I recently went on holiday to Iceland with a friend, and took my trusty Rolleimat F along for the ride. Upon arrival at the airport, I completely forgot to remove the film from my bag, and it went through the x-ray scanners. I was terrified that the pictures would turn out strange or different in some way (even though, realistically, that adds "character" to the photos due to it being analogue in the first place). Oh, how pleasantly surprised I was when the scans came back from the lab!

Normally when we've gone on holiday before, we'll either stay in or around the capital city, or rent a car and drive across the country ourselves, as we're pretty independent about what and where we choose to do. This time, we decided to book a bunch of tours and get driven around in coaches and mini-buses, and honestly I'm very glad we did — good lunch spots, and more importantly we didn't have to worry about driving ourselves around in negative celcius temperatures all week (and on one day in particular we had ~50mph winds).

All our guides were full of character, very humourous (in many cases this just meant blunt and dry humour, which works well for me!), and knowledgeable about the country and our destinations.

On the first night we were there, we'd booked a small-group northern lights tour on a mini-bus. The guide referred to himself as a Captain, and he was sailing us around on a fishing boat. He'd worked many jobs before this one, including on a fishing boat, as well as a truck driver, so he loved watching trucks driving by in the dark. Despite being very tired and cold that evening, I was warmed by his passion. Unfortunately, we never did see the northern lights, mainly due to cloud cover, although the service we booked did allow a free re-booking that same week.

We went again a couple of days later, with a clear night sky and a different guide, and ended up seeing a fantastic view within 20 minutes of leaving the city centre. I found this quite surprising as a full moon was out, lighting up the sky, and considering we were still so close to the city I expected light pollution to hinder the effect more than it actually did. Our guide this time didn't share as much about himself, although his delivery (of mostly the same information as last time) was bouncy and enthusiastic, and we found it hilarious in the most endearing way.

All-in-all, it was a massively successful trip. Despite everything in Iceland generally being more expensive, the fish is delicious, the temperatures are perfect for my liking, and the population is sparse — I highly recommend you plan a visit before the planet gets too warm and all the glaciers melt.