The Month Of Iceland: September 2024 Recap

This year is barreling by at the speed of light 🙂 . It’s already October and we have only 1/4 of 2024 left. So let’s make the most of it and see what I was up to in September!

I Went To New Hampshire (& NY)

I went to New Hampshire to visit my aunt after spending the summer in Montréal. I helped shuttle my aunt around after a surgery and did some landscaping as I’ll talk about later. I also saw firsthand more reasons why I never want to own a house. While visiting her, a wasp nest started coming through the ceiling of our bathroom.

According to the exterminator that came, they secrete a substance that can eat through walls. This is not a fun fact I wanted to realize first hand 🙂 . So dealing with that (apparently there are 24/7 pest control companies, who knew?), in addition to bringing people in to patch the hole and then getting a new washing machine all took up a fair bit of time.

So I once again have no interest in homeownership. I’m happy I could help make my family’s life easier, but that’s not how I want to spend my retirement 🙂 . I much prefer texting my Airbnb host or my landlord like I did before retirement and have them take care of everything and pay for it.

In happier news, I also popped over to NY to surprise my Partner’s family since New England is relatively small. It was a fun, long weekend and nice to be spontaneous for once 🙂 . This kind of thing is not something I would usually think to do since getting a rental car is not always a simple process, but I was able to borrow a family member’s car and just drive a few hours a day.

I Circumnavigated Iceland!

In even more exciting news, I’m writing this from Iceland! This is my first time in the country after hearing so much about it and it’s even more beautiful than I imagined. My Mom, Partner and I are circumnavigating the entire country in a week, which is also a first for me. I’ve never moved every day before and probably won’t again 🙂 .

But I’m having a fantastic time and am learning a lot about the country and also planning another trip here so a lot of posts along that vein are in the works. Also, my Instagram is about to be flooded with Iceland pictures and videos so head over there if you’re interested in that, but here’s a taste:

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I Celebrated Entering Year 5 Of Retirement!

Last week was my Retirement Anniversary! 4 years ago I quit my job, which I find kind of funny because that last job (that I call Company 6) was by far the longest one I ever had and I stayed there 4 years. I summarize my years working there in the below posts:

• $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 6 “Searching for Bigfoot“
• $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 7 “The Goldilocks Zone”
• $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 8 “The Boring Part”
• $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 9 “The Final Countdown”

So I’ve now been retired longer than I had my longest job. It’s been more time since I worked with those colleagues than I knew them and I just checked LinkedIn to discover: most of them are still working there. My mind is blown. That could have been me, but instead I decided to be a weirdo, save my money, invest in index funds and retire at 30.

• 4 Years Of Early Retirement: Finances, What’s Changed And What’s Next?

I wrote my usual Annual Retirement Recap post to see what I’ve been up to, reflect on the previous year of retirement, but in general I’m just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’m about to be retired for more than 4 years…or basically half of my entire 9 year career.

I Played Video Games

Before my Iceland adventure, I got back into video gaming. It seems like I go through phases when I play a lot of video games and then months go by without me playing any.

This month I tried playing Subnautica again by having my Partner over my shoulder helping me because I got so frustrated and stressed doing it myself last time that I gave up. I got a lot farther with him literally sitting next to me helping guide me. Him being there also helped me not freak out at everything that popped out of the depths to kill me while my oxygen tank was screaming on empty. But in the end I gave up once again.

The terror outweighed the fun I was having. Hilariously, despite my Partner having finished the game previously, playing it with me made him want to replay it so he’s been doing that while I was in the room and saying “WE now have an underwater base”…uh huh ‘we’ 🙂 .

There was also another Sims sale – it seems like there’s one every month. I ended up buying the Parenthood Game Pack for 30% off and the $5 Book Nook Kit because I’ve been thinking about it for a bit, but had never paid money just for digital stuff before so I was hesitant. Similar to the Growing Together Expansion Pack, the Parenthood Game Pack surprisingly adds a lot to the game and makes having a family a lot more interesting instead of annoying 😉 . And I’m loving decking out all my houses with my Book Nook items and cozy libraries 🙂 .

I also continued watching some of my favorite SimsTubers on Twitch streams and saw them playing other games in addition to Sims like Espresso Tycoon and Fields of Mistria.

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly call with my Mom when we weren’t together and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched movies included in the below.

A family member of my partner also came to visit us in NH, which I appreciated. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

1. Alien: Romulus
2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
3. Abigail
4. The Fall Guy
5. Life
6. Jackpot!
7. Sharknado
8. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
9. Miss Congeniality
10. The Killer (2024)
11. John Wick: Chapter 4
12. Godzilla vs. Kong
13. Dune
14. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
15. Prometheus

While watching The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, there were some sections in Spanish without subtitles and I was happy to realize that I still understood it!

• From 0% to Fluent: How I Learned Spanish in 1 Year

That made me feel good since I’ve been slacking on maintaining my language practice as I focus on other things this year. So I’ll cling to that small language knowledge when I inevitably embarrass myself in German, Swiss German, Italian and Dutch in the coming months.

And yes I used to speak Italian. I took an Italian class every weekday for two years before going to university in that language and now I remember none of it a decade later. And my Spanish after like a month of intensive classes is far better than my Italian ever was. Wild. Once again immersion for the win!

The last two movies on there I just had to watch while I was in Iceland since the Netflix Eurovision movie is basically a tourism ad for Iceland with ridiculously bad accents, but great songs and Prometheus starts at Dettifoss in Iceland!

I Read 24 Books

Here were my favorite reads this month:

1. The Vagina Bible: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Dr. Jen Gunter
2. Green Light by Lark Taylor
3. Red Haze by Lark Taylor

To see the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here. This number of books read feels about right since I spent the month staring at the ocean, reading and relaxing before embarking on my European adventure. And I’m so glad I did! This has been an amazing trip, but it’s definitely much more tiring to move every day instead of every month like I’m used to.

However, all that reading did have me surpass 150 books read this year of my 100 book goal. Maybe I should increase my goal 😉 .

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

1. The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap
2. Review: Greyhound – Montréal, Canada to Boston, MA
3. Trainer Armour: How I Prevent Running Shoe Toe Holes
4. Insight Timer: The Best Free Meditation App

In addition to that, a podcast I was a guest on a few months ago went live. You can listen to it here:

I was also asked to speak at the next EconoMe Conference , which was very flattering, but I’ll be in Japan and I’m currently still anonymous so giving a speech in front of 500 people might not be the move 😉 .

Lately a few people have also been reaching out because they’ve reached their FIRE number and said I was a part of giving them confidence in their journey, which was so heartwarming and exciting!!!

• $500,000 at 30: I Hit My FIRE Number!

Physical

Sleep

My sleep this month was pretty good while I was in New Hampshire, but not awesome. And I’m not sure why 🙂 . I couldn’t put my finger on it like I usually can so it’s something I will keep my eye on.

However, once I started traveling, I inexplicably got great at sleep. Maybe I was just so tired from traveling all over Iceland so quickly mixed with jetlag and staying up late trying to see the Northern Lights, but all but one night, I passed the fuck out while in a new Airbnb every night in Iceland. I awakened with my alarm in the morning and that was that.

I seem to have adjusted to Iceland jet lag immediately and I suspect that was because I wasn’t able to sleep on the flight there so I just went “go go go!” and then passed out at the end of the day…for multiple days 🙂 . And seemed automatically adjusted. The fact that Iceland is so empty population-wise and quiet might also have something to do with this.

Food

My eating this month didn’t go to plan, but I rolled with it 🙂 . I ate keto for 66% of the month and only took 10 days off keto. I was supposed to take half of those days off, but life didn’t go to plan. I had an entire meal plan sketched out for Iceland, but the reality of rural grocery stores didn’t let that happen.

So I pivoted and while I don’t feel great physically because of all these days off keto, I have a plan to get back to it when it won’t interfere with my travel plans. I guess I’m learning to be spontaneous 🙂 .  

Exercise

Unfortunately I had my first Running muscle issue. Instead of injuring myself by falling like I did earlier this year in Costa Rica, I injured myself from overuse. My knee and then hip started feeling sore early this month and I asked y’all what I should do about that.

• The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap

A lot of you had great suggestions including actual physios that gave me advice and helped me realize that this was a completely self inflicted issue – Oops! I doubled my distance at that time while also increasing my pace and expected my body to just be fine with it, but it wasn’t.

Apparently I’m supposed to increase distance 10% a week…not 100% 🙂 . So here are the suggestions I received that I started doing:

• Rest – stop running until I feel better
• Decrease mileage after that
• 15 minute ice pack on my knees and hips multiple times per day with breaks in between
• Foam roll glutes
• Foam roll outer thigh

A few people also suggested I start squatting again, which I’m planning to add back into my routine later. I was surprised with how bummed I was to not run and give my body time to recover, but that seemed to have been the best thing for it.

Before the end of the month I was feeling better after being really frustrated with how long my body was taking to recover in between. I need to work on that mindset 🙂 . But by the end of the month I was running once again, less miles and slower, but I was doing it without pain, which was awesome.

In other news, my Yoga practice is still going well. I kept it up even while not running so I didn’t feel stiff and I also realized something, before I started this yoga practice, I was not very flexible and couldn’t even touch my toes without straining or bending my knees.

The other day not only could I easily touch my toes with my legs straight, but I was able to put almost my entire hand flat on the ground. What in the magic is this?!? I’m kidding – it’s just consistent practice, but it’s shocking how much my flexibility has improved in only a few months of less than 10 minutes of yoga a day.

My Meditation practice is also still going well. I meditated almost every day in September with Insight Timer, which I wrote a whole post about below:

• Insight Timer: The Best Free Meditation App

I love that app and do either guided or timed meditation, which I’m really enjoying. It’s helping a lot with keeping away unhelpful anxious thoughts and not letting me spiral with them.

Also curiously I’ve started feeling heavy the moment I close my eyes to meditate – I’m not sure what that’s about, but it doesn’t feel like just closing my eyes anymore so that’s cool. Like a lot of exercise and similar to my running journey specifically, my progress with meditation has not been linear, but overall I get better every day – and I need to remember that 🙂 .

• Celebrating 3 Years Of Running: My Progress and Revelations

Lastly this month, I did some Landscaping for my aunt and it was HARD WORK. Like DAMN! I was sweating all over the place and super tired. So that gave me a workout and an extra appreciation for people that do that kind of work.

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Iceland

• Iceland is a little smaller than New York State and has a population of 382,003 as of 2022

• Iceland requires a Schengen Visa and they use ISK (Icelandic Króna) as currency (EDIT: I previously said that Iceland is part of the EU because it’s part of the Schengen Visa Area, but that’s not true. They’re part of the Schengen Visa Area, but NOT part of the EU. My American brain is thoroughly confused now since I thought you couldn’t be in one without the other, but that’s not the case. My bad! I’m off to do more research. The below video is a little out of date, but helped me understand more about this.)

• There are two places on Earth with no mosquitoes: Iceland…and Antarctica. My jaw was on the floor when I learned this, but that explains why we would go into an Airbnb that had the windows open and no screens anywhere. I was surprised when I saw that, but now it makes some sense
• Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice because it’s home to some of the largest glaciers in Europe and some of the most active volcanoes in the world
• Iceland also has more writers per capita than any other country. 1 in 10 Icelanders will write a book at one point. That’s wild!
• Because of the aforementioned volcanoes, the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik provides geothermal district heating to about 90% of buildings in that city and outside of Reykjavik, about 90% of the hot water and heat in the country is created with geothermal heating
• Iceland is super close to the Arctic Circle, which I didn’t realize and one of its islands (Grímsey Island) is actually within the Arctic Circle.

Astronomy

Two interesting space things happened this month. One was a Partial Lunar Eclipse, which I’ve stayed up late to watch before in retirement and found gorgeous – seeing a blood red moon is always wild. However, I didn’t realize that this partial was VERY partial 🙂 . Like this:

Luckily I didn’t stay up late specifically for it, but I did find it a bit hilarious how much less brilliant this experience was than a full lunar eclipse.

The other space event that I was looking forward to this month was possibly seeing the Northern Lights. I had heard that this year would have more brilliant auroras than they had been in a decade and I had never seen an aurora before so I was hesitantly excited to possibly see them while in Iceland.

Unfortunately our luck was not great and the days that had high solar activity were also days with heavy clouds so we couldn’t see the aurora. However, we did see it one night! It was understandably faint because we saw it in the 2nd largest city in Iceland, but it happened! I’m hoping to be able to see this phenomenon more clearly in the future, but technically it happened so I’ll take it 🙂 .

I used the free Space Weather Live App to track aurora forecasts and we saw it on a night  that had “moderate” activity, which isn’t high at all.

Fauna

Here are the animals I saw this month:

NY

Big Brown Bat, Eastern Chipmunk, New England Cottontail Rabbit

Iceland

Harbour Seals, Icelandic Horses, Icelandic Cattle, Icelandic Sheep

Glacier Park pic

Birds

Birding is back! I saw some fun birds in NH and NY before I left the states and was riveted by the birds in Iceland. Here’s what I saw:

NY

American Woodcock, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Northern Cardinal, American Crow, Black-Capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Pileated Woodpecker, American Robin, Hairy Woodpecker, Ruffed Grouse, Gray Catbird, Eastern Phoebe

NH

House Sparrow, Northern Cardinal

Iceland

Spotted Flycatcher, Redwing, Black-Headed Gull, Mallard, European Starling, Graylag Goose, Eurasian Eigeon, Herring Gull, Whooper Swan, Glaucous Gull, Common Eider, Great Black-Backed Gull, Iceland Gull, Eurasian Blackbird, Green-Winged Teal, Tufted Duck, Common Gull, European Golden-Plover, Gadwall, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Common Redpoll, Common Raven, Rock Pigeon, Brant, Purple Sandpiper, Common Shelduck, Dunlin, Black-Legged Kittiwake, Arctic Tern, Great Skua, Barnacle Goose, Common Snipe, Northern Fulmar, Common Redshank, Meadow Pipit, Goldcrest, Snow Bunting, White Wagtail, Winter Wren, Arctic Skua

My go to app for birdsong identification, Merlin, also alerted me one night while I was in NH that there was high bird migration activity that night, which was cool. I checked it out on this dashboard since it was too bird to actually see the birds outside.

Creativity

My creativity this month was pretty good! I’ve been really worried that I wouldn’t have anything left after traveling all over and seeing and learning so much, but that hasn’t been the case yet. I still feel strikes of inspiration that I need to write down immediately and while I’m way behind on posting my adventures on Instagram I’ll get there 🙂 . Keeping up this posting schedule while traveling quickly hasn’t been as difficult as I thought it would be and I’m really happy about that.

Emotional

My emotions this month were good overall, but I did feel down for a few days before we started our Eurotrip. And the fact that I felt depressed while near a beautiful ocean just proves once again that depression can get you in even the most beautiful of places 🙂 . Luckily that didn’t last long while I was in NH and I was back to feeling like my contented self in no time. Take that depressive hormones!

Money

Money continues to be a non-issue. I was thinking about how different I feel while traveling around Europe now with so much money in the bank compared to the last time I was here over a decade ago when I had barely anything in my checking account.

The difference between sleeping on uncomfortable airport benches versus now when I just get a hotel without thinking about it is wild. Similar to just grabbing a taxi or a ride-share instead of trying to navigate a new public transit system in another language when I’m sleepy for travel. I spend money for my comfort without stressing about it and I can really appreciate how that differs from my younger years these days.

Anyway, on the net worth front, I surpassed $850K for the first time!

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Quarter 3 also ended so I once again received dividends and it felt so good 🙂 .

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I also hit a new all time net worth high to close out the month!

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Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in September! I’m excited to continue my Eurotrip with my Mom and Partner in mainland Europe before my Mom goes back to the US and my Partner and I continue exploring Europe together at a more regular monthly pace 🙂 . Until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly (2021)

1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap

Monthly (2022)

1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

Monthly (2023)

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
4. The Month Of California: April 2023
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
2. The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
3. The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
4. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
5. The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap
6. The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2024 Recap
8. The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?