Iceland review - 2015, Page 44

42 ICELAND REVIEW
standing on the tarmac. Although we are
usually going in when everyone else is evac-
uating, heading in the opposite direction.”
FAMILY LIFE
Being constantly on the go—on average
he’s away from home six months of the
year—especially traveling to the world’s
conflict zones, makes maintaining a social
life difficult, Jón admits. “I never know
what day of the week it is. People used to
invite me to dinners and then I’d have to
cancel. By the second or third time I’d have
to cancel, they’d given up. I can never plan
ahead,” he says, adding that he also can’t
play team sports for the same reason. “So I
just jog instead.”
Jón and Valérie have an 11-year-old
son, Sven, and Jón has a 30-year-old son,
Daníel, from a previous relationship. His
latest assignment, documenting the Solar
Impulse long-range solar-powered aircraft’s
circumnavigation of the Earth, has taken
him to some more relaxed settings and
allowed him to spend extended periods
of time with Daníel, who’s an electrical
engineer and also working on the project.
When we meet Jón has just spent the last
seven months following the plane, includ-
ing the past month in Hawaii, where the
journey was ultimately put on hold until
April 2016 due to a technical issue with the
aircraft’s batteries.
Despite his unpredictable schedule, Jón
says he and Daníel have managed to do
their fair share of traveling in recent years.
“We’ve climbed the Matterhorn, we’ve
been diving with turtles in the Pacific,
traveled around the US on a motorbike—
we’ve had a great time. Sometimes if he’s
on holiday I bring him along with me
[on assignment]. A few years ago we were
going on a skiing holiday ... and when on
our way in London the phone rang—as
it always does. There was an earthquake
in Italy, in Abruzzo, and they wanted me
to get on the next plane. I tried to say
‘no’ but they insisted so I went straight to
the airport and my son went back to the
hotel to get my luggage.” Daníel ended up
traveling with his father to Italy where Jón
covered the earthquake. “Later I thought,
‘forget skiing, let’s go to the beach and
then spend Easter in Rome.’ Daníel and
I decided to go for a swim. When we got
back to the car, we saw that it had been
emptied. We had nothing but the swim-
ming trunks we were standing in and I said
to Daníel, as I have often done when we
are traveling together: ‘What are we going
to do?’ He looked at me and took his credit
card out of his trunks. He’s the father of the
two, the sensible one.”
Daníel has also accompanied his father
on assignment to more dangerous loca-
tions, including Somalia and Libya. In
2011, Daníel was with Jón in Tripoli, Libya,
when a gun battle erupted outside the
Corinthia Hotel, where many foreign jour-
nalists were staying. When he was standing
in the middle of the shootout with his son
and his colleagues were crawling for cover,
he wondered what he’d dragged Daníel
into. To his surprise, his son looked at him
calmly and just shook his head. Jón says
that while no one expects him to jump at
the sound of bullets anymore—his nerves
have long since adjusted—he didn’t realize
that his son would also react so calmly.
Jón however insists that Daníel won’t be
following in his footsteps. “No, he has no
interest at all. He was actually bored—even
when the bullets started flying. This job
isn’t for everyone.” I ask about Sven, his
younger son. “He still has to be tested, he’s
only 11,” Jón replies.
JOURNALISM
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