Kongavarði

For the past week Maria and I have been home alone. Instead of doing the typical teenager thing like throwing a party, we have been spending our nights on the couch reading, chatting, and watching movies. I have really enjoyed the time I have gotten to be with Maria. We have had a lot of fun doing simple things together. Last week Saturday, we were doing out typical thing, sitting on the couch drinking hot chocolate and chatting, when Maria suggested that tomorrow we get up early and hike Kongavarðan, a mountain close to our home. Of course, being an exchange student that’s up for anything, I agreed. So, that Sunday morning, we got up early and prepared ourselves for a hike. We made tea, bought snacks, and created a ‘climbing’ playlist to listen to on the hike up. We then drove to a set of apartment buildings and started our journey. Shortly in, we realized how poorly dressed we were, I now know that mountains are extremely windy and can make you almost miserable if you don't have the right gear. Being the troopers we are, we wrapped our sweaters around us a little tighter, covered our ears with scarfs, and continued the adventure we had set out to do. At first, we followed the footsteps of people who went hiking earlier in the morning, but we both have always believed in taking the path less traveled and decided to make our own path. I had just recently finished a book on President Teddy Roosevelt; it talked about how he would point and walk in a straight line to get where he wanted to be, walking through anything in his way. I decided to use that method on our hike. I turned to Maria and said, “we will be walking in a straight path from here on out”. This ended up not being the best idea. We started out being up to our knees in snow, and having to grab onto nearby rocks to pull ourselves out. Maria and I slowly made our way closer to the top. Then, we encountered another obstacle. If we wanted to continue in a straight path to the top, we would have to climb rocks the rest of the way up. Both of us have little to no experience in climbing mountains, but we didn't want to abandon our plan so close to the top. I went first and started climbing the rocks, helping Maria when I could by giving her an arm or foot to pull herself farther up the mountain with. After a little while, we decided to take a break and sit down, we then noticed that there were people already at the top probably laughing at how ridiculous we looked. I can imagine we looked crazy with I Would Walk 500 Miles blasting through our speakers, and us trying to climb the rocks when we could just walk up a couple yards over. I remember looking down at Maria and laughing so hard because she was stuck and just laying there in the snow. Looking back if there wasn't snow I don't think we could have taken that path, I'm glad we did it while we could. A little while later, we finally reached the top. Maria and I sat on a rock freezing cold with wet cloths drinking tea and soaking in the incredible view. It was defiantly worth the adventure we had to get up. After a while, we couldn't take the cold any longer so, we snapped a few pictures, packed up and make our way down Kongavarðan. Seeing as we already took our own path today, we decided to follow the others footsteps down. The way down was a piece of cake compared to the way up. Maria was trying to sled on her boots and I was running down. Maria, being the clumsy girl she is, fell down on a rock so we decided to walk the rest of the way. Once we got back to the car we laughed at how crazy we were for going straight up, but couldn't stop smiling at how much fun that little adventure was.