I am a refugee

We had never paid so much for an airbnb before. But what could we do?

Trips to Italy, Spain and other usual destinations had become repetitive. We craved new experiences. Besides, my son, as it turned out, suffered from an autoimmune disease that had a tendency to worsen in a hot climate.

It took countless visits to different doctors to figure it out. The last man in a white coat, a professor in one of the world’s top hospitals, the one who finally figured out what to write down as a diagnosis, suggested that for our summer holidays we start going North instead of South.

So we did.

My teenage son, for a change, approved of his parent’s life choices. He went to a good school, and the families of his friends were mostly doing well. Unlike him they always spent their holidays in fancy places, on the range from New York to Bahamas. And they usually left Germany every school break.

I sensed that our choice, the non-trivial and highly instagrammable Iceland, ranked high in the school’s top list of summer destinations.

But who am I kidding? I was also excited.

The island was infamously expensive so it didn’t come as a surprise that all we found in Reykjavik was a tiny apartment that still cost more than we could really afford.

It turned out to be the shittiest airbnb we had ever lived in.

Basically a garage remodeled as a small living room with a sofa with a TV, a mini kitchen, a double bed behind a wall, and an adjacent bathroom with a door moving sideways.

The door was so thin and flimsy that when you went to do your business on the toilet, you had no doubt: the person watching TV would still hear every subtle sound you made and know about all your wins and losses.

The window was installed where a garage would have a gate, facing the driveway now used as a parking for old bikes, a motorcycle and the owner’s car. That’s where garbage bins were also placed.

One morning I heard some noise coming from there.

When I went out, I saw a man going through the trash. Two huge, as tall as he was, plastic bags filled with plastic bottles were standing on the ground beside him.

He was fishing for more bottles.

Good thing the Icelanders separated their garbage, having a dedicated yellow bin for plastic.

“Do you have any?” he asked me in Russian with a friendly smile.

How did he know I was Russian? Did he recognize the stern expression on my face, the indelible trademark of all people born in the Soviet Union? Or did he just hear us arguing?

My family had been just discussing whether we should go to the glorious Blue Lagoon spa listed as one of the 25 wonders of the world on the web.

My wife thought that paying one hundred per person for a couple of hours in a spa was just ridiculous. She would have preferred buying one of those famous icelandic sweaters instead, which were also not so cheap. But at least it was something you could take back and use for years. My son and I argued that visiting the lagoon could be an experience of a lifetime. It might also be a total rip-off. You never know until you try.

All this was debated in Russian.

The man must have heard our arguments about the Blue Lagoon as we kept a small window open “for the house to breathe,” as it was prescribed in the apartment manual. This was written by hand as far back as eight years ago in a small notebook, which was left open for us on the table when we arrived.

“No sorry, we don’t have any bottles.” I replied, also in Russian.

“I am a refugee. From Ukraine,” he said, in a friendly and oddly cheerful tone.

I didn’t know how to react. Say I was sorry to hear that? Ask where he was from? How did he end up in Iceland of all places? Offer help?

He seemed like a man who knew what he was doing, a man performing a familiar and enjoyable task.

I guess I could similarly offer a short introduction.

“I am a tourist from Germany, spending my vacation in Iceland. Born and raised in Russia though. And my parents still live there. We skype every weekend.”

I just nodded.

He finished searching, grabbed his bags and started walking down the driveway.

A fair-haired boy wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, in home slippers, appeared from the adjacent building, the one with real apartments, where our host probably lived. Although this was just guess work, they never bothered to greet us, simply leaving the door unlocked when we had arrived.

The boy was holding an empty plastic bottle. He rushed to the man and offered it to him.

“Thank you, thank you” said the man in English, with an accent suggesting that these two words were the only ones he knew in this language.

On completing his mission, the boy turned back to go home. “Have a nice day!” he said. It was said casually and so melodically that it felt like he was singing. They speak really good English, the Icelanders.

“Should I do something?” I was asking myself looking as the man walked down the driveway, having put his big plastic bags on each shoulder. “Should I have done something?”

I returned to the apartment where my wife and son were packing things for a trip that we had planned for today. We were going to see one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland. It would take two hours to get there, but we had rented a car for the entire week in Iceland and were prepared for day trips. Everyone anticipated that today we would return with especially stunning photos in our phones.

In the kitchen, I saw two empty bottles I could have given him.