Kirkjufell

Kirkjufell on a sunny Sunday : )

I mentioned recently on my facebook page that I don't have a fancy camera, just a 14mp pink compact Lumix and my iPhone 5.

Well, the iPhone, which I'd been using more often for conveniences'-sake, has been absconded by house-elves (in Icelandic búálfar - like in that movie The Borrowers) so on our recent trip to Snæfellsnes I only had my Lumix.

I have to say, though, that after all the HDR and ultra-saturation, all the sharpen and define and added contrast available via basic photo apps these
days, it's refreshing to see the soft, easy glow from a simpler camera, albeit one with fairly high pixel count for its time (I think mine is a 2011 model). Still not at all like real film, but closer. And sometimes, what you see with your true eyes isn't crazy sharp, ultra vivid landscapes and scenes, but a more gentle overall atmosphere, an ambiance, that crispy images can't describe. I guess it's why the filter craze took hold a few years back - people were trying to give a normal, clearly defined and too-true-color image some feeling, some heart. It was us pre-80's kids trying to go back to the film era, where you had to wait a few long days (before same-day developing) to see what you'd managed to get with your instamatic. And for the younger set, like my daughter who was born in '97, filters added that old-timey retro feel of the photos found in shoeboxes in attics and garages, blurred maybe, fading, images that would be deleted today, but were maybe the only decent ones from a certain moment in time, or of a person otherwise long gone.

So my Lumix gives a certain relaxed feel to the photos it takes (with my help) and in this instance, actually registers the fact that there was a very gentle haze in the air, the remnants of the morning fog that literally shrouded all of Kirkjufell until burning off into wispy clouds just as we got up close enough to take this photo.

I'm bummed about my missing phone - poor lost thing! - but I'm happy that I've rediscovered my other camera, and am getting images like this one, almost totally unretouched. As an added bonus, I'm spending much less time poking at a gadget when I have a few free minutes (and even when I actually really don't) and am looking up instead of looking down, and I'm witnessing the sky and the sights and the passers-by, in true color, less than vivid, almost as if I'm in a very realistic dream.

Tides

The heated foot bath at Seltjarnarnes 

As if someone turned on the lights, or as if the tide of seasons has turned, life in our city is bustling again. We can't honestly say winter is over, but most of us who live in cold climates will admit that we're willing to handle cold. It's dreary, murky darkness of the post holiday season and its slicing winds that do our souls in. We hunker down deeper into our parkas and wait for the sun to return.

 Make no mistake, it's still hovering around the frost mark here on our island, and some regions, like at the east coast fjords, haven't even seen beneath the past winter's snows yet (here's a link to live cameras over in the Reyðarfjörður area where
it's supposed to get to -10°C this weekend). But it's sunny! and that we can live with. (As a matter of fact, I'm sitting at Reykjavik Roasters - formally Kaffismiðjan - writing this, and at the next table an elderly gentleman just said, "Já, var að koma frá Austfjörðum, og það snjóar og snjóar...", or "I just came from the East Fjords and it snows and snows...").

Last week, when winter seemed to finally break for us here in the southwest, I went out to my favorite seawater-filled swimming pool at Seltjarnarnes (which I've shared photos of a few times before) to relax in the hot pots and enjoy the bright blue skies above. It was definitely not more than a few degrees above freezing outside, but I'll be damned if I didn't get a solid tan anyway. That's the magic of this country: like Japan's snow monkeys, we're fully committed as a people to lounging and playing as often as possible in our geo-thermally heated waters, soaking up as much vitamin D as possible while the sun shines, and even when it doesn't.

Afterwards, I decided to go out to near where the lighthouse is and take some pics, though I wasn't up for trying to go over the Grótta isthmus that leads to it for fear of getting stuck out there at high tide (which almost happened to me and Óðinn a few years ago, and I have to say it was nearly terrifying how fast the sea comes in and drowns that walkway! It's worth going out there, but please read the timetable sign for the tides!) The winds were whipping up the bay, turning it a gorgeous deep turquoise with crests of white accent, and I had hoped to be able to get that on 'film'. But all I had with me was my iPhone 5, and tit was no use trying to capture the depth and dimension of the sea view with that kind of camera. So I took a shot of an anchor and went back to my car.

The photo was good, but I wanted great, so I went back out the the seafront to try to frame the shot better. And that's when these two girls in pink bike helmets rode up, dumped their rides and gear on the grass, and headed out to the rocks below. They were probably fourth graders at most, and obviously lived close by as they seemed totally sure about what they were doing. First they went to the round heated foot bath and got some water in a plastic bottle they had. Then they kind of pranced down to a large tide pool,  discussed something amongst themselves, and chucked the bottle into it, totally satisfied. My first reaction was so adult it made me cringe, and I'm so glad I didn't follow through on it: they were littering! Didn't they know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that trash vortex endlessly swirling on the waters of the most magnificent of our Earth oceans? Didn't their parents teach them about responsible recycling? Who did they think they were?

And then I remembered being nine years old, out in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Bay, and how sometimes you had to fill a bottle with something and toss it out to sea. Worlds would fall apart if you failed to do so, and creatures unseen by grownup eyes might die! I made a conscious decision not to make a fuss, and to take some photos of them instead. When they came back up to the path, I asked if they'd sent out a message in that bottle, and one of the girls looked at me with keen eyes and said "Já já," the equivalent of "Yeah, sure," and they walked on past, got their bikes, and rode away.

(Click on the header to go to the main Iceland Eyes page. If you're a new visitor, be sure to visit the recommended pages below, or you can use the archives feature down at the bottom as well. I've just started collapsing older posts, so for full articles, hit the 'Read more' links . In addition, I reference my older posts quite a bit, and try to find the most relevant and unique external info sources, so let the links in my articles take you even further into the adventure that is Iceland.)


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Renovation

Sómastaðir, in Reyðarfjörður

You might recognize this house if you've been reading Iceland Eyes for a while. It's the one my great-grandfather, Hans Beck, built, and where my grandmother (one of his 23 children) was born (click on the link to read more about its history).


I  last wrote about in 2006 when it was still in disrepair, but now I'm happy to say it's been renovated to an amazingly fine degree by the National Museum of Iceland Historic Buildings Collection with funding from Alcoa, the aluminum company that has erected a smelter literally just across the street from the house, on a long thin plot of land that dips down from the road into the fjord below. Thankfully, the smelter is mostly hidden by the sloping landscape, and if you stand with your back to it you can almost imagine you're back in 1913 when my amma, Ásta Beck, was born.

And once again, one of the reasons I love blogging is that I just discovered this American Forests site detailing a reforestation project for the hillside behind the house, on Sómastaðafjall!

It was my mother, Ásthildur Brynjófsdóttir Roff's, birthday present to herself to go back to Reyðarfjörður with my father, my children and me and see what's been done with the old place. Though she was also born in the area, it was in the town proper, in an old corrugated-iron clad timber house named Tunga. We went there, and also in to Eskifjörður, and to the old Helgustaðir spar-stone mine which the SEEDS volunteer project worked on in 2009. They did a wonderful job of making the area visitor-friendly. Definitely visit their link to learn about spar-stone, or transparent calcite, which is littered all about the hillside mine area. And if you've seen the History Channel's Vikings series, you'll recall Ragnar using it the second episode to navigate to England!

We had a wonderful visit out east, and I HIGHLY recommend the region to travelers. It's one of the oldest settled areas in the country, with the second oldest geology. The people are kind, the landscape stunning, and the weather generally much better (or at least more specific) than in the south and west. It took me ten hours to drive home from Egilstaðir to Reykajvik in one shot, which I had to do, though I would of course recommend stopping and staying as much as possible along the way :+)

Post

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Ed Sweeney

Ed writes: One of the many things I've come to love about Iceland is the architecture. The straight, simple design combined with the vibrant colors makes the perfect combination for me. Because of this affinity (perhaps obsession is a better word) a lot of my photos tend to contain random structures, mainly houses. I saw this lovely blue-green house with the deep red door and stair railings and blue posts as I approached from up the street and began pulling my camera out of my bag in anticipation of the picture I would instinctively take. To my surprise as I got closer, I noticed the equally colorful sock stuck to the post. It seemed to me to sum up my perception of the Icelandic people I'd encountered on my visit : very neat and put together but with a wry sense of humor when you spend the time to get a closer look.

 Ed was born in Boston and has been a resident of Massachusetts his entire life. He's a programmer in an application development group for the health care industry. He's been reading Iceland Eyes for a while now, and sent me a link to his Flickr photo album of his most recent trip to Reykjavik via Twitter. I invited him to choose a few of his photos and be a guest photographer.

About discovering Iceland, Ed says:

The idea to make the trip in 1999 came about somewhat coincidentally over the preceding New Year's holiday. While at a holiday party, my hostess friend mentioned that her parents had visited Iceland earlier in the year and they raved about it. All I knew about Iceland up to that point was that the capital was Reykjavík, Reagan-Gorbachev something-something, and something to do with chess. It piqued my curiosity, however, as an interesting and exotic place to visit.

After his boss randomly mentioning a great package deal with Icelandair a short time later, Ed decided to make the trip happen, and three months later he was "geared up and mounted on our Icelandic horses for a nice afternoon ride in the mist."

On our first day we witnessed mist, rain, hail, snow, and sun. Then later that night we saw the sun set somewhere around 11:00 p.m., in early April. And with that (and the ensuing, unbelievably fun 3-night stay that followed) I was hooked on Iceland for good. The country is beautiful and the people are as friendly as ever. What's not to love? I finally returned again in June of 2012 and have just booked my third trip, along with a couple of friends who will be first-timers, for April 2013.

It's always fun hearing about how people got here for the first time, and often it's exactly this kind of seemingly random yet serendipitous situation. And most often our visitors, like Ed, can't wait to come back for more : )

To see a few more of Ed's photos with his wonderful descriptions, go to the Iceland Eyes Facebook Page.  If you would like to share your own pics of our lovely island, just let me know ~ Maria Alva

California

And then life slides you along and suddenly you're in California, right back where you started from... ~.~

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Junk

I had a very complex and most assuredly fascinating post forming in my newly latte'd brain, complete with photos and links of wonderful stuff, but managed to fully boggle myself and ended up going with simplicity: one shot of a reclamation center down by where the cruise ships dock and where you can get the ferry to Viðey to go see Yoko Ono's Imagine Peace memorial to John Lennon, among other things. This is also the exact location of the second potentially very toxic fire (most probably arson) last year (video here) that brought up once again the issue of having this kind of industry so close to residential neighborhoods. Though I agree that it should be moved, or at least that arsonists should stop setting old tires on fire, I love the colors and the overall retro feel of this scene. And as faithful readers know, I seem to have a thing for the typically not-so-pretty here in our little city. 

Ok, so I was honestly only going to post one short sentence, but since I'm holding a link fest here, I'll add this to the bunch: The Reykjavík Municipal Plan for 2001-2024. Read and enjoy!

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out.

Country

This iconic image was taken two years ago at that wonderful small family farm in Mosfellsdalur that Óðinn has gone to with his (former) leikskóli for the past three years. While trying to find info for the farm (which you are more than welcome to visit - an especial treat for children!) I found this website, Nature.is, (or Náttúran.is) which promotes itself as "an eco-conscious network" and a Green Pages for all things environmentally-friendly here in Iceland.

As lots of you know, this is one of the main reasons I love blogging: I find something new and fascinating every time : )

(Speaking of fascinating, if you haven't already, do go read Bayard Taylor's 19th century travelogue Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. The link takes you to a scanned copy of the original work via Archive.org that you can read online in e-book format. Skip to page 197 for Bayard's adventures in Iceland.)

Solstice

In Iceland it is also possible to find three-legged ginger cats hanging out by seaside football fields at midnight on the Summer Solstice. And young men dreaming of lands far, far away...

Puffin

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Birgir Gilbertsson

Happy 17th of June Independence Day, Iceland! Today we have a guest photographer, Birgir Gilbertsson, an optometrist at Optical Studio in Smáralind who has an excellent eye for Icelandic nature!

Here's what he writes about this very pretty puffin photo:

This picture was taken out at Dyrhólaey and it was the first time I ever went there. There was a lot of Lundi there and they were so used to have people close to them, that they didn't even bother. This one bird was a little bit closer than the others and I crawled slowly towards him. I managed to get very close and was very exited about that, started taking pictures and got that great shot :)

I love the moments when you have your camera with you and you get "lucky"! 

I've never met Birgir, who is also a triathlete and an Ironman finisher in his spare time, but through a twist of fate where I mistakenly thought that he had taken a certain gorgeous photo* and contacted him to see if I could use it, we began a light correspondance. Since he is also into amateur photography, I thought it would be fun to have him share his work here. He sent me a few shots to consider, and when I saw this little lundi I knew it would fit right in here on Iceland Eyes : )

*The photographer who took this shot admits to having added Photoshopped in the water and the reflection in it of our Harpa concert hall. It's a stunning shot and well conceptualized, but not reality.

Blómadagur

Someone told me that it's Blómadagur, or Flower Day, again on Skólavörðurstígur, though I'll have to
go wandering about myself to find out how reputable my source is since I can't find anything on the interwebs to confirm it.

In the meantime, here's a reposting of a classic Iceland Eyes photo from June 2006. The original text read:

The Saturday before last was Flower Day in Reykjavik. I went for a stroll with Óðinn in his belly pack and noticed that just about every woman I passed on Skólavörðurstígur (the street leading up to the big church) held a rose in her hand. Valentína, who was holding a tombóla with Marsibil at the top of Skólavörðurstígur told me when I went to visit their enterprise (they made over $25 each that day!) that someone was handing out flowers to women downtown, though she didn't know who. I didn't make it far enough on my walk to find out, but I did see this charming group of people with their watering cans. It must have been an acting troupe....they were very cute and kind of pranced about watering things like parking meters and garbage cans. We definitely more of this type of urban attraction here in our little city!

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Color

If you've been following Iceland Eyes for a while, you'll know that seeing our island macro-style is one of my passions. Here's some wonderful color to help you start your new June week

Beauty often displays in hidden places...
 

It's amazing what the inside of a classic tulip has to offer ~.~

Flight

I'm sure that a lot of you who've been here will get this picture, though maybe you'll find it as surprising as I did to see that it's a big huge Icelandair 757 buzzing the city center and not just a Fokker from Flugfélagið or a private jet that is coming in for a landing at the domestic airport which, of course, we're all used to.

I don't know if there was any specific reason why it landed in town instead of out at Keflavík, but don't be surprised when you visit if you hear the sound of an incoming plane. You might even make it a game to see if you can get an awesome belly shot as it zooms past overhead!*

*The best location for this is out at Hljómskálagarðinn by the town lake (link is to a photo and post by Professor Batty.) Oh, and here you can watch a live cam feed of Tjörnin, the town lake : ) 

Bay

To stave off any claustrophobia the last few posts might elicit, here's the big blue sea, with the Smoke City skyline in the distance.

I went on my first whale watching excursion last week, just as the weather was finally deciding to favor us with some spring sunshine. It was a group charter affair coordinated by Tækniskólinn as a fine sendoff for employees at the end of the school year. There were at least a hundred of us partaking in the bright sunshine and excellent catered surf and turf dinner on an Elding boat co-skippered by a guy named Vilhjálmur whom I just happen to know.

Oddly, the Elding diary claims that the 17:00 tour on the day we went out "has been cancelled due to strong winds out in the bay." We left at 17:15, and yes it was definitely windy! I wonder, though, if the fact that amongst our group were the very men who run the School of Navigation (located at our sister campus on Háteigsveig just next door to this lovely church many of you will recognize) had anything to do with us setting off onto the High Seas of Faxaflói regardless of any bothersome southerly gusts. These teachers of the oceanic arts most probably taught the captain, and definitely Vilhjálmur, who studied skipstjórn and graduated in 2011.

The tower of the Stýrimannaskólinn building was long used as the main guide for ships coming to port in Reykjavík, but as Haukur Gunnarsson, below, pointed out to me, this still-empty pre-crash  steel and glass wonder now blocks the view (see the skyline photo for proof.)

Some of us, including Haukur who teaches among other things Aviation English, chose to ride the waves adventure-style: standing on a bench on the top deck, holding onto a pole for balance. There's no doubt that we had way more fun up there getting all sea-salty than some of our poor slightly greenish-looking cohorts who chose to suffer it out below deck. And we even spied a few pods of dolphin to boot!

Moral of the story? Take a boat ride when you're here. Pack your foul weather gear and find a bit of railing to lean into. Let the ocean sprays wake you and make you feel like an old-style viking for a little bit. As you sail west, out of the bay, pretend you are on your way to mythical Greenland, just out of sight over the horizon, and possibly lands beyond. And keep your eyes open for creatures of the sea, who may put on a show that you can imagine is only just for you.

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Theater

(I'd like to remind readers to use the search box at the top left corner, in the Blogger toolbar. I've covered literally thousands of topics in the past eight years and there's a good chance I've covered the ones you're interested in! If not, drop a comment and let me know ;)


Þjóðleikhúsið, or the National Theater of Iceland, is quite a beautiful building, and it's always a pleasure going to see shows there. My wonderful mother Ásthildur gave Valentína and I tickets to go see Les Misérable there a few weeks ago and yes I cried at the end (and somewhere in the middle too, maybe?) It was an almost full house for a show that's been running since the beginning of March and has dates set at least through June. This shot is of the main stage just before the second act, when patrons were just beginning to meander back in.

It can be a bit weird attempting to suspend disbelief when watching the same people you bump into at Bónus (as well as at your kids' schools, the gas station, the pub, children's birthday parties...basically everywhere) pour their hearts out in character on stage (and there is a lot of dramatic pouring out of hearts in Icelandic theater!) but I guess it is a bit cosy as well.

This is not an easy musical to sing, so I actually found myself feeling proud of our talented and dedicated locals who obviously pushed themselves to new heights to bring this classic to the Icelandic stage. This talent of course includes not only actors, but set, lighting and sound designers as well!

I had no idea that there was a thing called the Theater Museum of Iceland, but maybe it's because they have no permanent exhibition space as is. Their web site, though, is rich in local theater history (that's actually what I wrote my BA in Theater Arts thesis on while at UCSC, where my lovely niece Mekkin Roff is now studying, and actually performing/teching in their annual Chautauqua Festival :)

If you are into the arts and get a chance to see a production, especially one where the language barrier won't affect you so much (a musical, opera or play you've seen/read in English) I recommend going in for an evening's experience - for such a small country, Icelanders almost always succeed in producing theater on an international scale.

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out.

Movement

A mother and her daughter exit a gate on a rainy May day at Óðinn's preschool, Grænaborg. He graduated yesterday in an official ceremony, complete with being called up to receive a diploma and rose, and to shake hands with the wonderful people who have been caring for him daytimes for the past four years. They're like family, and the safety and security of such a small school will be much missed.

But we grow and get older and change happens in our lives whether we like it or not. For a kid who just turned six this transition - from a cozy preschool campus to Austurbæjarskóli with its rich 82-year history, hundreds of students (many with families who have recently immigrated here) and geothermally-heated indoor swimming pool - is a huge deal. Never mind that the two schools are less than quarter mile apart, on either side of Hallgrímskirkja. This is as dramatic as an intercontinental relocation!

His father and I considered private schools, but ultimately I'm really glad that our boy will be attending an urban campus only yards away from our home, that encourages multicultural education without that drive to total assimilation into Icelandic society that has been such pressing and often destructive force here. (I often tell people that even though I am a 'pure-bred' I still choose to speak Business American on the phone when dealing with companies or banks or anything money related -- basically when people only hear me with my accent I seem to get much worse service! If I show up in person, though, and speak my Icelandic [which is admittedly a totally unique language ;] all is fine: I look Icelandic [whatever that means these days!] and am forgiven my less-than-perfect conjugations. *Not cool!*)

When Iceland opened itself up in the 80's to becoming an active part of the global capitalist conversation, allowing an influx of foreign goods and services to dilute the cultural 'purity' and isolationism of the previous centuries, it effectively gave up the ability to control the rampant growth and often destructive effects of consumerism. The foreign-born talent and labor that has followed in the wake of globalization, and especially the children of these immigrants, simply cannot be denied the same opportunities and rights as the 'pure-breds' whose ancestors have clung to this lava rock for over a millennia now.  A human is a human is a human, and we're all in this Life on Earth thing together. I'm happy that Óðinn will continue to get the chance to meet kids from all over the world at school, and grow from that experience : )

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out.

Crêpe

She had just made me an amazing organic-coffee latte, and now my daughter Valentína set herself to the the task (art?) of making a crepe at the ice cream store on Skólavörðurstígur, Eldur og Ís (they don't have a web site/Facebook page yet, but it's the only ice cream store that's actually open in midtown, as is.) This is her first official career move, and so far she's absolutely rockin' it! It helps that she speaks excellent English and has that American ease-of-smile and open demeanor (she was born in San Francisco :) that works so well in this line of business.

The owners have also spent time in California giving this small family-run store a friendliness that is often lacking in Iceland. Let's not sugar things here: Icelanders are not known for being so adept at expressive hospitality

So if you're on your way to our island for the first time, please don't take the cool rudeness personally! (In his amazing 19th century travelogue Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874, Bayard Taylor writes, "The common people - if one has the right to use such a word as "common" to describe such a people - are still something of a puzzle to me. Except among our Indian tribes I never saw such stoical, indifferent faces." pg. 218)  If you are lucky enough to get good, friendly service at a store or restaurant, go ahead and let the person know that you appreciate it. There's no tipping culture here, and Icelanders are horribly negligent about showing appreciation for a job well done. Slowly but surely, with increasing international influence, the service culture here is being massaged into something the average traveler can feel comfortable with. So go ahead and take part in whatever way you can!

And so without further ado, I here present the result of Valentína's artistry, the absolutely delicious Nutella, strawberry and vanilla ice cream crepe:

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

May Sun

We've all seen the gorgeous photos of the Saturday's Super Moon over Reykjavík, so I thought I'd give our lovely Sun some press as well.

I posted this originally in May 2006, when I wrote: I'll let this one speak for itself... (p.s. this was taken from our balcony at around 11 pm in early May.)

Property

Another weird wonder we found just around the corner from our house, this gutted building at Frakkastígur 16, just below Kaffismiðja Íslands and the corner shop Drekinn and where the music and instruments store Rín* lived for forty years before moving to Brautarholt in 2004, has become a canvas for street artists while its future is being decided. You can play around with this interactive map of Reykjavik to find the streets mentioned in this post...

I found some interesting info on this location: the property just below it takes an L-shaped turn up to Njálsgata, and is where the Ölgerðin Egill Skallagrímson brewery used to be. I remember very well being able to smell the almost too-rich aroma of a new batch of Malt Extrakt being brewed there before they moved out to Grjótháls. In the corner crook created by the fairly new apartment complex built on the site of the old brewery (btw, the 1100 square meter site was bought by the City for a sweet 37 million krónur back in 2000...good god how times have changed! That amount might buy you an average three bedroom apartment a tenth that size today) sits the Drekinn house built in 1905, a blue cement building from 1943, and this now-rundown structure. It seems its owners have requested permission to tear down at least six times since 2006, though it looks like the local building preservation society has had a hand in making sure that didn't happen, and there seems to have been a co-owner of the lot that also refused to agree on demolition. Ultimately, I'm sure it was the bank crash that set any grand real estate intentions on ear, seeing as the last specific mention I could find was an August 2008 photo report of abandoned houses in the midtown area by the Prevention Department of the Capital District Fire and Rescue Service, when there was still enough money floating around to bitch and squabble over who would get what share of the prosperity pie. Sigh.

The picture below is one I took last fall of some nice visitors who stopped to snap a classic shot of the Drekinn shop.

And here below? Just some nuns, and just for fun : )

*Some of the links in this post are in Icelandic...sorry I wasn't able to find anything in English with the same info, but now you've got more material to practice your language learning with! 

Memory

Thank you to those of you who commented on the previous post. I've fully absorbed the overall message that more photos is a good thing, and I'll try to do my best to satisfy your image cravings. I'm keeping this post short, though, and presenting a dramatic color juxtaposition I encountered last Friday night, which turned out to be one of those most enjoyable long, long evenings that make you very glad to live in such an alive and bursting little city.

I'm sharing this ubiquitous image of our famous Hallgrímskirkja (which I've decided is our own personal sacred pyramid) because it is so very blue, and because soon enough we won't even have this azure twilight to swim in; as the sun rises and rises in the sky and the leaves fill out on the trees, the street lamps will stay unlit and we'll, for a few summer months, forget what evening, and especially night, look like. And after the long slow, cold winter we've had, that will be very welcomed for sure.

The photo below was chosen for, of course, its absolute rouge and also as a permanent reminder of this night in particular, partially soundtracked by our own neo-psychedelic indie wonder, Singapore Sling. It was, just honestly, a Friday the 13th to remember forever. If you were there, you'll know what I mean ~°~

Stroll

Some shots from a recent Saturday walk around the neighborhood...

I don't usually share more than one or two, maybe three, pictures per post, which has helped me to really have to choose images that resonate with me, or that prompt some writing. So this post is out of character. I'm actually working on creating ebooks for download with walking tours of our world here, with short descriptions of the scenes I run across. This is a very basic sampling of that concept:

This charming girl was sitting on Klapparstígur with a sign that reads, "I am a French woman," in not-so-grammatically-correct Icelandic. The two men are local down-and-outers. I have no idea what her purpose was, but she was having fun.

~.~

I'd seen this tourist down on Austurstræti with her friend/companion. Here she's taking a rest on the way up Bankastræti, with the Government House in the background.

~.~

Up the hill, at the intersection of Skólavörðurstígur and Laugavegur, a wacky girl band was collecting money for the Red Cross, which made everyone smile.

~.~

Even though I love getting shots of color and life here in the city, I'm also fascinated by dereliction and decay, especially when examples can be found right close classic tourism areas. I knew the family that lived in this house on Baldursgata, just off Skólavörðurstígur, in the early 90's and it's sad to see how dismal it has become. The graffiti reads, "Correct me," while the shockingly large asp that's growing from the crack between the foundation and sidewalk is both a testament to neglect and to Nature's tenacious will to thrive.

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Just a bit farther down Baldursgata is another house in a very sorry state. It burned in November, 2008, just after the bank collapse, which gave it the suspicious smack of arson, especially given its recent history. A sad sight, for sure.

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The interesting thing about this location is that it clearly shows how decay doesn't have to mean ugly. I've passed by this backyard shed on Kárastígur (where our favorite hostel, Our House, is located) a hundred times and have always loved the remote Eastern European feel of this scene.

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After all this walking I needed some nourishment, so I stopped by the Noodle Station and got to listen to the romance victories and woes of these American (Canadian?) girls at the next table. We love Noodle Station!

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After eats, I spotted an acquaintance of mine who looked so retro-metropolitan cute that I had to ask her to pose for me.

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And finally, to wrap up this post with another splash of red corrugated iron, is this shot of a classic wood-frame house peeking over the fence of a very weathered home on Frakkastígur, which I'm sure many of you have passed on your travels through town : )

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Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )