Things I will miss

We leave in less than 24 hours, and so a list of some of the many things I will miss:

The kindness and generosity of Icelandic people, and the many lovely colleagues that I have met here.
The indescribable light.

June 18, sun over Mt. Esja, about 4 a.m.

Child friendly public spaces; play stations in banks, public offices, restaurants, and abundant playgrounds.
Skyr.  Including the fun little folding spoons that come with the single serving variety.
The students at Haskoli Islands who are smart, interesting, skeptical, and fun to teach.  (Fortunately my Rutgers-Newark students are all of these things too, in different ways).
The abundance of beauty.
The soups at the cafeteria in the University of Iceland student center.
Hearing Icelandic, and the occasional joy of understanding bits and pieces of what is being said.
Being able to safely ride a bicycle throughout the city.
Hearing birds throughout the light summer nights.
The adventure.
Seeing women, and men, knitting in all kinds of places (including walking down the street).
The geothermal beach. And generally, public swimming pools and hot pots.
Seeing lopa peysas everywhere.
Looking for, and now ever more frequently, seeing, the Snaefellsness glacier from our neighborhood.
Our fun, handy car. (Which we are leaving in good hands).
The very pleasant office space at Haskoli Islands.

And lots more.  So we will just have to come back.

One Weekend, Two Different Kinds of Celebrations

June 17 is Iceland's Independence Day, celebrating the formal end of Danish rule on June 17, 1944.  The day was chosen because June 17, 1811 was Jón Sigurðsson's birthday, who is seen as a leader of Iceland's movement for independence (you can read more about him here), and so of course this year being the two hundredth anniversary of his birth there have been a variety of special events.  Like the 4th of July in the U.S., June 17th is a big day for celebrating.

That's Jon surrounded by flags.

We enjoyed the festivities in Reykjavík (of course celebrations are held all over the country) which began with the formal government event in front of the parliament building, continued with a procession to the cemetery where a wreath was laid on Sigurðsson's grave.  In good democratic fashion, this part also included some protesters, including those who are opposed to Icelandic membership in the EU, and those who are protesting what they see as the lack of accountability after the financial crisis.  In the afternoon, the party continued all over the downtown with a parade down Laugavegur, musical and street theater performances, and lots of entertainment for the kids.

Parades in Iceland are fun because they are participatory events.  The parade was led by scouts carrying flags, a band, and a street theater, but then everyone joins in the parade.

A few photos of scenes from the parade.

It was a real family day too, and there were antique cars, a small area with carnival rides, and lots of places for the kids to jump and bounce.  These jumping rooms are very popular here and every event seems to have them.

Also lots of cotton candy, and hot dogs, and helium balloons with all kinds of characters.  And of course where there are helium baloons, there are children losing their grip on the balloon, and everyone watches it float up into the sky with the sound of a disappointed child in the background.

As I have mentioned before, this year is also the one hundredth anniversary of the Unviersity of Iceland, which for the first thirty years, from 1911 to 1941, met in the parliament building.  So the building was open in honor of that anniversary, and it was fun to see the building in general (which is not often open to the public) and in particular to see the rooms where university classes met.

One of the rooms where University of Iceland
classes met at the parliament building.

The best part of the day was just being part of the generally positive spirit of the celebration, Icelanders celebrating their Icelandicness.

Two days later, on June 19, we attended another celebration, much smaller in scale, and with a different focus: to mark the anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in Iceland in 1915. (Actually originally it was just women who were over 40; then the age was gradually reduced over the next few years).

The event began at the cemetery, with music and readings and a wreath-laying at the grave of Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir (1856-1940) who is seen as the founder of the women's rights movement in Iceland.  Among other things, she was the first woman to give a public lecture in Iceland, founded the feminist paper Kvennablaðið, and was a founder of the Women's Rights Association in 1907.  The ceremony in the cemetery was followed by a procession to the women's rights association building and a series of short lectures on women's rights in Iceland, historically and in the present.  The lectures were in Icelandic of course so I only understood a little bit but it was great to be a part of the event.

There is a monument to Bríet in downtown Reykjavik, notable for its lack of a statue.  I was told that it was designed this way because there is not a single statute of a woman in Reykjavik, and so the monument is partly a commentary on that.   And of course, although nearly every museum that we have been to this year has had some kind of exhibit about Jón Sigurðsson (including the folk museum in Ísafjörður which has an exhibit about the book that he wrote about fishing and the fishing industry), I don't recall seeing any mention of Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir.  But at least there is a memorial.  In the U.S. the statues of suffragettes donated to the U.S. government were hidden away from public view for 75 years. Iceland still rates very high on measures of gender equality, and this is reflected in public policy and in people's attitudes to gender equality, despite continuing issues such as pay equity.  



So two very different celebrations, and a fun and interesting way to spend a weekend in June.

"Harpa, Húsið þitt"

This is the slogan on the publicity materials about Harpa, the beautiful, recently opened concert hall in Reykjavík. It reflects the hope of the designers that Icelanders will see it as "your house"--which it is, since the financing of the building was taken over by the public after the financial crisis. The building of course was controversial in the wake of the crisis, given the expense of such a project. But the artist, Ólafur Elíasson, expressed his hope that the building be seen as belonging to the Icelandic people in a recent extended and very interesting interview with the English language newspaper The Grapevine.  It is a slogan that our two year old has taken to heart; whenever we are downtown, he has expressed his desire to "Harpa, go!"


Like everyone in Reykjavík, we have been watching the construction of Harpa since our arrival in January.  Of course the structure by then was basically completed, though this spring we have had the additional excitement of the facade needing replacement (on which, see the Grapevine story noted above). Harpa construction has had everything that a two year old could want: cranes! diggers! dump trucks!  And so we have been frequent visitors to the exterior of the Harpa building site, even before the building opened in May.  

January 2011 viewed from Arnarhóll

January 2011

March 8, 2011

May 1, 2011.  Yes, that is snow on the ground.
We were sledding on the hill.

We have now been to two lovely concerts, one in Eldborg, the main hall, and one in Kaldalón.  And we have been in the building many more times; it has wide hallways with fun places to sit, it has a great view of the harbor, the light is wonderful, always changing, and it has escalators!

Riding the escalator June 16.

May 13, 2011

May 13 2011.

The first concerts were May 4th through 6th, and the official inaugural concerts were the next weekend, May 13th through 15th.  On May 6, right after a concert, my husband visited the building, and the security guards let him look around, no problem.  But on May 13th, a few hours before the official inaugural concert, we tried to visit and were turned away at the door by security.  Evidently there was heightened security since some rather unpopular people including the original financier behind Harpa, which entity failed as a result of the financial crisis, were going to be present at the concert, according to this post on the Iceland Weather Report.  We still enjoyed looking around the outside of the building, though it was a bit disconcerting that there were so many heavy machines still doing their work.

The west side with a view of the boats.

But since then, we have been in the building and enjoyed its beauty and light, and the continuing presence of construction equipment, many times.  Yesterday, during Iceland's national independence day celebrations (Þjóðhátíðardagur), we were among the many people who went into the building just to see it and enjoy it. Feeling a part of the process of Harpa opening has been a lovely part of our experience here. So we hope the space and all that it will be as people enjoy it over time truly comes to be seen as the house that belongs to all of the people of Iceland.

Looking up from near the first floor stairway.

There are places to splash out front!

It must be Þjóðhátíðardagur
 if there are antique cars.

Nice places to relax in the
midst of celebrating June 17. 

The cafe has a children's table, of course.

And there is still plenty of construction equipment to see.

Snow and Ash

We had planned to do the "ring road" tour in May, continuing on from Vopnafjörður to Egilsstaðir, on to Höfn and the famous Jökulsárlón (glacier lagoon) and then to Kirkubæjarklaustur to see the basalt formations.  But the weather was terrible the day we were scheduled to leave Vopnafjörður, and there was so much snow on the mountain road by the time that we were leaving that there was no way we could leave that direction.  


So, after a bit too much excitement, sliding around in the snow on a steep hillside, we turned around and returned to my cousin's house to regroup and find an alternative way.  My brother and his wife needed to rearrange their flights; we just needed to reorganize our plans.  With the help of my cousin and her husband, who kindly led the way, making tracks in the snow and ice with their four wheel drive vehicle, we managed to take the coastal road (85) north from Vopnafjörður and on west, eventually to Akureyri and, for us, home a day earlier than we had planned after making some lemonade with our changed plans, by visiting Hofsos and Holar.  And it was good that we headed out that day; the roads were closed for several days after that due to this late May snow storm.


We were scheduled to be in Kirkubæjarklaustur on Saturday, May 21, staying at a farm near the town.  But by that evening, we were hearing on the news that the Grimsvötn volcano was erupting.  By Sunday afternoon, Grimsvötn was spewing much more ash than usual, and the roads near Kirkubæjarklaustur were closed as the ash was causing a complete blackout.  Airports in Iceland were closed.  But fortunately, because of the snow in the northeast, we were not there!


The international press tends to cover stories about volcanos as they affect international audiences--especially air travel.  But of course that is not the only effect.  Both last year, with Eyjafjallajökull, and this year, with Grimsvötn, the volcanoes erupted during peak lambing season in April and May.  Most Icelandic farmers do not have space in their barns for the ewes and their lambs (most ewes have twins), and the sheep are put outside during lambing season and for the summer.  So in both cases, it was the worst time of year for the farmers who are downwind of the volcano ash.  The Iceland Review did a good story about the volcano last year and its effects on farmers; the Grapevine has a great story in its current (June 2011) issue on the Grimsvötn volcano. 

We still wanted to get to Höfn, Jökulsárlón and Kirkubæjarklaustur, and so we traveled this last week across the south.  And we encountered some blowing ash during part of the drive each day, in the area south of Grimsvötn, depending on wind speed and direction.   I should point out that most of the time the air was clear, and this is not what most of the south looks like most of the time!  My main point is that Icelanders are living with the effects of the volcano long after the rest of the world has lost interest.  There are several large fields south of the Eyjafjallajökull area with ash collected from last year's eruption, including some of the hay that was ruined by the ash.

We saw many beautiful places and enjoyed the journeying, and found the blowing ash interesting, annoying, and not something to experience outside of a house or vehicle.  But we don't have to live with blowing ash; we just had to put up with it for a few days.  Of course, Grimsvötn has stopped erupting and eventually the ash will have blown enough or been soaked by moisture enough to stop blowing.  But even the the volcano is no longer erupting, its effects are still present.

 The wonderful glacier lagoon; the ash on top
of the ice is from the most recent eruption.

Ash on the ground and on the snow, east of Skaftafell.

Driving west on June 9, early evening, east of Kirkubaejarklaustur.

Lava Hill

We spent much of May traveling, including travels with family. One much anticipated part of the trip was a visit to Vopnafjörður, to visit my cousin who lives there, and to see the farm where my grandfather was born, that my great-grandparents farmed in the late nineteenth century.  The farm is called Hraunfell (pronounced, roughly, kroyn-fetl), which means "lava hill".  It has not been lived on or farmed since the late 1940s; my great-grandparents farmed it for just four years or so before leaving for North America.

The farm is along the highlands above the Sunnudalsá river (which flows into the Hofsá), and there is no road to get to it.  So to get there, we drove to the last farm that is still inhabited, drove through their sheep pasture (they are friends of my cousin and we had permission!) and then hiked for about an hour up the river valley to the farm.  The farm is marked on this map, near the center of the map in the lower left quadrant; it is very near Bustarfell, which is a well-preserved sod farmhouse, and now  museum.

It is a beautiful place, in the river valley, with the Smjörfjöll (Butter mountains) on the other side of the river.  Unfortunately, in our three days in Vopnafjörður, we did not see the mountains at all, as it was foggy, and then raining, sleeting, and then snowing the entire time we were there!  So the day we hiked up to Hraunfell, it was cold and wet.  But it was also beautiful.

On the way up, we encountered sheep and horses, of course, but also lots of birds including geese that were nesting.  Here is one nest with several eggs, and below you can see where it was above the river.  It was mid-May, so prime nesting season regardless of the weather.  

The river is also beautiful, and there are falls and smaller tributaries flowing in all along the valley; we crossed many small streams on our way up.

About halfway up, my cousin's cell phone rang.  And it turned out that it was a staff person from the university, looking for me, for my make-up examination that was to be given the next day.  And here we need to digress to explain an administrative difference between the U.S. and Iceland.  In the U.S., professors proctor their own exams, and if a student is sick or for some reason cannot make it to the final examination (or any examination) they must notify the professor to make whatever arrangements the professor is willing to make. In Iceland, final examinations are proctored by non-faculty, and the entire process is managed by the university.  If a student is ill and cannot make it to an examination, the registrar's office is notified.  The professor may never hear from the student, as in my case.  So although I knew some students had missed the examination, I did not know that they had formally indicated to the university that they were ill, and wanted to take a make up exam.  At any rate, modern technology being what it is, I was able to send a make up exam that evening, so that all ended well.

So the University of Iceland has now found me in probably the most remote place that I have been found by a university.  But here is a another point of difference with the U.S.: it is highly unlikely that there would be cell phone service in a place like Hraunfell!  So Iceland's good cell phone coverage made this little bit of incongruity possible.

So, after our brief interlude on the cell phone, we continued our hike, and eventually made it up in the sleet and rain to the farm.  My great-grandparents would have lived in a  sod structure; the stone foundation of it is still there and some of the sod, so you can see where it would have been.  Later families added a wood frame, stone, and partially concrete house, next to the sod house, and there were also some remains of concrete in the barn though its foundation was primarily of stone and sod up until the 1940s.

It was wonderful to finally see this place.  When it was inhabited, Hraunfell was the last farm along this valley, but there had been farms along our hiking path.  So there would have been neighbors and perhaps it would not have felt as isolated as it seems now. Still, my great-grandparents, with their two young sons, felt that their future would be better in America when the left in 1893.  They were among thousands who left from that area in the late 19th century; you can find out a great deal more about emigration from the northeast part of Iceland at the East Iceland Emigration Center website.  And there has been an effort to provide information on how to hike to some of the highland farms in a nearby part of the Vopnafjörður area, which you can find here.

I would love to go back up to Hraunfell on a summer day when you can see the mountains.  But despite the weather, and the mid-hike phone call, I am glad we made it up to where my grandfather was born.

This is what remains of the barn.

Here is a photo of the sod sheep enclosure fence.

This is the sod house, straight ahead,
with the newer house to the right.

A closer view of the sod house.

What you see now, approaching the house;
the sod portion is back to the left and behind.

A view from the side with the sod house on the left
and the newer house behind it and to the right.

A closer view of the stones and sod that were the walls.

Here is a view from inside the newer house to the sod house behind.

Páskaegg með Málshætti

We enjoyed the Easter holidays, including some traveling, celebrations with a children's service at Neskirkja, and some quiet time out of ordinary routines.  And we enjoyed the chocolate Easter eggs.

Easter is a national holiday here.  The Easter holidays start on Thursday and go through Easter Monday; the shops are closed, even the grocery stores (which open only on Saturday of Easter weekend).  It is a very family oriented holiday, and people spend the time with their families, and relaxing, and enjoying some wonderful music in the churches and concert halls.

And then, there are the eggs.  The word for egg is the same in Icelandic as in English (though of course the plural and possessive forms are different!).  The grocery stores are filled with chocolate eggs of all sizes, just as they are in the U.S. But the eggs are different.   In the U.S. the chocolate eggs are sometimes hollow, but sometimes they have a filling of some kind.  Here, the eggs have málshætti:  sayings, or proverbs.  Some of them are from Hávamál (usually translated in English as "sayings of the high one" it is a poem from the Poetic Edda)--and when they are, the source is identified.


We started Icelandic class in April, and my teacher gave us an assignment for Páskafrí (Easter break): get an Easter egg, retrieve and read the saying inside, and translate it.  So on the Tuesday after Easter we all brought our sayings in to class.  Here are just a few of my favorites:

"Mörg eru dags raunin."

This saying is from Hávamál and was from my egg. Raunin can mean experience, but it can also mean trouble or adversity.  In this case, it probably means adversity.  Literally, it says "many are days trouble" or perhaps the meaning is closer to: life is hard.

"Bylur hæst í tómri tunnu."

This one was translated as "the loudest noise comes from an empty vessel".

"Settu ekki kommu, þar sem samviskan segir þér að vera punkter."

Don't put a comma where your conscience says there should be a period.

And my personal favorite, also from Hávamál:

"Þjoð veit ef þrír vita."

"A nation knows when three know."  Or, news travels fast, as many people have told me!

Our son enjoyed the children's service, the Easter egg hunt, the very large bunny who handed out the eggs, and actually eating the egg.  He wasn't very interested in the sayings!  But we all enjoyed the holiday.

Rainbows in April

April in Iceland has been a good month for rainbows.  The famously changeable weather means that we have had frequent rain/sleet/snow followed by clearing skies and sunshine--and the cycle repeats itself every half hour or so.  So we have seen many rainbows this month; here are just a few:

This is the view from Skerjafjörður, with a rainbow over Vesturbær and Seltjarnarnes, right at the beginning of April.  The view from this little part of the island is still just wonderful; a few days later it was clear enough to see the glacier, Snæfellsjökull (I'll post photos of this in another posting).  We are told this is common in summer when there are more clear days; there have only been a few days so far that it has been clear enough to see that far.  But the rainbows are great.
 

We took a trip to the south of Iceland on April 15 and 16, and stayed at a lovely guest farm right near Eyjafjallajökull, a bit west of Vík, called Sólheimajáleiga.  It is a working farm, and the cottage we stayed in had been the farm house, the traditional kind that is attached to the barn. We enjoyed seeing the sheep and the cattle, talking with the family about farming in Iceland, the effects of the financial crisis and then the volcano last year on their farm.  In the morning while visiting the sheep we enjoyed seeing this rainbow.

Then on the drive from Vík to Kirkjubæjarklauster, 

we saw more rainbows, including this one:

On April 20 we drove around part of the Reykjanes peninsula, and on our way through Hafnafjörður, we saw this rainbow.

And finally, on a trip to the north last weekend, we saw this rainbow a bit south of Laugarbakki.  It's a little hard to see (hard to catch rainbows on an ordinary camera) but from the road we could see the whole rainbow, the left side here, and the right side stretched down into the river that you also cannot see in this photo!

The weather cleared today (April 27) and it was a bit warmer. April has been stormy, but we have enjoyed the rainbows.
April 28 postscript: As I came home in the late afternoon, this rainbow was visible over the airfield; it looks like it is coming from Hallgrimskirkja, so I just had to share it too!

The Blue Hand

Last Monday (before we bought the car) my husband and young son were on their way to a meeting at Neskirkja, and had just missed the bus by a few minutes.  They started walking, and as they did, Jim waved to a passing car.  The driver stopped and offered a ride which Jim accepted.  They had a pleasant conversation about the neighborhood and living and working in Reykjavik, such as strangers might have. When the driver dropped them off at the university, Jim thanked the driver, again gave his and our son's names, and asked the driver his name.  The driver replied with surprise, "You mean you don't know me?"  He then proceeded to tell Jim that he was Davið, that he was the former mayor of Reykjavík and former prime minister, and that he was internationally known.  Jim replied, "Oh, you're that Davið," (which seemed to amuse the driver) and thanked him for the ride.


If you are an Icelandic citizen, or someone who has been paying attention to Icelandic politics, you know that this was Davið Oddsson, former prime minister from the Independence Party, who was PM at the time the banks were privatized in the 1990s and was in charge of the central bank of Iceland at the time of the financial collapse.  One Icelander said to us that he is easily the most hated politician in all of Iceland (which is saying a lot as the approval rating for politicians is hovering around 10 percent).  Many see him as primarily responsible for the financial crisis (here's a London Times article from right after the crisis that makes this claim), a charge which he denies. But other Icelanders have said that at the time he was in office, he was both hated and loved and was a charismatic conservative leader.  He does indeed live in our neighborhood.  And he was on his way to his job as editor of Morgunblaðið, the conservative newspaper.  He was (controversially) appointed to that position less than a year after the financial collapse.  (At the same press conference that his editorship was announced the paper announced that it was laying off about 40 staff members).  The paper regularly criticizes the current left democratic government. 


So, Davið had offered a ride to one of the very few residents of Reykjavík who did not instantly recognize his face:

It's taken me a week to write about this very funny incident because I have been thinking about what the "takeaway" is from this story.  It is clear there are several.

This is a green Subaru

We bought a car today.  Here it is:

It is not green.  It is not a Subaru.  It's a 1999 Daewoo Nubira (The Korean GM that went bankrupt and is now owned by GM).  But of course, there's a story.

One way to buy a used car in Iceland is to go online to the website bilasolur.is.  Note:  on Icelandic websites, there is usually an indication of what other languages the site has available along the header of the site, most often just indicated by a flag.  English is always denoted by the British flag.  This car sales website has more languages than I've seen on any other Icelandic website, so it is worth looking just for that purpose.

At any rate, here's how this works:  most of the cars for sale are being placed by current owners through car dealerships.  Most of them are not actually at the dealership, and most (we have learned) are being offered for more than the owner is actually willing to accept for them.  This latter part is not different from the U.S., but in the U.S. cars sold by dealerships are generally owned by the dealership.  Buying from private parties happens through e.g. Craigslist, or if you are old enough to have bought a car before the invention of Craigslist, through the classifieds.   This Icelandic way seems nicer, and more efficient, because you can deal with the dealership to arrange to see the car.  All of the paperwork happens very quickly, thanks to the Icelandic kennitala (national ID). You might not meet the owner.

But we are glad that we met the (now previous) owner of our new vehicle.  His name is Siggi, and, it turns out, he had not owned the car for very long.  He was a really funny guy, and told us that everything that belonged to him was for sale--except his wife, he wanted to hold on to her--and that relates to the reason for the sign (keep reading, my feminist friends, don't be offended, he wasn't saying that he owned his wife).

Siggi told us fairly quickly what his actual bottom line price was (even less than the 15% difference from the asking price that we had been advised was a good way to start the bargaining process).  And he told us the story of the sign on the side of the car.  It seems he had owned a green Subaru, and his wife really liked it.  But he sold the car, and she keeps telling him that she really liked that car.  So when he bought this car, he decided to put a sign on it that says "This is a green Subaru," so that his wife would like this car.  But of course, it is not a green Subaru.  And so he sold it to us.

So now we have a car, partly to get around Reykjavik more easily when the buses aren't running, but mostly to travel around the country and see more of Iceland. When I told my brother that we bought a car from a guy named Siggi, he asked whether Siggi wore white shoes and had a great sense of humor--that would be our great uncle Siggi.  Maybe the sense of humor goes with the name.  At any rate, now we have a car.  And a story.

Living in Skerjafjörður

I am not the person in my family who takes a lot of photographs; my partner generally does that.  I have taken many more photographs here than I have taken in years.  And one thing I have noticed is that I keep taking pictures of some of the same locations.  One place I keep photographing is the coast line right next to the neighborhood where we live; it is always beautiful, and always different.

We live in a neighborhood in Reykjavík called Skerjafjörður. Unlike most parts of the city this neighborhood is really set off by itself.  It is just south of the domestic airport, right along the southern coast of the peninsula. This photo of the neighborhood, taken from Perlan ("the pearl", the geothermal plant turned restaurant/museum), gives you a sense.

The trees in the foreground were planted in the 50s and 60s and there are walking and biking paths through the trees up to Perlan and down to the coast; then you can see the airport buildings and runway, and behind that is Skerjafjörður, and then the ocean.  There is only one road that leads into the neighborhood; to the east (left) along the coast there is a walking and biking path but the air field is right next to the path, so there is no road to the east.

The university is north of the airport (not in the photo, but it would be to the right).  So every day when I head to the university, whether on foot or by bus or by bicycle, it is along the coastal path and the one road, which then turns and runs past the university. The neighborhood ends at the west end of the airport, and there is just a thin area of coast between the ocean and the road.  So once you get past the last house of the neighborhood, this is what you see:

At least, it's what you see on an overcast day in early March, or a snowy day in mid-March. But if you walk a little farther and turn around, and it's a sunny day after a beautiful snowfall, this is what you'll see:

 This doesn't even begin to capture the many ways that the clouds and the sky change, in just a few minutes, or the difference made by high tide on a windy day and low tide on a calm day, let alone the difference made by the quickly changing light, now that our days and nights are about of equal length.

I take the photos because being in this spot makes me happy, each day, in the transition from home to work and work to home.  This includes days when I have nearly frozen as the wind whips from the south directly off the ocean, and days when it's hard to believe how quiet this stretch of coast is.   Because this stretch of coast is always beautiful, and at least for now, a part of my daily routine.  Not bad.