When I applied for a foreign student exchange at 16, I did not give much thought to where I would like to live. It was enough to have a year of respite from the pressure to decide what to do with my life. Since I was six years old, I had wanted to write, needed to write as one needs to breathe, but, influenced by wider social rhetoric regarding the arts, I had come to believe that writing wasn’t serious or worthy. Yet the thought of shackling myself to some other acceptable profession by way of university applications filled me with dread, and when the local Rotary club announced it would sponsor a student for a year abroad, I saw the opportunity as a lifeline. With no language studies under my belt, I was told that a host country would be selected for me based on “my personality”. When I received a letter informing me that I would be sent to Iceland, I was surprised. I knew nothing of this small Nordic island of 250,000 people. I wondered what we would have in common.