Icelandic dreams

I think I’ve mentioned before that every so often I have a dream about going back to Iceland. It’s been a while since the last such dream, but last night, I dreamed that I was taking the bus around the ring road, and trying to decide where I wanted to stop (since you can stop anywhere you want, as often as you want, on a ring pass, so long as you continue in one direction).

Since the way the bus schedules work, I was going to have to stop and spend a night in the town of Hofn (umlaut on the o) anyway, I decided I wanted to take a trip to the top of the nearby glacier. Several groups offer trips by motorized vehicles, but a friend (outside the dream) managed to go by dogsled once, and I’d always wanted to go that way (inside and outside the dream).

But in the dream, the guy who was in charge of the dog expeditions threw a very un-Icelandic, yellling-and-screaming-for-no-good-reason fit, and refused to take us. I was resigned by going by motorized vehicle after all. But someone told me I needn’t do that; the tour I’d signed up for wasn’t cancelled; we’d just be going up the glacier by pony instead.

All I could think, in the dream, was of how Scott’s polar expedition had such bad luck with ponies on ice, so surely this couldn’t be a good idea. Especially since the tour guide was insisting that we email someone before we leave, so they’d know where we’d gone in case anything happened.

But I really, really wanted to see that glacier. So I was going to go even though I knew better.

Fortunately, in the way of dreams, I woke up before I actually left the hostel. I think because my tour companions were too caught up in trying to order a pizza to do anything more useful.