Xmas Lights

Today is the first day of Advent, and as such we can officially begin preparing for Christmas. Lights can be strung up and stored angels dusted off and displayed without hesitation...the good old Christian calendar says its Ok! We're even supposed to light the first of four Advent Sunday candles and place them carefully in windows to light the way for Baby Jesus, or, rather, to begin more intensive preparation for the impending Darkest Day of the Year at the Winter Solstice.

Wherever our beliefs lie, 'tis officially the season to honor light in deepest darkness and be thankful for all the wonderful people in our lives who will help us survive through the coming months of cold. Find your friends and family and gather them to you, light candles and yule logs and fairy lights, mix a big warm pot of glugg, bake some gingerbread cookies and get yourself a pair of fuzzy mittens... wintertime has come.

Northern Lights

Hotel Rangá, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

I didn't take this photo, but uploaded it from the Icelandair Hotels website. It's a lovely shot and appropriate because we're sliding in Aurora Borealis season here in Iceland as the weather gets colder.

Actually, it's not that cold here right now about 45°F/8°C today. There's no snow, only sporadic rain and occasional gusts of wind. By law all cars are to have winter tires on by now, but there's hardly a reason to; the only thing they accomplish at this point is the tearing up of the asphalt on the roads. Still, you never know when you're going to wake up to a frozen landscape here...the weather on this island is so unpredictable that there's hardly any way to plan for those deep-freeze days. Pretty much everyone over twenty agrees that there used to be a lot more snow in winter here in Iceland. Now we never even know if we'll have a white Christmas or what we call a red, or snowless, one. It's a little disturbing and very frustrating: the winters end up being just cold, grey, seemingly-endless stretches where the ground freezes and thaws in turn, and arctic winds whip up the barren, crystalized soil that stings into your eyes and ears with menace. Snow, though definitely not romantic past the first few days of the season's first fall, at least provides a much-welcomed diversion to endless winter grey.

That's what the norther lights do as well. We usually only get the green auroras here, with maybe a little purple blended in, but when they show it doesn't matter what color they are. They slink across the sky like silky dancers, always giving me the feeling that the performance is solely for me. An amazing natural phenomenon.

We just moved back into the apartment on the third floor of our building on the top of Þingholt, and have a stupendous view northwest over all of Reykjavík and beyond. When the auroras light up we can watch them from our living room windows or even just lay in bed and let the show lull us into a soft and dreamy sleep.

Sunday Feed

On grey weekend days there are always bits of brightness down by the Reykjavik town lake: little ones sporting shiny smiles in their multi-colored parkas offer ducks and geese and swans bits of bread from loafs that never seem to last long enough.

Model Island

When in Reykjavik you definitely have to check out the City Hall, or Ráðhús. It's the big, grey, bowed building that juts out over the town lake, and though not everyone was pleased with it when it was erected (the bowed roof reminded many of the hundereds of American army quonset huts left scattered throughout Reykjavik after WWII, and with that the fact that too many Icelanders ended up living in those unheated corrugated iron nightmares ), its become a certain civic landmark.

Go ahead and walk the thin bridge from the duck-feeding corner of the town lake into the City Hall, get yourself a cup of coffee and a slice of cake at the Ráðhús Café, pick up a few tourist brochures and take a good long look at the giant relief map of Iceland that is usuallly on display. I personally sepnd at least a half an hour rediscovering it every time I see it, but then again I've got a definite thing for maps of any kind. This one, though, takes the cake.

Last Holdout

Some sweet sights of summer are harder to suppress than others...
This aged daisy seems to be taking a desperate last stand in a nearby Reykjavik frontyard.

Raising Voices

Here is just a sampling of the nearly 50,000 women (and a couple hundred men) who took to the streets of Reykjavik on Monday to protest wage discrimination here in Iceland. At 2:08 pm, many thousands of women left their jobs for the day to meet up in front of Hallgrímskirkja and march down Skólavörðurstígur.

Why the odd time of day? Well, some clever statisticians figured out that that is the time of day when men, on average, make what it takes a woman to make for a full 8-hour work day. Not such a pretty picture, is it?

The date, October 24th, commemorates thirty years since women throughout Iceland walked out of work, all work. Even the daily chores of home and hearth. Iceland basically shut down for a day. The men were in shock, the children hungry. It was an amazing moment in Icelandic history...

The day was successful in raising awareness, once again, of women's place in modern society. But it's ultimately up to us parents, aunts and uncles and instructors to teach our children, boys and girls alike, to respect and value each other as members of the same nation and, ultimately, the same human race.

P.s. the signs say "We deserve better"

Castle & Sky

This attractive crenelated building, named Galtafell (meaning Hog Hill), was built in 1916 by Petur Thorsteinsson for Bjarni Jónsson, brother to Iceland's most famous scuptor, Einar Jónsson. It's actually for sale for $1.9 million, if you're looking to buy property in Iceland. It's 4700 square feet and in an absolutely lovely location. Think it over...

I had thought that this building had housed the consulate to Malta here in Reykjavík because I was in University with a girl who lived here: her father was some kind of consulate and Malta always stuck in my mind. But it seems its been a guesthouse for a while now. Just goes to show how creative our minds can be with bits of information.

Malta is very interesting, though. It's a country with an only slightly larger population than Iceland, with 400,000 citizens who are jam-packed onto two rocky islands totalling only 115 square miles. Talk about crowded.

Without meaning any disrespect to my own island culture, I have to say Malta's history kicks Iceland's Viking butt any day. Thought to have been settled by an ancient civilization in the very early bronze age, more than 7,000 years ago, Malta has been changing hands ever since: from Vandals to Arabs to Brits, the country has been plucked from the Mediterranean as a prize by countless land-hungry rulers, and pawned for trade a number of times. Icelanders, on the other hand, have written a couple of famous books and have managed to cling to their lava rock for about a thousand years or so. A mean feat in itself, but slightly less fantastic sounding than the saga of the Maltese.

Back to the house: this castle style was very popular here in Reykjavik in the early part of the past century, and particularly at the intersection of Laufásvegur and Bragagata (on the lower left edge of this map). There are three large and impressive structures with castle tops there, including my daughter Valentína's pre-school alma mater, Laufásborg. Though a slightly odd design element, the crenelations definitely add an interesting touch to the mid-town Reykjavík scenery.