Öskjuhlíð

Öskjuhlíð Forest in Reykjavik

Click on the header to go to the main Iceland Eyes page, and be sure to visit the recommended pages below each post or use the archives feature down at the bottom as well. 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 : )

Saturday was a perfect day for outdoor adventures here in Reykjavik. I started thinking of all the cool places we could go in the surrounding area for a nice walk or hike, including Heiðmörk, Esja (also take a look at the MountEsja.org webcam), Straumsvík, the Hengill area between Hveragerði and Þingvellir, or even just having Óðinn pick a trail out of the book I translated, Walking Trails of the Greater Reykjavik Area: 25 Beautiful Walks (...and lo and behold!
another groovy internet discovery made while looking for a good article to link to: this post by a family who used that very book and blogged about their adventure on Walk no. 1 around Straumsvík!)

When I told him of my plan he said, "Awesome! If I get to choose, then let's have a picnic at Öskjuhlíð!" (btw, that link leads to a great article on the WWII history of that area.)

I had wanted something more unusual than just the forest on the hill right over there, a three and a half minute drive away, but that's what he wanted, and in fact it made sense to stick closer to home since a bank of dark grey clouds loomed on the far horizon. So we grabbed a backpack and fixin's for pb&j sandwiches (part of my American heritage that I've passed on to my kids, but not historically popular at all here in Iceland...as a matter of fact, I don't remember peanut butter even being available here twenty years ago) and off we went!

I have to admit I'm always pleasantly surprised by how lovely and calm it is there, just minutes from the bustle of the city. Óðinn wondered if we'd see any animals during our meal, knowing full well we don't have the kind of beasts here in Iceland you'd find at a picnic in California, for example (no squirrels, no ants, no raccoons, no bears, no too-bold little birdies ; ) There are definitely bucketloads of rabbits on the hill, but I've only seen glimpses of them darting away myself.

But to our surprise, just as we were done laying out our picnic blanket and were getting ready to start munching on our sandwiches, a happy Icelandic Sheepdog came bounding up, trying to sneak into our donuts! Its owner whistled for it a moment later, and as quickly as it came it was gone.

Just as we set off for our hike through the woods, though, another even more gorgeous animal came arrived....the beautiful golden Lab (is that right?) pictured, who took a deep fancy to Óðinn's walking stick. She found us again and again over the next half hour in between being called away by her person. We were also lucky enough to see, and sometimes just sense, all sorts of otherworldly beings over the next few hours, the kind that don't usually choose to be recorded. And on that note, ground has been officially broken at Öskjuhlíð for a new Pagan Temple, the first high temple of its kind in the world in almost a thousand years. That's good news!

So if you end up getting burnt out on doing touristy stuff here, if you've seen one too many museums or you can't stand the idea of another souvenir shop presenting products for your purchasing pleasure, let your feet guide you over to the forest underneath the big shiny Perlan dome. Such a simple adventure, but I promise your spirit will feel renewed ~°~

A large Elven Stone at Öskjuhlíð  

Note: the dogs we met were officially breaking the law, or at least their humans were, by not being on leashes. Though I get it, it still makes me sad, seeing how friendly these two were, and how much natural fun they were having. This Iceland Review article by focuses on canine life in our big little city, a place that's nearly overrun with cats, as is. Maybe some day I'll write about how the Reykjavik police back in the late 40's captured my father's beloved dog, put it in a burlap sack and made the whole family watch while they shot her, including my dad, who was no more than nine at the time...but that's probably more than you wanted to know... (believe me, though, I'm very glad to not have dog-doings all over our sidewalks and parks!)

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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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Bound

Njálsgata, midtown Reykjavík

( Note: this is my 703rd post, so if you're a new visitor, be sure to follow the 'Older Posts' link at the bottom right side of this page. 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 : )

Well well, best laid plans, etc...

We haven't yet made it to lands east, as per my last post. Take a good look at this slightly awkward photo and you'll see that a portion of our house is bound to our tree, and that the roof and gutter are in bad shape. Gale-force winds in mid-March happened to be blowing at exactly the right angle to pry their surreptitious fingers under the corrugated iron and literally make red metal wings out of it, seeming to flap in some desperate take-off attempt, held down only by decades-old nails set in the much older wood frame. Luckily,
a neighbor saw it happening and called Björgunasrveit Ársæll, the local search and rescue squad, and they came super promptly to bind it down, though there was definitely enough for them to do that morning! (there are 59 photos in the series I just linked to, so be sure to click through them all ; )

Not that the roof is the only reason I'm calling off any big moves right now. If you look even closer still at my picture you can see that the dressing (siding?) is cracked and old, and during the process of trying to sell my apartment (which is through the opened door in the pic) it came to light that at least one other owner of the property had been sorely neglecting his apartment, and renting it out as an absentee landlord. Suffice to say that ýmislegt kom í ljós ('miscellaneous things came to light') that directly affected the infrastructure of our building, and thus shared cost for repairs. I had buyers who were willing to take my place as-is, but the haggling process was wearing me down, and that tendency of people to pick at a thing until they find the flaw they're looking for (and possibly creating that very flaw in the process, in this case visualizing years down the road when this or this or that issue would eventually come up, and trying to bargain for a discount based on that) just took the shine off of the whole plan in general.

It's an old house. As a matter of fact it's 20 years older than any of us thought, and thus has automatic Protected Status with the Minjastofnun (The Cultural Heritage Society of Iceland.) When I discovered that, I decided to stay put for the while and invest in helping to preserve our old house, much loved but sorely in need of maintenance to stand the tests of time.

I wrote this one evening while contemplating the chaos of selling. It's really what made me decide to put big moves to other towns on the back burner, and focus my attention on what I've got right now:

I love the house we live in. I own (with the bank) twenty five percent of the house, built in 1905 and located on lot number 34. We have a functional, well-organized, clean and sunny backyard (on good weather days that is, though all weather is interesting in its own right) and the tallest tree on the block, proudly. Our house is dressed in crushed sea shells, a millennia worth of spittle from the strange mouths of mollusks from far away, where the Gulf Stream begins. Who knows from where these clams and such came, or from what era. Regardless, they, in crushed form collected from semi-local beaches, have been, handful by handful cast fast onto a fine but hearty layer of dressing cement. It took skill and days, and is sadly now cracked in many places. The shells themselves retain their strength, but their size allows for the cement to break apart at stress points, and form long, dark, thin ribbons on the facade of the house with no real damage to the beach stuff itself. So sadly, though the originators of the idea had a brilliant theory in concept, in practice the medium in which the everlasting (or at least waterproof) shells were set was simply not strong enough to stand the tests of time: wind, wetness, wild fluctuations in temperature, and earthquakes. Who first thought of this idea? And would the supposed theory have matured into well-respected fact if the right setting medium had  been used to attach all that history to the house in the first place?

It's just a house. Just there, like all the other gazillion I've never been in. Just a house, but who built it, and how has it changed in 110 years? Who lived here, who loved, and if anyone, who was born or died? A basic house, even though dressed with the spit of a million mollusks made into shells over spans of time. But as many have said before me, a house is a story, and that story can keep growing and evolving in many beautiful ways. Or it can fester into hatred and rot. Ill will, or worse, apathy can ruin the saga of a space, especially those not built by stone, but more absorbent stuff. Like a sponge, the timber of our houses absorbs the energy radiating from its occupants, sometimes toxic. One unloved space, or one space that though loved isn't within the means of the inhabitants to maintain, decays in spirit. Renters resent that an owner doesn't come to fix a leak, buy replacement parts, repay them for new paint or other small or significant acts of repair. So though loved, the space absorbs the tenants' frustration, and saddens even further. A house needs love, and effort, to survive. 

In warmer regions, houses stand empty in the many thousands, covered in vines and rogue blooms that grasp at the chance to grow closer to the light with their help. The deep, deep desire to feed more and more purely, unhindered by the shadows of other plants, is the only fact, the only reality. Up, and reaching new shoots up, the vines and growth break down their helpful scaffold, adding damp and a trillion, trillion-fold minuscule green fingers into the the wood or neglected cement, finding the holes bored by beetles, the cracks and weak spots in the body of their host. They take down what gives them life, or at least gets them closer to their photon source: our Sun. The sheer weight of the floras' abundance topples the once-homes of someones. Without maintenance and care, in only a few short years plants (or in colder climes just weather itself) can reduce a once-loved home back into the elements from which it came. 

(Note: I  found out from the Minjastofnun that the idea of dressing buildings like ours came into fashion in the 30's as a way to make timber houses look like cement ones. In fact, my unit in our building is the only original part of the house: the other four apartments were added on over the past century, and when a cement addition was put into place, the corrugated iron was taken off and the dressing/siding put up instead. It's pretty much agreed today that it was not a good idea as the timber structure can't breathe as well as it can with corrugated iron, and had a tendency towards rot. When we replace the dressing/siding we'll find out how much that affects us : / Oh, and I was informed that, yes, the sea shell coating is rare, but almost impossible to replace because all of the beaches here are protected. 

If you're interested in the history of my part of old-town Reykjavík (the Njálsgata area) here's a report detailing each house in a four-block radius. It's in Icelandic, but it's got some pictures too : ) And here's the city website where you can see all of the architectural plans for local buildings. The link goes directly to my property.)

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Callings

Beautiful murals just off of Bergstaðastræti in the heart of Reykjavik, 

I've tried to quit this blog quite a few times in the past decade, but have always felt compelled to post just one more photo, just one more entry. Historically I've announced my decision with explanations and justifications and excuses, which have been hard to backtrack on when the urge to share has overtaken me. This time around I took a quite pause from posting because it just seemed to make sense to. It was a part of an overall readjustment for me, a realignment with my inner self that lasted all of last Fall.

When I quit Iceland Eyes in 2012, it was to focus on writing 88, the work of semi-fiction I'd been planning to write for at least a decade, and it had to happen exactly during the autumn of that year. A year later I came roaring back, fresh with the vigor of having finally gotten printed copies of my book delivered to my door. I felt ready to tackle anything, even the Entire Internet! I was updating my fb fan page and Iceland Eyes twitter feed almost daily and crowing about my little paperback to anyone who'd listen. I was sure I'd, at the same time, be super diligent about starting a second book, and maybe follow through on the podcast idea a friend had. Around the same time the BBC World Service contacted me and asked me to be a guest on their World Have Your Say show (to listen to the pretty interesting Iceland portion, start at 27:00 minutes) as a specialist on all things Icelandic, twice! There'd been some political hiccups in my career as an English teacher at a local technical college, but I was sure I had a second life in full force as an online presence, and started dreaming of being able to quit in the most responsible and profitable manner. All was looking good!

So what was it that lead me to slow to a stop late this summer, to quietly disappear from all social media related to this blog? I had to go inwards, to a quiet place, especially with all the new 'noise' being generated here by our burgeoning tourist economy. So many visitors, so many photos posted online, so many articles and reviews...so much publicity for our little island, and so many locals competing for the almighty tourist buck! Living here in the very heart of the city, walking past all the visitors who are bussed up to Hallgrímskirkja every day to take photos and see the downtown sights, watching decades-old specialty shops being turned into souvenir stores and apartment rental prices skyrocketing as space after space is turned into a guesthouse has been...challenging. I hold no grudge against any of this (except the rental prices for my friends' sakes...I own my apartment, so am not directly affected) and I actually feel that this increase in tourism is helping Iceland to mature in many ways. But it gets overwhelming, and I just wanted to sit back, breathe deep, and watch the flow from somewhere still inside of me. And so I did.

Recently, though, my sister Addy and her family (who live out in Cupertino still, in the house we grew up in - a gorgeous Eichler with a lemon, grapefruit and kumquat tree in the backyard) came to visit my parents who moved back here about eight years ago. She and I were chatting about life in general, and she told me that she was going to give me a book she'd had recommended to her, entitled Callings, by Gregg Levoy. It's all about, you guessed it, callings...those aspects of life that we refuse to answer at our peril, those intuitive drives and urges that keep directing us towards a goal or towards some thing (a career, a hobby, a location, a mindset...) that we will always feel un-whole without. Being handed this book has been totally apropos for two reasons...one, it made me realize that sometimes you are called to do somthing that you may not even enjoy all the time, but that compels you in both internal and external ways to take part in (this blog, for example), and two, that I definitely also feel called to engage more fully in the eco-sustainability movement here in Iceland (I'll be posting more about that the months to come.)

So, after a spell of returning to my personal source of inspiration and discovering a way to see our new Iceland with new eyes, I'm happy to be posting again. I've realized that I'm not able to let this space become some kind of promotional venue for the curious potential visitor, with attending hype and media noise,  but will let it stay being what it's always been: a place for me to share my own personal Iceland in my own way, with anyone who'd like to stop by ~.~

Iceland

I've promised to keep some personal updates coming and it seems a nice idea to turn this blog into a kind of journal/ photo album to remind me of things in the future.  So here's a nice reminder of our Iceland trip a couple of weeks ago and some thoughts/ reflections on the place.

Iceland Trip 3/11/14 - 5/11/14

Flying Birthday Visit

I'd been to Iceland for 4 days once before, in July 2001.  I wasn't sure whether going in late autumn would be such a cunning idea, given the length of the days and what I assumed would be really bad weather.  Mind you, it had rained pretty much the whole time in July and hit a maximum of 13C AND it was Ste's birthday on 4 November and you can't really change when that falls.  He might be a queen, he's not the Queen, so doesn't get two birthdays.  So, off we went just for 2 nights, just literally to go somewhere cool (perhaps in both senses) to celebrate his 22nd.

I wanted everything to be really special, so we had valet parking (oooh get us) and then continued proceedings with free food and drink in the Manchester airport business lounge.  It was Ste's first visit to one, and one he made the most of.  I think he managed to pack away four bacon rolls, which is probably a good proportion of some poor pig's entire leg.  We flew Icelandair, which was really calm, classy and lovely.  I was surprised it was only a 2.5 hour flight, given we started a bit further north than London to start with.

Free food \o/ Free Food \o/

We arrived about 3pm to the most utterly brilliant blue skies and sunshine imaginable.  Iceland's landscape is like no other.  There are volcanoes, lava fields, the dramatic coast line, and miles and miles of unspoilt nothing.  It was spectacular to see it all so clearly.

I'd looked into packages with the various excursions I wanted to do included, but decided a hire car and doing it ourselves would be much more flexible, and more pleasant than hanging around for transfer buses etc.  So we picked up our little VW Polo and our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, which is between Keflavik airport and the capital Reykjavik, just under an hour away.  The first thing I checked was for the snowflake symbol on the tyres: yup, it has snow tyres and they were going to come in handy quite unexpectedly the following day.

Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is a dream location.  It's a large man-made pool with water from the neighbouring geothermal plant, and it's surrounded by blackened lava fields.  The water comes out of the ground at absurdly high temperatures and pressures, but by the time it reaches the pool it's "only" around 39C.  That is the most delightful temperature on a day where it's 2C, as it was for us.   There's a typically beautiful Nordic glass, wood and steel complex where you get changed, can shower and eat... and then step straight into the milky blue water of the lagoon.  You can see the sun going down behind Ste and the steam coming off the water.  Heaven.

Blue Lagoon Posterboy!

People advised me on Twitter that the "in water massage" couldn't be missed, so I thought what the heck, it's his birthday and we've come all this way.  So I booked us each one, not knowing what to expect.  It's pretty much what it says on the label: you lie on a table in the water for the first part, then they transfer you to a float while they massage your head, shoulders and face.  You're wrapped in a warm towel the whole time, and when you're on your back it feels like you're in amniotic fluid.  You finish up in some kind of trance: it's an amazing, amazing experience.

Ste back in the womb

The water at the lagoon is very rich in silica and other minerals: apparently it's extremely good for people with various skin conditions.  You can scoop it up off the bottom of the pool, or there are barrels of it where you can paste it all over your face.  We of course couldn't resist the opportunity of this and had to do a double-selfie.  Look at the colour of the sky behind us: during the 3 hours we spent there it went from brilliant sunshine, through sunset into the most perfect clear night with stars visible with zero light pollution.  The Lagoon stays open until 8pm off-season and up to 11pm in the summer.

SMILE: It's Halloween!

Reykjavik

By the time we headed on to the hotel to check in the temperature was down to about -2C.   The roads are smooth, straight and easy to drive on and we checked in about 8.30pm.  We stayed at the Hilton Nordica, which I can't praise more highly.  Hiltons can be a bit [a lot] characterless and bland, but this one had some real Nordic design flair about it, including the stunning 11 storey central spiral staircase.  They upgraded us to a gorgeous junior suite too, which is always guaranteed to get me to write a nice review on Tripadvisor. Yes, I am that cheap/easy. 

Not often you feel the need to photo a hotel staircase

An added bonus for us of the Hilton for me was the unexpected surprise of finding that Reykjavik's best vegetarian restaurant is literally a minute away, across the road.  It's called Glo and serves huge, healthy, organic, delicious veggie meals in a really stylish environment.  I hate veggie restaurants that look like grotty student dives where a free helping of food poisoning comes with every meal, so this was bliss.

Even better there was a gaggle of chatty lesbians having supper, which added to the atmosphere.  Iceland is famously LGBT friendly (they had the first out lesbian PM, social democrat Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir back in 2009) and it's worth just noting that we didn't have a moment's awkwardness checking into the hotel or at any other time in the visit.  In fact, the only time we've had any awkwardness anywhere about being a same sex couple was in a supposed trendy urban hotel in Shoreditch (the Hoxton: yeah you deserve to be named and shamed, fuck you) and in a tea rooms in North Wales where presumably if my partner had been a sheep all would have been fine.

We pottled down to the centre of Reykjavik after supper for a walk round.  Almost 2/3 of the country's 325,000 inhabitants live in and around the capital, but it feels like a small, cosy, typically Nordic town.  The houses are brightly painted, often with metal or wooden sides, it's prosperous, tidy and safe.  90% of all buildings in Iceland are heated by free, endlessly renewable geothermal power, so the air is clean.  Although the country took a real battering during the 2008 economic crisis, GDP per capita is still $50,000 and unemployment is under 4.5%.

Hallgrímskirkja. Try saying that when you're drunk.

My favourite building here is the parliament building: the Alþingi.  It's the world's oldest parliament, dating back to 930, but the building it's located in looks like a British provincial town hall.  It's so wonderfully understated.  I started boring Ste about the linguistic meaning ("All" means everything, or great in old Germanic, and a "thing" is a meeting) but the sub-zero temperatures were making his eyes glaze over.  I think it was the temperature, anyway.  The Hallgrímskirkja Church towers over the capital from every angle and is a futuristic 1930s art-deco design.  It's looks all very Gotham City.  Apart from that, Reykjavik is charming enough, but to be frank it's not a reason for visiting the country.

BIRTHDAY BOY

I woke Ste up at 6.30am, which is always guaranteed to go down well.  You can see how full of beans and the joys of life he is in the photo below.  The point of the card is that it contained his surprise: "This card entitles the lucky birthday boy to a 1.5 hour Husky Ride Experience with Dog Sledding Iceland.  Begins at 10.00am on 4 November 2014. Bring gloves, a coat and a camera!"  The cuddly husky that accompanied the card is the one I photographed for the front a few weeks before and ordered from Moonpig.  We later christened him "Grauman" after the cutest, naughtiest, husky in the pack that pulled our sleigh.  He had to wear a cone when he wasn't out working, to stop him from licking his balls, which is always endearing.

It's awake! Birthday Boy :-)

The husky ride was 1.5 hours drive from the hotel, in the south of Iceland.  It was still pitch black until well past 9am, which is interesting.  One of the main arguments against Britain going onto double-summer time (i.e. being in the same time zone as almost all the rest of the EU) is that the Scots don't want it to be dark in the morning in the winter.  Iceland is far further north than Scotland, and by rights should be an hour behind us because of their geographic position.  Instead they've chosen to be in the same time zone as Britain, so that it stays lighter later in the evening.  The flipside of that is it's dark in the mornings, and they're apparently happy with this.  Today, for example, sunrise was at 10.40am in Reykjavik and sunset was at 3.52pm.  If I had the choice I'd do just the same.  Sunrise in London today would be at 8.42am and sunset at 4.56pm, if we did the same thing Iceland does.

Husky Ride

So after a nice long hotel breakfast we drove off, in the dark, and arrived at the isolated farm where the huskies spend their time when they're not up on a glacier for the summer season, or on lower snow covered land in the winter.  This meant it was a ride on a sleigh with wheels, over dry land.  It was pretty much the same experience (particularly the "cold factor" given the 1C temperature and rain) and we had 8 dogs pulling us.  Working in those temperatures for them is apparently the equivalent of us running a half marathon in the tropics: they can't be pushed too hard as it really is warm for them.

Husky Ride!

They're technically Greenlandic Dogs, rather than Siberian Huskies.  Each can pull up to 200kg on their own, so they made light weight of us, even despite breakfast and Ste's bacon rolls the day before.  We were seated and the lovely musher stood behind us and talked to us throughout about the dogs.  Here's a short video of the part of the proceedings!  At the end we got to meet all the dogs in person, including one who had been the star of David Guetta/ Sia's mesmerising She Wolf video, filmed in Iceland. Apparently she's all full of herself now she's a movie star.  Below is real life Grauman back in his run.  Bless him: he was SO happy pulling the sleigh, and so miserable when he had his cone put back on his head.

Poor Licky Balls :(

Doing dog-related is bound to make Ste incredibly happy, and I think he thought the day's treats were over after we'd given the huskies cuddles.  Instead I told him to get in the car as we had more places to visit.

Geysir

We left the south coast behind as the rain really set in late morning.  It was around 1.5 hours to our next stop, which was north and a lot higher geographically.  I hadn't really thought that it would snow, but all of a sudden the rain changed to sleet, then a few kilometres on to thick white snowflakes.  The roads are untreated, and this would cause utter chaos back home.

Winter Wonderland

Everyone is driving on winter tyres though (including us, remember?!) and I was amazed at how the little Volkswagen handled with them.  Going up hills or around roundabouts, all through fresh snow, proved to be no issue whatsoever. The scenery became beyond beautiful, especially with the snow.  It was even better than I'd remembered it from my trip before in 2001.

We stopped for lunch at Geysir, which gives its name to all geysers in English - it was the first hot water spring of this type known to Europeans.  I was really impressed there was no entry charge to pay: you just park and wander up freely.  It's actually a collection of springs and sulphorous pools bubbling out of the ground, with Strokkur doing all the money-shot work, as Geysir himself has temporarily stopped blowing water.  Apparently he will start up again after the next earthquake in the area. 

I

In the meantime Ste decided to play with his little geezer in the car park, which I thought made quite a charming pic.  The geysir "blows" about every 5-8 minutes and there's always a massive "ooooh" from the assembled crowd, followed by a "did you get it?".  The snowy sky doesn't do the scene justice: if you are here on a sunny day the photographs are absolutely stunning.  That said, do click here on this link to me videoing the whole thing with Ste's obligatory "did you get it?" at the end.

That guy is smoking!

Gullfoss Waterfall

From Geysir it's only around half an hour to Gullfoss, the next surprise on the trip: Iceland's Golden Waterfall.  It's the largest in Europe and apparently more impressive than Niagra.  It's a three-staged staircase that ends up in a 100 foot drop and was magnificent in summer.  In winter we just stood entranced for ages (well, between selfies anyway).  I feel this is worthy of several photos for the album, so here we go:

The main "Staircase". Look at the cold in my eyes!

To get an idea of scale, those are two people on the right

Double Selfie. No he isn't far taller than me. He's on a rock.

Our trusty little Volkswagen Polo hire car.

Afternoon Tea

It was now late afternoon, so we drove back through the Þingvellir National Park the 2.5 hours or so to Reykjavik for Ste's last birthday treat.  The whole way beautiful view after beautiful view greeted us.  It stopped snowing, the sun came out and then dusk arrived.  We got back, had a hot shower, and then it was time for Icelandic Afternoon Tea at the Hilton.

We do love a good afternoon tea!

I obviously had the veggie version, but we're not convinced that Ste didn't have both reindeer and puffin for his.  I particularly love the way Ste is mainly vegetarian when I'm not around, and then sensitively eats anything that breathes when I'm present. And SORRY KIDS, if Father Christmas doesn't make it this year with all your presents you'll know why.  Ste ate Rudolph.

Bye bye Rudolph, Donner and Blitzen

With that it was time to snuggle up in the world's most comfortable hotel bed, watching TV, and getting an early night for our 8am flight back to Manchester the following day.  Ste gave me the most incredibly perfect birthday in Beijing in April, so I did my best to return the favour.

Iceland, EEA and Schengen

After we returned the car and checked in at the airport, I mused how irritating it was that we had to go to a separate section of the airport reserved for US and UK flights.  Yes, Iceland is in Schengen and has signed up to the EU free movement of people as part of its membership of the EEA.  Anyone from within the EU can live and work here and claim its no doubt extremely generous social benefits if people were driven to do such things (they aren't). 

I thought about all those things you hear about Britain being a special case (We're an island! Our space is limited and our resources would be put under unbearable strain! They would all come pouring over to take advantage of our benefits!) would seem to apply far more so to a socially minded country like Iceland with just 325,000 inhabitants. Yet you can take a flight from Warsaw or Budapest to Reykjavik with no passport check and there's no equivalent of entering Fortress Britain.  In fact Iceland relies hugely on immigration to get the skills it requires and has no issue about the passportless European free travel zone that Schengen represents.

2014: A Year for Travel

This year was a phenomenal one for me with foreign travel.  I keep a little record of where I've been to each year and a grand total (currently 65 countries visited ever).  A "good year" averages about 14 countries a year for me.  Three times I've been to 17 countries in a single year.  2014 was a new record: from China to New Zealand to Iceland to Australia to all round Europe, I visited 22 countries this year.

World Domination Plans continue..  65 countries and counting!

It was the year in which I visited the land of the red earth, and the land of ice.  And on that note I'll leave these two beautiful images of similarly sized massive lumps of rock that sum up my 2014 travels for me.  The first photo was at Ayer's Rock (Uluru) in Australia in February.  It was 40C.  The second was at the Þingvellir National Park in Iceland in November.  It was -2C.  What a contrast.  The world holds so many treasures: here's to much more exploration in the coming years!

Fire

Ice

Poison

Sunset from Ægissíða in the west side of Reykjavík

Sunsets and sunrises have been extraordinarily lovely here due, unfortunately, to the poisonous sulfur dioxide cloud that's being emitted by our latest volcano and gently wafted over the southwest of the island by a calm breeze. Savor the irony of that for a moment, then consider whether that's not an exact metaphor for life in general...

Flight

Everything this represents...

***

Note: 88 ~ A Love Letter to an Island is now available as an ebook as well as in print. A few reviews:

"I love how you piece together different fields from science, daily life and the slightly supernatural areas into a coherent, involving description of life in this city." ~ Thomas Dähling

"Wow! All I can say is wow! Your book changed my life...When are you starting on the next one? ~ Guðmann Þór Bjargmundsson

"I'll just say that reading this slim volume is nothing like a genteel browsing through a personal memoir, it's more akin to diving into a psychological mælstrom. 'Alva' taps into some very deep primal forces in an internal monologue which takes place in the span of 88 days." ~  Professor Batty, Flippism is the Key.

Cool

I wonder if those of you who aren't so into music but who love to follow all things Icelandic are tired of hearing about our Airwaves festival. It's definitely been all over all types of media here for the past week, flooding Twitter feeds and print newspapers and everything in between with rave reviews and slightly blurry, colorful concert photos. It wrapped up on Sunday, but even though the music's over we've still got plenty of visitors hanging out, doing last minute touristy-type things, like going to the top of Hallgrímskirkja or buying last-minute postcards for their mothers. In fact, I'm sitting here in the newly-rechristened Kaffismiðjan (it's Reykjavík Roasters now) with three brand-new and very interesting Airwaves friends hearing the happy chatter of international voices surrounding us.

I'm glad I ended up seeing so many excellent and entertaining Icelandic musicians at off-venue sites around town (scroll down the Iceland Eyes Twitter feed for many of the bands I saw.) Their sets were usually on the short side, but when you get to listen to Múm or Berndsen or Hermigervill live, for free, and possibly even dance on chairs at 6:30 in the evening on a Sunday while doing so (here's proof on the Iceland Eyes Facebook Page ) you certainly can't complain. I'm continually stunned by the power and talent of Icelandic music scene, and will be sure to post regularly about it on our social media feeds.

(The image is of a large, random chunk of ice in front of the Harpa events hall, which was the Airwaves main base this year. It is, in my opinion, a very cool addition to our energetic little city : )

News

More macro loveliness from the heart of Reykjavik, this time of a flower medley in my parent's front yard ~.~

While cruising the interwebs today I ran across a link from the Bookworm Bookshop in Beijing highlighting the City of Reykjavik's first Reading Festival in October 2012, Sleipnir and the Joy of Reading. Reykjavik is a UNESCO City of Literature, which will be no surprise to my more literary readers (góðan daginn, Professor Batty!)

In other news, I promised to keep us all informed about the winner of the competition for the redesign of Ingólfstorg. They are the ASK architectural firm, and here is their winning design. Even though some people are righteously furious over everything that smacks of change, anything is better than the bad chi feng shui state of things in that downtown square. The city of Rvk has made a recent valiant attempt to draw more summertime life there, but when I drove past yesterday evening there were exactly 8 well-known town drunks (who usually hang out at Austurvellir) taking advantage of the new lounge chairs, two bikers, and lone skater petulantly sliding a measly wooden box. I'm beginning to think ancient Indian burial ground for that particular plot of land...

So though I try my best not to sleb gawk, ok, ok, yes Tom and Katie came into Valentína's ice cream store on the last official day of their pre-divorce papers marriage.  And as it seems that the final photo of them holding hands EVER displays the very same double vanilla latte that Katie politely ordered from Kristjána (the cute girl in the headband in the back row of this photo) while bodyguards waited outside and Tom flashed her his winning grin, I thought I'd go ahead and mention it.

Speaking of visitors, I mentioned cruise ships in the last post. The following photos are from June 18th, when four huge luxury liners docked here and spewed forth 10,000 curious humans which, combined with fold arriving by air, meant the highest number of visitors Iceland has ever had in one day.

One of the ships was the Costa Pacifica, sister ship to the ill-fated Costa Concordia (this last link is to a very compelling article in Vanity Fair about her last night afloat.)

These pics are however of the German AIDAmar, a 252-meter long Sphinx-class cruise ship with 1096 cabins and adorned with a smile, unlike her pensive residents in these shots, who I'm sure were just unwinding from a long day of Golden Circling and postcard buying and such. It seems that tourism is booming here on the Lava Rock, and with more arrivals and departures from Keflavik International than ever, as well as the increase in cruise liners, it seems things won't be settling back into any kind of "isolated republic in the North Atlantic" any time soon.

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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!

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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...

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.

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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.

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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 : )

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