Feeling Tired and Cold in Iceland | Emotional Rant
I'm currently writing this sitting in the single red chair which make up all the furniture outside of four bunk beds. The happy family of four with grown or almost grown children has just checked into a youth hostel. I'm running on 24 hours of traveling including long drives and a plane ride and I've had little to no sleep.
It was a mix up in the booking of what my father thought to be a hotel. Apparently, Reykjavik is incredibly expensive, even when it comes to hotels and hostels. Of course, this occurred after the plane arrived late, the rental car we got had a bent wheel and we had to wait for the room to be ready.
I kind of long for that brief moment of pause at the little sofa area in the lobby before we walked in to see where we'd be living in for the next three days. I've already mentioned all five pieces of furniture, though black Dracula-esque curtains, a radiator and portable little air conditioner is also present. The only positive thing about this place is the many plug socket, which match our Danish ones so we don't have to rely on adapters. Still, there's no ensuite and the communal shower down the hall is a two person shower with no lock. Thank everything that I showered earlier today and can actually stretch out the showing until returning home.
I know this whole spiel might come off as bratty and privileged. I'm in a new and beautiful country! I'm going riding on Icelandic horses with my mother tomorrow. We just went to the Blue Lagoon not three hours ago and had a great time. We fixed the car situation and got a better one for the trouble. We have somewhere to stay in a very expensive city.
However, as much as I recognise all of the above I still feel like I'm tethering in hysterics. It materialised as maniac giggles, eyes welling up slightly (out of discomfort but thankfully, it either went unseen or it was mistaken as a byproduct of the giggles) and I just feel cold. I feel chilled to the bone, even in a room everyone says is hot. And when I tried to climb into one of the top bunks my arms refused to help raise me up and I stumbled back down. I feel out of it and weak but mostly tired.
The four of us are all running on little to no sleep, hence why they are all napping right now. Well, my brother seem to be on the internet on his phone rather than sleeping but I can hardly blame him. I've dialed back my own Internet time to hardly any and it's reminded me of how much time I spent checking notifications or aimlessly scrolling through timelines.
I'm tired too, of course I am. On the 51 km drive from the rental place to the hostel, I nodded off once and immediately jerked awake again. I feel almost like I'm in a dream state and this isn't reality, even if I know that it is if I concentrate. But when my eyes glass over (wearing contacts for more than 18 hours cannot be recommended), I feel like my mind is reeling and pulling me backwards and like I'm not in control of my body. It's like it runs on autopilot and it's difficult for me to jerk forward and switch it back to manual.
I always get a bit spaced out after too long without any proper alone time. I love my family dearly as do I our holidays but they provide a constant buzz and noise that's impossible to ignore.
And now some strange dude just barged right in, wedging the door open and saying that he was house keeping and had to mop the floors despite the fact that the curtains are drawn and three people were sleeping. This place sets my teeth on edge. Is that even the right phrase? I don't know but this is exactly why I can't work in places like dorms and hostels for too long. I need to be able to go to the kitchen to cook spaghetti at 1 AM without getting weird looks from a person I hardly know. It worked well on a five months exchange but I know it's too easy for the scales to tip over. And the "reception desk" - and yes that needs to be put into quotation marks because so far its character is still up for debate - knew we just came to our room and we explicitly asked for it to be ready as soon as possible because we've been travelling all night. And on the way to our room, we walked past a communal kitchen. I have no outright problems with hostels as a concept, I think they are great for some people but this place is hella expensive for just three nights in a room with bunk beds and bad communal shower facilities.
Maybe this wouldn't hit me so hard if I had had a proper night's sleep or I had in anyway expected to walk into this place. It's essentially the temporary home for people my age but I feel wildly out of place being here on a family holiday. And I'm spoiled and I want privacy to shower and use the bathroom.
I'm still cold. The room feels like it's chilling me to the bone, even with the radiator on and wearing a big hoodie and long pants. My half wet hair probably doesn't help but it always take ages to dry and I have no patience for using a hairdryer either. All the more reason to chop it short. I might do that when I return. The cold also comes from the lack of sleep. Whenever I get sleepy, I always get cold. Even in hot weather, I can feel a chill settle on my skin when I feel pushed past my limit.
The truth is that I want to go home right now. I miss my animals, I miss my friends, I miss my Internet time and I miss my bed.
But changing plane tickets would either be impossible or outrageously expensive, so we're stuck with this. I am excited for the things we've planned for the last few days but I also acknowledge that moving around so much takes a bigger toll on me. I felt settled and comfortable in Boston and then it was time to move on. Staying one night first in Niagara Falls and then Syracuse didn't help much either. Right now I'm just wishing this place would be a one night stay as well. I want to go horse riding tomorrow but after that I really don't care much. Today was one of those days that seem to drag on forever and every single thing that can go wrong, goes wrong.
Tomorrow will hopefully be better and all this melancholy will have drained out of me. Lack of sleep and constant buzz of people around makes for one anxious introvert. I don't want to go to sleep right now though.
Sleep will transport me away and give me a moment of peace but I want ten hours of that, not a two hour nap that's bound to worsen the headache already crawling across my skull.
It's only roughly eighty hours of Iceland time left before we get on a plane and it appears to be a beautiful place based on the limited scenery I've spotted out the car window. The Blue Lagoon was certainly very beautiful and the water amazing. I needn't judge Iceland so hard just because of the pile up of mix ups. But I have a feeling that this is going to be a long few days. Against my better judgement, I'll try to get some shuteye. My body is practically screaming at me to put down my tapping fingers and crawl into bed. And if I can't get up then that will be that. I don't care anymore. I'm also hungry but I've been feeling nauseated on and off for as long as I've been awake. I would also like to go to the toilet but there's a high chance I'll run into some of the many young people living here and social interaction is totally out of the question right now. Unless I want to spontaneously combust, at the very least inside of my head.
It was a mix up in the booking of what my father thought to be a hotel. Apparently, Reykjavik is incredibly expensive, even when it comes to hotels and hostels. Of course, this occurred after the plane arrived late, the rental car we got had a bent wheel and we had to wait for the room to be ready.
I kind of long for that brief moment of pause at the little sofa area in the lobby before we walked in to see where we'd be living in for the next three days. I've already mentioned all five pieces of furniture, though black Dracula-esque curtains, a radiator and portable little air conditioner is also present. The only positive thing about this place is the many plug socket, which match our Danish ones so we don't have to rely on adapters. Still, there's no ensuite and the communal shower down the hall is a two person shower with no lock. Thank everything that I showered earlier today and can actually stretch out the showing until returning home.
I know this whole spiel might come off as bratty and privileged. I'm in a new and beautiful country! I'm going riding on Icelandic horses with my mother tomorrow. We just went to the Blue Lagoon not three hours ago and had a great time. We fixed the car situation and got a better one for the trouble. We have somewhere to stay in a very expensive city.
However, as much as I recognise all of the above I still feel like I'm tethering in hysterics. It materialised as maniac giggles, eyes welling up slightly (out of discomfort but thankfully, it either went unseen or it was mistaken as a byproduct of the giggles) and I just feel cold. I feel chilled to the bone, even in a room everyone says is hot. And when I tried to climb into one of the top bunks my arms refused to help raise me up and I stumbled back down. I feel out of it and weak but mostly tired.
The four of us are all running on little to no sleep, hence why they are all napping right now. Well, my brother seem to be on the internet on his phone rather than sleeping but I can hardly blame him. I've dialed back my own Internet time to hardly any and it's reminded me of how much time I spent checking notifications or aimlessly scrolling through timelines.
You can't see it but the family is snoozing away in their bunkbeds
I'm tired too, of course I am. On the 51 km drive from the rental place to the hostel, I nodded off once and immediately jerked awake again. I feel almost like I'm in a dream state and this isn't reality, even if I know that it is if I concentrate. But when my eyes glass over (wearing contacts for more than 18 hours cannot be recommended), I feel like my mind is reeling and pulling me backwards and like I'm not in control of my body. It's like it runs on autopilot and it's difficult for me to jerk forward and switch it back to manual.
I always get a bit spaced out after too long without any proper alone time. I love my family dearly as do I our holidays but they provide a constant buzz and noise that's impossible to ignore.
And now some strange dude just barged right in, wedging the door open and saying that he was house keeping and had to mop the floors despite the fact that the curtains are drawn and three people were sleeping. This place sets my teeth on edge. Is that even the right phrase? I don't know but this is exactly why I can't work in places like dorms and hostels for too long. I need to be able to go to the kitchen to cook spaghetti at 1 AM without getting weird looks from a person I hardly know. It worked well on a five months exchange but I know it's too easy for the scales to tip over. And the "reception desk" - and yes that needs to be put into quotation marks because so far its character is still up for debate - knew we just came to our room and we explicitly asked for it to be ready as soon as possible because we've been travelling all night. And on the way to our room, we walked past a communal kitchen. I have no outright problems with hostels as a concept, I think they are great for some people but this place is hella expensive for just three nights in a room with bunk beds and bad communal shower facilities.
Maybe this wouldn't hit me so hard if I had had a proper night's sleep or I had in anyway expected to walk into this place. It's essentially the temporary home for people my age but I feel wildly out of place being here on a family holiday. And I'm spoiled and I want privacy to shower and use the bathroom.
I'm still cold. The room feels like it's chilling me to the bone, even with the radiator on and wearing a big hoodie and long pants. My half wet hair probably doesn't help but it always take ages to dry and I have no patience for using a hairdryer either. All the more reason to chop it short. I might do that when I return. The cold also comes from the lack of sleep. Whenever I get sleepy, I always get cold. Even in hot weather, I can feel a chill settle on my skin when I feel pushed past my limit.
The truth is that I want to go home right now. I miss my animals, I miss my friends, I miss my Internet time and I miss my bed.
But changing plane tickets would either be impossible or outrageously expensive, so we're stuck with this. I am excited for the things we've planned for the last few days but I also acknowledge that moving around so much takes a bigger toll on me. I felt settled and comfortable in Boston and then it was time to move on. Staying one night first in Niagara Falls and then Syracuse didn't help much either. Right now I'm just wishing this place would be a one night stay as well. I want to go horse riding tomorrow but after that I really don't care much. Today was one of those days that seem to drag on forever and every single thing that can go wrong, goes wrong.
Tomorrow will hopefully be better and all this melancholy will have drained out of me. Lack of sleep and constant buzz of people around makes for one anxious introvert. I don't want to go to sleep right now though.
Sleep will transport me away and give me a moment of peace but I want ten hours of that, not a two hour nap that's bound to worsen the headache already crawling across my skull.
By a Girl who Loves to Write aka Me
It's only roughly eighty hours of Iceland time left before we get on a plane and it appears to be a beautiful place based on the limited scenery I've spotted out the car window. The Blue Lagoon was certainly very beautiful and the water amazing. I needn't judge Iceland so hard just because of the pile up of mix ups. But I have a feeling that this is going to be a long few days. Against my better judgement, I'll try to get some shuteye. My body is practically screaming at me to put down my tapping fingers and crawl into bed. And if I can't get up then that will be that. I don't care anymore. I'm also hungry but I've been feeling nauseated on and off for as long as I've been awake. I would also like to go to the toilet but there's a high chance I'll run into some of the many young people living here and social interaction is totally out of the question right now. Unless I want to spontaneously combust, at the very least inside of my head.
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