Gleðilega Páska

´Tis the season here, again. It looks like Easter is almost as exciting around here as Christmas. We get more days off work (a five-day weekend next week) and people in my office are travelling far and wide during the time, both in Iceland and across the stones. Earlier today two women dressed as chickens came through the office, pushing a cart full of boxes. They delivered one of these to each person. This thing is taller than the length of my hand, adorned with a drunken looking bottlebrush chicken, and is apparently full of further goodies. It's the special company packaging too, with the logo surrounded by pastel eggs. I guess Easter is big.

Unlike Christmas though, there have been NONE of the signals I am accustomed to at this time of year. No bunnies, no sickening chicks-wearing-bows pictures, no mint-peach-lavendar-pink-baby blue décor beswagging the fruit displays in the grocery stores. There doesn't seem to really be much in the way of special Easter foods at all actually, not even special páskasmjör (we had Christmas butter, so it seemed like a possibility). Nothing but chocolate. It's also confirmation season now, so the radio is peppered with ads for special confirmation bargains to be had. I guess it's important to buy books or electronics for this important event.

The weather has also not added much in the way of Eastertime feelings. It snowed yesterday and this morning, so even that tender spring air isn't around. The Icelandic seasonal calendar is just two- summer, and winter, but I'm beginning to think they really should be called dark, and not dark, since the weather's about the same now as it was in January. I can't say I love those humid days of July and August in New England (part of why it was easy to think of moving away), but every now and then, like today, I wish for a little of that springtime balminess.

Ship sighting: The tanker Keilir is coming in today, among some of the usual Eimskip/Atlansskip/Samskip/various fiskiskip suspects. I like this one because it's named after such a cool mountain.