Crushed

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I have a crush.

I was struggling with myself the whole last day, trying to find a loophole, any excuse to stay. Secretly hoping the flight would be overbooked, there would be a terrible storm, they'd detain me. Anything. I stood in line for an hour and a half, surreptitiously glancing at the Icelandair ticket office, knowing that even if I did walk over there, even if I could cancel the ticket, they'd put the refund back on the creditcard, instead of my pocket, which is where I needed it to be if I were to have any chance of actually surviving.

I have a crush on Amsterdam.

It sounds silly, but it's the same feeling. A slight giddyness everytime somone mentions it. Daydreaming endlessly. Staring at the pictures I took, even if they're blurry and crooked. Occasionally forgetting I'm not there anymore and feeling as if someone's squeezing my heart when I realize I'm back..."home".



I'm stuck in the country with the highest grocery prices in Europe. A piece of Icelandic Gouda costs about 15 euros per kilo. A loaf of questionable-quality factory bread goes for about 2,50 euros. A loaf from the bakery - smaller than the ones from the supermarket, but infinitly better- might cost you as much as five euros. A small grade B chicken will set you back 5 euros per kilo - if there's a special offer. To be fair, there usually is. If you want fresh fish, you better know someone in the industry, since the good fish is exported or sold to restaurants. Lamb, another old staple of the Icelandic diet, is very expensive, especially when it comes to larger steaks or roasts. A leg of lamb might cost you around 30-35 euros. We usually don't get one except on major holidays. A pack of sliced spam will set you back around 3 euros - but it's mostly water. If you want actual ham, be prepared to pay around five euros. Of course you could stock up on instant noodles - about 50 eurocents per pack- but that can hardly be called a healthy, balanced diet. If you're a vegan or a vegetarian, or if you'd jut rather eat organic, you'd be better off with growing it yourself, since a liter of organic fruit juice can go for anywhere between five and ten euros.
If you just want to grab a beer or two, you have a choice; between the expensive state-run monopoly Ríkið (The State), where a pint can of local pilsner sells for 2,50 euros, or the pubs, where the same will set you back anywhere between 4,70 (during happy hour - or slightly-less-depressing hour- at your local) and 9 euros (at the annoyingly hip club that just opened and will be out of business in a month). If you want a pack of cigarettes to smoke (outside, no smoking in pubs or restaurants anymore) with your pint, you'll have to fork over some 7 euros for a pack of twenty.
If you'd prefer something stronger, you can buy a liter of vodka at The State, but it might cost you as much as fifty euros. A bottle of the cheapest red wine goes for 12 euros, so you might want to find another way to advertise your sophistication. It's not a valuable trait here anyway.

I'm stuck in a country where you're considered an alcoholic if you have a beer at lunch on a weekday, but not ifyou spend every friday and saturday night in a drunken stupor downtown. You're a junkie if you light up a joint every now and then, but pumping your kids full of Ritalin and other personality-suppressants is fine and dandy.
I'm trapped in a country where the politicians boast about our clean nature whilst signing contracts for yet another aluminium smelter. They claim our quality of living is among the highest in the world, and never question the ever-growing list of children waiting for treatment for mental problems, or the fact that older people have to supplement their social security income by recycling cans they pick up off the street. Violent crime is on the rise, a rapist or a child molester can expect a rarely-enforced maximum sentence of five years, a murderer 16 years.
We deport street-performers who come here from abroad, we look down on refugees who seek asylum, we hate the Eastern Europeans and Asians who do the jobs we don't want anyway. We watch endless American sitcoms, and the general public is more interested in the results of the Eurovision Song Contest than they are in the elections of government. We are in debt by the age of 18, bankrupt by 22, workaholics by 16. We guzzle Coke with our McMeals, growing obese by the age of ten, since healthy food is too expensive. Only weirdos bicycle around, and the public transport system gets more expensive and less convenient every year, so we buy SUVs instead. Everybody has a cellphone, high-speed internet and a flat-screen TV, a DVD player and an iPod.
Our national heroes are corporate giants, the owners of Baugur Group, because they established the first low-cost supermarket chain. People vote for the Independence Party, because they seem the most stable, and because "my family has always voted for them", and denounce the Left-Green Movement as "a bunch of commies". We move abroad, but keep a special place in our hearts for Iceland, and applaud raucously when the plane finally touches down. We boast about beautiful landscapes many of us have never seen, and brag about our history, which most of us have never read.
We've stopped caring about inconsequential thing like spelling and grammar, yet proudly describe our language to astounded foreigners, who can't believe it hasn't changed for over a thousand years. That might be because we're lying and we know it.
We can't help but sound like a tourist information brochure when describing our country, because the truth is too depressing.

I have a crush on Amsterdam, not because I think it's perfect, but because it holds something I've longed for my entire life; freedom and potential. It is sorely lacking in Iceland.

I have a goal now, one that my countrymen will approve of- not because of the goal itself, which is to move abroad, but rather the only method I have of reaching it, which is to work like a mule for a few months.

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