London Mode: Engaged

I returned to Reykjavik last Thursday. Alas, I still didn't see any Northern Lights thanks to the tricksy Icelandic weather, but I still had a great time on the Golden Circle tour and walking around the beautiful city.

By a stroke of complete luck, an old school friend I haven't seen in nine years happened to also be in Reykjavik, so we met up for lunch one day- myself with my friend Siu Yen and her with her boyfriend. We got to discussing how friendly the people are in Iceland. In fact, Iceland is sometimes also known as "Niceland"! I found myself becoming more open and friendly to strangers in general, as a result: the country made me just a little less guarded.

Fast-forward to being back home in London. This evening on the train, I stared straight past a friend from dance and only noticed her when she physically called my name and ran after me as I walked off. I couldn't stop apologising.

What happened? Well, I call it "London Mode". It's that mode that everyone from a large city finds themselves adopting sooner or later: a sort of self-defence against the endless amount of bodies and noise. I've fought it off for a long time, trying to remain in-tune with my fellow human beings. Alas, it seems that I have unwillingly mentally downloaded London Mode as a default.

A friend told me a story recently about how someone on the London Underground fell over and hit their head (my friend only learned about this after being stuck outside the closed station, waiting to be let in). The poor bastard lay bleeding on the ground for about fifteen minutes before anyone would help them. In fact, there were people stepping over him.

I don't think I'll ever get to that level of London Mode (the level at which you literally just stop caring and become numb to other people). However I think that even if I adopted Icelandic openness in London, I think I'd very quickly be taken advantage of by my brilliant, cruel city. In a city where people are increasingly afraid of making eye contact for fear of being stabbed, I'm afraid that London Mode is a fate every Londoner must adopt sooner or later.

Small Acts of Defiance

I'm a pretty straight-laced kind of gal. Okay, I'm a rather kooky straight-laced kind of gal, but I'm no firestarter or rebel. The wildest thing I've ever done is break into a park at 2am with a couple of friends, a picnic blanket and some snacks and fruit juice to watch a meteorite shower (we crawled through a wall of bushes to get in, all the while worrying about angry badgers).

However, every once in a while, I'll demonstrate my disdain for society's more silly unspoken rules, in my own small way. Breaking into a park on a Saturday night to watch the stars and have a non-alcoholic picnic instead of going clubbing was definitely one of those times (I still believe that secretly no-one actually enjoys clubbing). I had another of those moments yesterday on the way to London Comicon.

I've been looking forward to this year's Comicon for ages, because it's only the second time I would have gone in full cosplay- wig and all. I'm pretty proud of my costume: it took a lot of time and effort to put it together. Originally I was going to go with a group of people, also in costume. However, at the last minute, it transpired that I would now be the only in costume, as a result of either people dropping out or others not finishing their costumes in time.

It also meant I'd be meeting my remaining friends at the venue, and that I'd be travelling alone in costume.

On public transport.

To hell with it. I did it anyway.

Of course, since this is England, no-one made eye contact with me- instead there was a lot of surreptitious setting of smartphones to camera mode around me. And of course, no-one will sit next to you if you look like this:

(Especially if you put on a creeper face).

But to be honest, this is London: there are far stranger folk on the London Underground than a girl dressed as an anime character (Homura Akemi from Madoka Magica, for the record). As I got closer and closer to the venue, I ceased to become the only person in costume on my carriage, anyway.

Still, it does take a bit of guts to do what I did: I did have to remind myself just to have fun since I wasn't hurting anyone, and not to care about people thinking I was weird. Okay, they may be right, but I'm not bad-type weird.

This is an age of of self-image, where you can filter your life to look however you want it to look on the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. However, it takes a lot more effort to actually *be* the person you want to be in real life, with no filters or editing. The person I want to be isn't afraid to do something just because others might raise a judgemental eyebrow. Sometimes, to be the person you want to be, you just have to stick your tongue out at quirked eyebrows and do it your way.

Like a boss.

Adventures in Iceland: Discovering Reykjavik

Deciding to go to Iceland was definitely the most impulsive thing I have ever done as a self-confessed overthinker.

It was also definitely the best.

I've decided to do a lot of good things for myself in the past: Taking up Mandarin again, exercising more and eating less, writing more often- all things to build the awesome Tash 2.0 model that I want to be. Simply going on holiday wouldn't be what I usually count as self-enrichment, but this was the first time I'd ever arranged a holiday for myself. People always cite the Aurora Borealis as a 'thing to do before you die'. Well, why wait? I did everything: booking the flights, hotel, tours, transfers, the whole lot. My inner PA was giddy with glee, and my outer exhausted worker was glad to be getting a break at the end of it, so the process killed two birds with one stone.

My good friend Siu Yen was my partner in mischief during our three night stay- we'd often talked about having a 'girliday' (girly holiday) in the years we've known each other, so we were pretty darn hyped up when we got on that plane. Even the plane journey was pretty awesome- WOW air has now become my favourite airline of all time.

“On the left shoulder is a light to make you look fabulous,” the head air hostess said as the life jackets were being modelled. “Also great for attracting sailors.”

We saw some amazing things made by humans:

Hallgrímskirkja and it's massive, er, organ

Some amazing things made by nature:

Strokkur geyser and Gullfoss waterfall

And ate some amazing food:

Herring and rye bread, and soup in a bread bowl

Soup in a BOWL made out of BREAD. How much of an awesome idea is that?

As for seeing the Northern Lights... technically we did. 'Technically' because although we were staring straight at them at the time, we had no idea what we were looking at. This was because they were in the grey spectrum, and sort of look like weird streaky clouds. We only found out that they were the Aurora when we saw a fellow tourist's photos from the same night: they had come out a faint glowing green. Apparently this is a thing. Who knew?

Even though I didn't catch the Lights on camera, I did manage to catch a rainbow corona around the moon:

And we got a pretty clear sky for star gazing, so it was still a great experience. Next year, either Finland or Norway! Although it's going to be hard not going straight back to Reykjavik, because I did enjoy the beautiful natural wonders and the easygoing people there.

In the meantime, I'm writing up a short piece for the British Guild of Travel Writers New Travel Writers 2014 competition. I have so many stories about the people I met out there, but this blog will have to wait until I've completed the piece. The deadline is the beginning of next week, so it won't be long!

We were sad to leave, but it was good to leave on a high. Anyway, when I got back to the office I found a box of tea and a bottle of coconut water a colleague had left for me, along with my Christmas present:

 

Those guys know me too well.