One Month In!

Hvernig er veðrið í dag? Það er rok og rigning. (How is the weather today? It is windy and raining—almost the only answer you’ll ever give in Iceland from September through April.)

I’ve been here for one month today, and I sometimes still catch myself thinking, “Can I really be here? In Iceland of all places?” For the first two days after I arrived, we had brilliant sun and no rain. Thereafter, we had lots of rain and no sun—not to mention the kind of wind that makes you consider putting ballast in your pockets—and only one or two days when the sun peeked out between showers. Today was the first entirely sunny day we’ve had since those final days of August.

I’m not complaining, really—the rain is usually on-and-off and not so heavy that you arrive soaked wherever you’re going. But on Saturday, I did have the unusual experience of walking through a downpour, then bright sun, then hail combined with gale-force winds, then more rain, then more sun, and finally snow! (It reminded me of a good friend’s experience in Edinburgh!) The Icelanders insist they get very little snow during the winter, but I suppose they must not count it when it falls but doesn’t stick. There is snow on the tops of the mountains north of the bay now and has been for several days. It’s beautiful and breathtaking—much more in person than in pictures. This shot was taken about three seconds before I was pelted with hail.

Our planned excursion to Reykholt was postponed until the first week of October due to professorial illness. So to have something worth writing about, earlier last week I visited the garden of the Einar Jónsson sculpture museum—he’s something of the Rodin of Iceland. His work is very allegorical and spiritual and lovely, so I thought I’d share a picture or two (the first is called Sorrow and the second Prayer). You can see this was one of the fitfully sunny days. (And by the way, how blogspot decides to format the arrangement is anybody's guess.)

Not having any particular intentions to go glacier hiking while I’m here, these pictures might be the closest I get to a glacier. This is Snæfellsjökull northwest of Reykjavik—you can just barely see it in the middle of the picture, but it was much more exciting in real life. You have to wait for very clear days to see it from the city.

A few more reflections on life in Iceland so far:

1) Skyr is a wonderful thing. It’s Icelandic yogurt, made from whey and flavored with berries or peaches or “bananasplitti” (which, as far as I can tell, is chocolate with just a hint of banana). Unflavored skyr, though traditional, is unpalatable—rather like eating solidified sour cream.

2) You never know what can be purchased in an Icelandic grocery store. I was rooting around in the apartment looking for something to clean the bathroom with and found a spray bottle of cleaner that was labeled in Russian of all things! Icelanders don’t tend to speak Russian any more than Americans do—why would they import something like this? I proceeded to use it to clean up, only gradually realizing that it was probably nothing more than Cyrillic Windex. But now the whole bathroom has a streak-free shine!

3) It does not feel particularly foreign to live here. Reykjavik is a modern, technologically sophisticated city, rather like any small city in the US. Most of the buildings date from the 20th century (blame the fire of 1919). Starbucks hasn’t invaded yet but there are Subway sandwich shops all over the place and ads for American movies just a few months out of date. But it’s the little things you notice—like the fact that the light switches are a different shape than American ones, and the hot water smells like hard-boiled egg because it’s geothermally heated. Or that the sun only rises to about 50 degrees above the horizon at this point in the year, even at the height of the day.

Maybe it’s not as dramatic a “living abroad” experience here as it might be in a place that wears its history on its sleeve like France or Belgium, but every little dissimilarity broadens your horizons just a bit. Maybe it doesn’t make a great difference in the long-run to know that Icelanders don’t have a simple or common way to say “please,” or that you’re expected to offer the plumber coffee and not water while he’s working. But every little thing just makes the world that much bigger.