Bee

True beauty is found in subtle and wondrous places if we stop long enough to allow its emergence into our reality. This small miracle of nature posed peacefully for me, for which I'm grateful.

Thank You to all who made this holiday weekend an Amazing Experience and Thank the Gods for our heavenly weather! And remember to thank the humble and lovely Bee on whom our lives may actually, literally, depend.

Fishing

This young man and his buddy were setting up to angle a few fishies when I drove by Elliðavatn last weekend. Our (spooky) good weather spell continues, with only one real day/night of rain in the past two months here in the southwest region, though last weekend a night frost ruined nearly all of potato-paradise Þykkvabær's new spuds. Bummer. Forever at the mercy of Nature, we are.

Naming

Little Ísadóra was presented to family and friends at her naming ceremony this past Sunday. Her mother, Rósa Birgitta Ísfeld (lead singer of Sometime) and musician father Finnur Hákonarson invited Jónína, a goði from the Ásatrú religion to perform the ceremony in the Hljómskálagarður public park by the town lake.

We welcome her with love and joy into the world and thank her parents for a wonderful, memorable event!

Bum

Yeah, ok, we've got some bums here.

This one was just sleeping it off in the summertime sunshine. We're hoping his ankles didn't burn too much...

Heart

Where there wasn't one only months ago, a park appeared between Laugavegur and Hverfisgata, replete with a sweet heart at its center.

In this world of fleeting things it seems right to remind, in brick even, and in a very public way, of the power of that overwhelming, eternal and sometimes subtle constant we call love.

Sun

Hello beautiful World!

We've got a heatwave going on here in Iceland, so we're all in various states of undress (!) roaming around in the sunshine like pleasure seeking zombies. Or something like that.

It is lovely here when the days glow so warm (25°C-ish today) and as usual I feel so happy for the tourists who get to see our little land all dolled up in leaf-greens and rainbow flower hues, warm in the shade and with a big kissable blue sky...

It's Magical *+*

Kraft

Just a half hour's drive from our front door Óðinn and I found this crazy high-pressure steam release site. We drove right up to and under these massive plumes (the photo doesn't do justice to their true size) that droned and hissed and thundered at an unbearably loud level. It was amazing and a bit scary: I had to keep pushing away images of sudden earthquakes cracking the pipes and drums causing boiling spouts of water to explode around us. Not everyone's happy with this latest geothermal energy plant (Hellisheiðarvirkjun) but I have to admit it was very impressive to see how the human mind engages a fantastic force of nature like this.

Steam

For now, just take in the image. More on this bizarre location later...

Classic

This is how we spend our evenings when we dream we're living in the 19th century...

Belly

I don't know who these dancers are but they put on an amazing show at the Start Art Gallery on Laugavegur today just as I was strolling by.

Happy

Here's pretty people, joyful and shiny, celebrating the 17th of June in the 65th year of our Republic. The earlier day's festivities belong to families and strollers and fanciful foil balloons, but by evening downtown Reykjavik is teeming with teens and all they're made of, and all they stand for. This group represented their generation beautifully.

Update, June 17th 2012: As many of you know my daughter has been working at Eldur og Ís, the ice cream/crepe cafe on skólavörðurstígur. When she introduced me to Kristjána, the girl she most often works with, she said that we'd already met. Turns out, she's the owner of the pretty smile in back row of this shot from June 2009, the girl with the black headband. Our little city : ) ...

Cow

This fowl and a dozen others followed me around this interesting plot of land on Álftanes, just south of Reykjavík, even after they (I'm pretty sure) realized I had no feed for them. Maybe they were lonely.

The house in the background is the Alsæla spa which is actually up for grabs. Anyone looking for a cool business opportunity in Iceland? Go Here for more info...

Árbæjarsafn

Turf housing rocks.

Diorama

This isn't a summertime version of the flaming protests of January (though some perpetually pumped-up and eternally dissatisfied ranters have gleefully engaged in a new round of struts and pot-banging down in front of the Parliament building) but a dramatic interactive diorama we found at Árbæjarsafn this evening. Push a button and the thing, about four feet square, lights up and crackles to reenact the Great Reykjavik Fire of 1915. We loved it. It was cheesy and cool.

Post Script: As you can see in this video there's more going on down at Austurvöllur than I realized, and I would be hard pressed to judge the elderly white-haired woman banging her pot in protest as a hot-blooded rabble rouser, or the woman wearing the national costume, or the nice-looking guy who's going to camp there as a stance against the ever-increasing cost of living. (Read more about the current situation Here.) These people obviously do not fall into the same category as those bores (admit it, you know one) who somehow get off on blame and injustice and (sigh) chronic, very public self-pity. Hurrah to the campers and may they enjoy their weekend tenting in the riot zone that is drunken 3 am downtown Reykjavik (no irony intended)!

Green

No words, I think, are needed...

(Just found this review of my book, though, after (yeps) Googling myself, as well as this interview from 2007 if you're, you know, interested.)

Dapple

Just pretty.

This is the little grove on the southwest side of the town lake where my father says he used to go with his childhood buddies for summertime picnic adventures. The trees, probably not much taller than he was fifty (ahem!) -odd years ago, have matured beautifully.

If you love old things and measures of our ever changing world like I do, you'll enjoy visiting the Reykjavík Museum of Photography website. The photo that I've linked shows an overview of the town lake, and from the very barren patch in the lower left hand corner of that 1919 image the lush little forest shown above has tenaciously emerged.

Hay

Thanks, all, for your support and visits to Iceland Eyes! We've got a steady average of 5000 views per month, about half of those new and a quarter regulars who drop by often during the month for new posts. Not too shabby for a little online hobby!

Read about His Holiness, the Dalai Lama's visit to our humble(d) island here. (Today's Fréttablaðið newspaper reports that China, which formally protested the visit last week, has now recalled its ambassador to Iceland. Go here to read China's latest bullying threat on the issue of Tibet.)

Yet while grownups threaten, war, abuse and defend in the world arena our children play at simpler games, hopefully, ideally, kept safe from the tensions and dramas of their fathers' lives.

Lunch

A preschool trip with Oðinn to a Mossfellsdalur farm on Friday included a hot dog bonanza in the big barn with cookies for dessert.

Signal

This one's for Valentina. She likes this shot a lot.

View from Here

Ahh, life is simple, sweet and lovely. Of course it all depends on your point of view...

Silence is golden, smiles are free, the sun shines and not so far from where I sit a bell tolls the hour. All is good.