Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
And so the saga continues of my much-anticipated trip to San Francisco. I was tired, but this city was so compelling to me that I found the energy to walk all over it. With a couch in the Marina District as my home base, I walked (and Uber'd) all over town, from Russian Hill to the Mission District. San Francisco unfolded before me like a unending yuppie playground. It was diverse, beautiful, and hilly.
Prior to my arrival, I had no concept of how huge this place was going to be! San Francisco is deceivingly large because it’s hilly to the point that if you stand at the top of the right hill (and find the right angle) you can get the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the city all in the same shot. Seeing my friends post these sorts of photos had, throughout the years, given me the false impression that San Francisco was a small place. Adding to this fallacy was San Francisco’s position at the end of a long peninsula, which can make it look pretty small on the map. Well let’s set the record straight right now: San Francisco is anything but small.
Nashville has a vibrant coffee shop scene. All across the city, these coffee shops are oases, filled with entrepreneurs, musicians, students, and more. And between Nashville’s many small, office-less companies, budding start-ups, and already-huge-but-still-rapidly-growing community of musicians, many of these coffee shops function as co-working spaces during business hours. Coffee in Nashville is a world unto itself, and if you ask me, the following 18 establishments embody the best of that world.
From the craggily, black mountains, to the mossy green volcano-scapes, to the endless stretches of artic desert, to some of the world’s last glaciers, Iceland is the stuff of legends. And, as it turns out, Iceland has quite enough legends to go around!
Before leaving for this trip, a friend of mine, who had recently returned from her own journey to Iceland, loaned me a book called A Traveller’s Guide To Icelandic Folk Tales by Jón R. Hjálmarsson. Now that I’ve lived to tell the tale, I want to share with you some of the more compelling tales that (supposedly) occurred in the places that I visited on my trip.
It’s been a long trip through Iceland. We hiked up volcanoes, crossed glacial rivers, and drove hundreds of miles in the process, but there is still one dimension of Iceland that I have yet to cover: food. I ate a lot during this trip, and whenever possible, I tried to incorporate something "authentically Icelandic" into my meal.
The following five foods were the outliers from my time in Iceland, but I'd be lying if I said they all tasted good. In fact, it was mostly the opposite.
Driving down from the Westfjords to the long peninsula known as West Iceland, we made an abrupt exit from the rugged tundra that had dwarfed us for the past few days, and entered a flat area of limbo between the 2 regions. Passing through these rolling green fields, both land formations (West Iceland and the Westfjords) were clearly visible. They stretched eastward for miles upon miles out into the chilly ocean wind. There have been very few times when I have felt as connected to and as aware of my geographical position as I did during this time spent driving through the ‘in between.’
Of all the amazing pieces of civilization subsisting out here in the Westfjords, none sparked my interest like these tiny Icelandic churches. These little structures were often the only sign of human life for miles in any direction. Each time we caught a glimpse of the small pointy steeple from our place on the road, we would come to a screeching halt and dive off down the nearest dirt road to explore. No two of these churches were the same. Each was completely unique, and a few of them had even been left unlocked!
This quest brought us to the edge of the world, literally, to the bone-chillingly massive cliffs of Látrabjarg. Here’s a spoiler alert for you: it was mind-blowingly gorgeous. A friend of mine recently pointed out that I’ve said similar things about a great many of the places I have visited, so let me up the ante a bit: this was one of the top 5 most beautiful places I’ve seen, EVER.
Ísafjörður [ees – ah – fyur – thur] is the capital of the Westfjords, which are a remote Icelandic province in the far northeastern reaches of the country. It translates to something like “Ice Fjord,” which is pretty fitting, and a shining example of Iceland's love for hyper-literal names. Today we’ll begin by talking about the Westfjords as a whole, but first, some clerical housekeeping…
The Westfjords (or, in Icelandic, Vestfirðir), is the name given to the enormous peninsula jutting out from Iceland to the northwest, towards Greenland. In these fjords are some of the most remote places and unforgiving terrain that Iceland has to offer. Only Iceland's interior is more difficult to travel through. After having driven the long road through Sprengisandur, I can personally attest to this. The views we saw from these roads in the Westfjords were absolutely stunning—beautiful enough that I felt that they merited their own article, so here is some of what we saw...
![Peter Goes West: San Francisco [Part II]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5876d8d6e3df28c4d83ae377/1486136244657-0UUTSJITONG77GJML218/twin+peaks+sunset+san+francisco+4-2.jpg)
![Peter Goes West: San Francisco [Part I]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5876d8d6e3df28c4d83ae377/1486133831874-4Q1LFOXNBLZXMXLR9Y0B/san+francisco+california+streets+1.jpg)
