on Campus

These past few weeks I've sort of felt like I'm back in college. Something about the scale of life here, and the variety and mixing of activities in my life has set me back five years to dining halls and student centers. I realized this last week as I was walking from rehearsal to beers with friends downtown, the Bach trills still ringing in my ears. We met at the Alþjóðahús, the international house, where laptops sprouted from half-a-dozen tables, and across the corridor a tango class gyrated silently behind the large glass window. Even though people of all ages meet here, the international scene, the frequently discounted beers, and the cultural-sharing vibe makes it feel student center-y, especially on a blustery damp evening.

The autumn leaves are falling fast here, and piling up in scuff-able corner heaps. The air is crisp, backpack-bearing teenagers crawl the sidewalks in my university neighborhood, and kids on bikes whizz by in the mornings, scarves a-flying.

When I was in college, I also used to give tours to prospective parents and students, and the tour-guiding has continued here in similar vein. The tours are always part history, part things I like best, part daily life, and leaves me with a new appreciation for the place I am showing off. Plus, on an almost daily basis now, I run into some visitor or other, and I glow with secret glee at being on The Other Side. Those hippy-backpackers buying bread in the bakery this morning had no idea that I was also from their country, with my stealth-cloak of Icelandic scone-buying skills.

The scones also make me think of university. My friend A had a thing for the cinnamon scones from Au Bon Pain near my school, and I remember many a pharmacy run that resulted in a detour to fulfill her scone needs. It's now my favorite thing to buy at my local bakery- fluffy and richly speckled with cinnamon deposits (A, you have NO idea what a scone can taste like until you've had one of these).

Downtown even has this feeling of being a university town, with all the cafes and shops, the funny old buildings, and the pond in the center, and going the few short blocks to the pool even feels like a campus sports center. Even the variety of people I hang out with perpetuate this feeling. My first year in college I lived on a hallway with people from all over the world, so having friends from Guatemala, Norway, Holland, Germany, and Iceland living so close by in this little town fits perfectly. I even have lunch in a dining hall every day, and since I live with a friend now, the occasional evening discussions, the help with hairdos, and nail-painting procrastination even feels like the fun parts of dorm living.

So many people talk wistfully about the college days as being the best time in their life, but I've discovered that you can have the best parts of that life in other places, and that it's actually more fun the second time around.

Ship sighting: I spent all weekend in town so I took a few pictures down at the water, like this Portugese fishing boat (again, verry friendly crew) and the peaceful sunset on Saturday evening.

*Note that I have discovered the mapping component of Flickr- many photos now have location data!