sculpture garden, a Gay Pride organizer got on the bus just in time to kick us off at the right stop.
Like many Americans, however, we had a problem. Neither of us knew how to drive stick shift, and rental car agencies in the rest of the world need advance notice (and more money) to rent automatic. When it came time to get out of town, our friends had to go back to work. We needed an automatic car.
A television commercial producer and her wife became our source for the only automatic car left in Iceland. Treating us like American actresses looking for a break from a shoot, Garun turned to a mechanic who regularly supplied her with vehicles. The negotiated price was 15,000 kroner for two days, or about $150. Garun didn’t know it, however, but the man had turned to someone else to borrow the car.
I realized after I picked up the jeep that this wasn’t the most dependable car I’d ever driven. Mina didn’t care for it either, but we knew it was the only automatic car left in Iceland. Though mistake No. 1 was not learning how to drive stick, it was compounded by our second mistake: ignoring our gut instincts, even if we feared that our new friends would call us paranoid American tourists.
Luckily, Scandinavian countries are famous for people’s willingness to help others out in times of trouble. The car died for the first time outside Vik, the small town where we planned to sleep after hiking to see the mighty glacier Thorsmork. There, we found a mechanic — in a town with only one restaurant and two hotels.
We called our new friends and warned them of the trouble. Between offers to pick us up and questions about changing gears properly — all to make sure we weren’t crazy — they repeatedly asked us, “Are you still having a good time?”
“Why?” I asked Mina. We were having an adventure, but a good time? “It’s the socialist collective talking,” Mina said. “They aren’t just worried. They’re taking collective responsibility for something I doubt they could have prevented.”
The mechanic and his employees went to work, seeming to share in this collective responsibility. They practically took the car apart searching for the trouble. Arsall the mechanic thought the car would not die again, but he warned against high speeds and told us to go home. He suggested frequent stops.
He hadn’t mentioned the plastic bag masquerading as a coolant cap, though we managed to get through that one on our own. I ripped the cap off the Ramolade container, and Mina pounded it onto the coolant opening.
We continued to drive back to Reykjavik along Iceland’s main “Ring Road,” so named because it goes around the country in a circle, back to the capital. We continued to stop at interesting sights along the way back to the capital, telling ourselves the stops would “rest” the engine.
When we stopped at a waterfall to rest the jeep, angels appeared without any prayer or prompting from the car. Walking away from the waterfall, we returned to the car to find four members of a Dutch family looking at our wheels. At home in Brooklyn, I would have thought they were about to steal our car. Here, we knew something else was about to break.
“Bolts are missing from your wheels,” said the father, speaking in slightly accented English.
Mina, whose father is Dutch, recognized his accent and switched to Dutch to learn the source of the problem. As his two sons quizzed her about our inability to drive stick shift, she told them about her Dutch father refusing to teach her (her brothers got lessons). Their father took out a tool to tighten what bolts were left.
They told us to drive slowly, said goodbye and walked toward the waterfall. They had done all they could to help the silly American girls.
We made it back to Reykjavik physically unharmed, both of us committed to learning how to drive stick. Our collection of lesbian friends descended upon our hotel to make sure we were alive and deliver the car with a scolding to its owner.
Taking a cue from a collective, I worried about the impact of the trouble on our friend Garun’s relationship with the Reykjavik mechanic. This was a small country, with a population of less than 300,000 people. Would this hurt their business relationship?
I read the power dynamic wrong. Garun, who was planning seven car commercials in the next three days, told me she had spent hours tracking him down and yelling at him. She said he was her supplier, and he needed her. Another friend, Kidda, who drove the car back to the man, said he apologized profusely.
We spent last evening at our favorite café, celebrating life by sitting in the corner booth, eating dinner and drinking strong coffee and beer as beautiful lesbians stopped by to say goodbye while smoking continuously.
Now safe, I told a still-indignant Garun that we would dine on the stories for months. That I might write a story about our adventures, although I would not tell my family about them.
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