jet-lag rewards

I'm still jet-lagged, which has been frustrating for most of the week but rewarding for about 2 seconds just now. As I lay trying to sleep, facing the living room window, I caught my first glimpse of the elusive Northern Lights. Although I've spent a total of almost 3 months in Iceland since my first arrival, only two of those weeks have been dark enough for potential sightings, and I had bad luck with the weather during most of those visits.

The only other time I have seen it was on my first descent in to KEF last October. When they turned off the lights for landing, I marvelled that the glow thrown up by Reykjavík was visible that far away. As the light formed into a double white arc that extended beyond my line of sight, I realized it was something else entirely.

Those of you who live here are probably tired of us foreigners the marvelling over the phenomenon, but it's so eerie and unexpected to see a bright green flash in the sky that I am still feeling shivery about it. Being here starts to feel so regular that I forget my new location relative to the world as a whole until something like that happens, something that would almost never happen in Boston.

I've been waiting to post this in hopes I'll see it again tonight, but so far the only thing I am seeing is the reflection on the window of the light from the kitchen.