All in all, I think we accomplished a ton on vacation. Did we do everything we wanted? No. But did we have fun? Tons of it!

Organization is the key to success so I'll help you out by putting my map on the bottom of the page.

Did I learn a lot on vacation?

I think so. NYC felt foreign and also like home. It was definitely one of the few places I've notably felt different. I knew I was physically smaller than a lot of people, and I was increasingly aware of the fact that I am a minority in some places of the world. How I look doesn't matter much, but I think you're unconsciously aware of it in quiet times, like going through the subway or walking in the streets and seeing people who don't look like you.

But despite that, there were always people who were friendly and willing to engage conversations with us. Many of the employees of the places we went to were kind, and joked with us and our good fortune on skipping lines, or shared in our amazement. During periods of downtime, I made small talk with different people and shared some laughs with them. This was especially helpful when standing in Nintendo's line for 2 hours and sharing the bathroom code for the nearby Starbucks. It was even more helpful when I sweetly asserted my position as first for the only bathroom at Dominique Ansel. The guy I faced was much taller than me.

Knowing yourself is important, and asserting it is too. No one is going to stand between me and any bathroom I need to use.

Other Side of the World

Speaking of bathrooms, the first thing I learned is that Iceland has some great bathrooms.

Going through my camera roll and I am reminded that Icelandic #bathrooms have everything from WWII memorabilia to rave lights and wine cellars.

A post shared by Maxx R (@chococow280) on Jun 7, 2017 at 6:17pm PDT

I learned that Iceland still has cairns that dot the northern landscape. Tam and I thought they were shrines for most of our trip until I googled "Iceland Rock Tower" and got cairn as the third hit.

When talking to my Food Walk Guide, I learned Icelandic people care deeply about their environment. Like Hawaii, it struggles to keep up with the demands of tourism. They also keep their culture alive, parallel to developing a global nation. I remember watching locals speaking to each other in Icelandic but easily switching into English for us.

Because of the way that their local and national governments operate, it also seems like there's a lot of involvement from their citizens to engage in civic duty and responsibilities. Iceland also has high voter turnouts and a variety of parties that participate in the system. Even from reading the local news on long car stretches, people were willing to share their perspectives on topics that affect them..

I think there's a lot of camaraderie from small communities, especially in a place so isolated and extreme. My dogsled guide alluded to this when he poked fun at island people liking their independence; he knew we were from Hawaii after all.

I also noticed that people are rude everywhere. Maybe it's something I learned from working in retail; I could sympathize with the waitress who was rudely and loudly asked to split a check 7 ways in a fancy restaurant. It manifests differently; like in the people who trashed Skógafoss, to the Asian tourists loudly playing a video in a rest stop and the American tourist who tried to correct them in a language they didn't understand. I mean it's all perspective, since certain behaviors aren't considered rude in certain places. Being aware of how people respond to you is a skill that constantly needs to be developed.

Traveling can encourage that I think, but so can awareness in your own day to day life. There were instances I saw young tourists get annoyed looks by locals because their behavior didn't adjust for the environment or culture. I even saw a man reprimand three college aged kids for being obnoxious. I saw a lot of young tourists, and whether or not they funded their own vacations, I hoped that they saw their experience as a beautiful privilege.

I can't wait to travel somewhere new again. It won't be for a while, since I have to save my vacation time for upcoming weddings. But who's to say that you can't make small adventures in your everyday?

NYC Map

If you wanna do what we did, check it out below! Make sure you call Peter Luger two months ahead of the date you want to eat.

Iceland Map

You can fly to Akureyri, but I don't recommend it during the winter... You never know what the weather will be like. There are also very few car rental places up there that let you return the car in Reykjavik.