Hinsegin Dagar 2014

When I was teaching at the University of Iceland in 2011, one of the things that my students told me about was the annual LGBTQI Pride celebration in August, which they said had become an even bigger and more well-attended event than the annual national holiday celebration on June 17.  So this year I was able to schedule our visit to Iceland during Hinsegin Dagar, which was held August 5 to 10. We went to many events though not nearly all; if we had not been so tired from our flight it would have been fun to see the Diving Divas, for example.

According to the Grapevine, about ninety thousand people attended the parade on August 9, making it the biggest crowd ever, and constituting about one quarter of Iceland's population.  The highlight at the end of the parade was Iceland's gay icon, Páll Óskar, in a huge white swan float that periodically cast pink confetti over the crowd.  We enjoyed the celebrations. Here are just a few photos.

One of my favorite things about the weekend was that the shops throughout downtown dressed themselves up in rainbows for the occasion.

Even the polar bear participated.

The Hinsegin Kórinn (Queer Choir) was wonderful.

We finished the weekend on Sunday with a trip to the family festival sponsored by the Association of Queer Parents--and enjoyed the magician.

So short a visit

I have been back in Iceland for a short few weeks this summer, enjoying time with my younger son who came along, and doing some work on a new project with colleagues here.  It has been lovely to be here again in summer, with the beautiful light and the birds calling out at all hours, the flowers in full bloom. Lovely also to renew acquaintances and make some new ones, to stay again with our same gracious hostess and enjoy the quiet beauty of this neighborhood.

My son has had adventures, we have had some adventures together, and I have been able to get some work done also thanks to a wonderful caregiver.  The student center at the University of Iceland, where you can look out at the city and enjoy the view of Esja, is conducive to productivity, I have found.  No wonder Reykjavík has been declared a UNESCO City of Literature; far beyond the sagas, Icelanders continue to demonstrate their creativity not just in letters, but in art, design, and many other endeavors.

So we leave tomorrow, but I know we will be back again, hopefully for a longer time, to enjoy both the adventure and the familiarity of Iceland.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Thingvellir and other Travels

We began doing some traveling outside of Reykjavik in February, and started of course with a trip that included the site where the Icelandic parliament met starting in 930.  On the way we stopped at Gljufrasteinn, the home of Halldor Laxness, the Nobel prize winning author.

The photos of Thingvellir in tourist materials are always from summer, but it was truly beautiful in the snow and ice.  Here is a photo of the lake, Thingvellirvatn:

Going to Iceland always meant going to Thingvellir to me; it was one of the first places I knew about when hearing about Iceland growing up.  And we do want to go back when the weather is better, so we can spend some time hiking around.  But I'm glad our first visit there was in winter.

Of course, our two year old found a place to splash, right next to the sign indicating that UNESCO has designated Thingvellir a world heritage site:

We stayed at a wonderful farm between Thingvellir and Geysir, called Estidalur2.  And there were cows, and horses, so the little one was happy.  He even got to go in the barn to see the cattle and calves, and cats.  

The next day we completed what the tourist materials call the "Golden Circle"; that is, Geysir and Gullfoss, but also went on to Skalholt, the historic site of the southern bishopric, drove through Solheimer, the eco-village, and ended the day with a swim at the Selfoss pool.  We drove home to Reykjavik late in the evening, happy to have started exploring a small part of this beautiful place.