Iceland

After a long flight, everything seems more bleak. Driving across rocky, empty fields under a grey sky, you feel like this might just be the most alien place you’ll ever visit.

But you’re on a bus, and there’s sun peeking out behind those clouds, and the people on the highway are driving to work like anybody else anywhere.

You pass a roundabout. Ash fields with brown scrub. The bus hums a high, droning G. An antenna stands on a barren plain.

Civilization begins. One house lonely on a hill, then two, three. Streetlamps and small apartments, stoplights.

The sun breaks over the hill.

It’s Wednesday on Earth.