Our second day in Iceland, we hopped on a plane to a little city in the North called Akureyri to catch the Northern Lights. Although, city is quite a generous term to describe the place. It was much much smaller than originally anticipated and the full day of city exploring that we planned looked like it would take an hour. So we rented a car last minute to see the surrounding areas during the day.

At night, we returned to Akureyri where our resident "crazy viking" tour guide, Gisli, drove us far far out to desolate landscapes for our Northern Lights expedition. As we drove further and further away from civilization, I looked into the pitch black desperately for any sign of the fabled lights. Stars, a million of them. And dimly, in the distance, was that—?

Suddenly, Gisli is shouting. "THERE SHE IS. STOP THE BUS."

He's ahead of all of us, nearly falling off of the bus as we gather our camera equipment hastily and follow him into the cold. And there it was.

Wind whipping and biting at my exposed skin. A smudge of green across my vision that I could not rub out of my eyes. Focusing in on the strange green and seeing, overlaid on top of the tapestry of stars, a massive green translucent ribbon hanging in the sky. It was growing and wavering and rippling in midair, completely independent of the cruel winds I had to brace my body against.