straight from the land

For Saturday's lunch I had an omelet covered with mushrooms I'd just picked. Iceland's got all kinds of interesting mushrooms sprouting up this time of year and I figured some of them must be edible but wasn't daring enough to figure it out on my own. So, I recruited a friend and longtime reader S for some help. She's trained in the forests of Germany, a country that seems to have made a national habit of the hunting of the shroom, so I offered a ride anywhere she wanted in exchange for advice. When the weather promised sunny on Saturday, we packed up and headed to her favorite spot which also happens to be the stands of birch near her office on the edge of town.

We parked in the empty lot and within a minute she'd spotted our first mushroom, a small birch bolete. She explained some of the amateur rules of mushroom hunting as we zig-zagged through the trees, such as if no other creature wants to eat it (birds, mice, worms and slugs), you probably don't want to either. The birch boletes were plentiful in the area, but by the time they'd grown large enough to spot easily, were infested with worms. Still, we managed to spot a few near the bases of the birches by looking for the brown cap pushing through the grass, and looking for the telltale black-flecked stem.

She also pointed out a few of another type with bright yellow pore-underside, the suede bolete. These were equally infested with interesting creatures when we found large specimens, but a few smaller untouched ones made it into the box. S explained that the Icelandic climate was not ideal with all the moisture- it seemed to make the worms more enthusiastic. Furthermore, the forested areas aren't like German forests- there tends to still be grass and other undergrowth around which obscures the best small specimens and collects more moisture, thus encouraging worm occupation.

With only a small handful of edibles found, we decided to turn to another late-summer hobby here, the blueberry gathering. Our immediate area proved fruitless so I called my knowledgeable friend J who gave us precise instructions for a berry paradise. A short drive later down a bumpy gravel road, through some seeding lupines, we came to an abandoned dog agility course where the road ended. We jumped out and found ourselves ankle deep in blueberries. Over the hill it was even more prolific, berries tucked between pine and birch, crowberries crawling over the rocks, and everywhere, the lovely herbed smell of a sun-warmed Icelandic hillside.

We scrambled up the steep hill, pausing for the good bushes, talking as we went, until the benevolent sun and the challenge of picking while standing on a near-vertical hillside caused us to fall silent. It was a treacherous picking spot, despite its friendly smells and fruit-laden bushes, so both of us had moments where our footing gave way and we sledded down to the next lava-rock hole or tangled with one of the (extremely prickly) stubby pines. Nevermind, all par for the course when picking berries in the wilds of Iceland. Who cares with such a view, on a sunny day with the knowledge that it might be the last in a long while? The end of August brings about this special kind of urgency to beautiful days- the darkness has returned and with it the memory that winter is fast closing in.

That evening for dessert, we ate the blueberries in large bowls, drizzled with cream and sprinkled with brown sugar. I'd thought of baking something elaborate but this is how we've ended up always eating the berries here. Why mess with perfection?

I'd like to also thank Maria for her generous support of the photo portion of this blog effort. Readers like her are one of the reasons I keep posting.

Calabrese Concerts

Here we are on an even year so that meant choir trip again! This year we returned to Italy, to Calabria, where the choir director's wife P comes from. She'd arranged a marvel of a trip that left us all breathless with the pace of everything but certainly having seen as wide a variety of landscape as can be achieved in just 7 days.

We flew to Bologna and then to Lamezia Terme, then by bus to our hotel, a network of holiday apartments situated on a cliff facing the sea and Stromboli's menacing silhouette on the horizon. To get to the beach, we sauntered down a path trimmed with geraniums and exotic, unrecognizable plants where lizards skittered underneath, then through a lemon grove to the lovely white sand beach. It was a properly European beach so our hotel had its own squadron of parasols and beach chairs, all striped the same and blazoned with its name. Certainly civilized. Of course everyone went crazy absorbing sun, taking lemons from the grove, floating in the aquamarine water, and relishing the delicious simple wines.

Calabria is a wonder of cultivation, and P had selected restaurants and trips that ensured we'd see the maximum marvels of the area. The area where we were was chock full of fields growing the famous red onions, tomatoes, olives, lemons, hot peppers, grapes. Hedges of rosemary bloomed everywhere, and the roadsides were choked with mint. The many dinners we had together took well advantage of this, serving up local seafood flavored with all the abundant vegetables and herbs. One place we went to, called Agriturismo Villani, served only food that had been grown and prepared in the immediate region- fresh sheep cheeses, hams of all sorts, glorious firm eggplants roasted and drizzled in olive oil, zucchini blossoms & frittatas. Served with a view of the sea or in an ancient courtyard ringed with flowering hedges, it was an unforgettable experience.

Between all the eating we held three concerts, each in a different sort of church with its own acoustics. In Tropea, a tiny seaside village, the mayor of the town attended and we were filmed for the local news as we sang in their "cathedral" (stop imagining Notre Dame and downscale a lot). In Lamezia Terme we sang in the lemon-colored Rococo church where P and the director had gotten married, and the audience was full of P's relatives. In Gerace, a medieval city perched on a hill, we sang in a church built by the Normans nearly a thousand years ago. The building, the largest religious building in Calabria, threw our song up into the rafters so that it was as loud in the back as it was next to us, but we could barely hear the person next to us singing. We sang on the ferry from Sicily, we sang in the peaceful church amid the pines at Certosa, a monastary high in the hills. We sang in the mass at Lamezia Terme on the day of a festival where the street had been converted into a market selling pistachio cookies, slices of coconut, nuts & candied fruits, and all sorts of other baubles.

This part of Italy is definitely not easy to get to or to explore, especially the way we were doing it. We had several bus mishaps due to the twisted hairpin roads that interlace the spine of this part of the country, and other than two disgruntled women from New Orleans, I met not a single other American. The beach where we were was mostly filled with Italian holiday-goers except for one Russian family, and it was pretty clear that almost everywhere we went it was not a place that tourists tended to visit. The only exception was Taormina, a village in Sicily that's been frequented by famous foreigners for some time now. After having been traipsing the streets of Lamezia Terme, it was a bit odd to be in a place where there were signs in German and people could speak a few words of English. That's where I skipped out on the museum and wandered down the narrow streets until I found the public garden, a marvel of follies and topiary hedges where Italian kids piled upon each other in giggling heaps, and the view of Etna and the curving coastline was framed by cedar trees and a fluorescent bougainvillea hedge in full bloom.

Unlike the first trip to Italy where I was lost and lonely in the language, and where I didn't have the proper summer travel clothes, I could speak and understand enough to actually grasp what was going on. It also helped to have light summer dresses and sandals that can handle the cobblestones and narrow streets. On our last day in Bologna I remembered the afternoon 4 years ago when I'd been alone and sweltering in Bologna, not sure what to do except wait for the bus to the airport. This time I lunched with a delightful group of people (oh, such pizza!), explored with enthusiasm, and absorbed the vibrancy of the city with happiness before one last ice cream and then back to the airport. Overall it was one of the most memorable choir trips ever. I returned slightly more brown, with a suitcase full of lemons and delicious jams and liqueurs, my Icelandic markedly better, and having shared an incredible experience with an extremely varied group. That's what travel should be about.

accidental delights

Two weeks in Germany seems like a rather fat chunk of time but it ended up being only just enough to wish that there'd been more time to explore. Along our trek from north (my beloved Weimar) to south (Oberstdorf), from east (Frieburg) to west (Görlitz), we happened upon quite a few accidental delights in our relatively loose plan.

One such happenstance occurred as we were making our way east from Weimar and felt the need to stop for lunch. A winding road labeled the Saxon Wine Street caught my eye in our six euro map book, so we exited just before Dresden and headed north to the street that we almost missed at first glance. It ended up being a narrow road that followed the Elbe's valley, stacked on the opposite side with red granite cliffs. Behind nearly every house on the street was a tiny cluster of grape vines, and the few restaurants along the way promised river trout and local wines.

S soon spotted a sign for Schloss Proschwitz's winery, and since the combination of castles plus wine was irresistable, we followed the arrow up a steep road that ended at the top of the red granite cliff. There, we missed the unlabeled winery building altogether and ended up in the church yard at our first attempt, but soon had righted things and were in the sunny stone courtyard, surrounded by freshly painted yellow walls. Inside the wine shop, we learned that they didn't serve lunch at the restaurant there but the proprietor happily pointed us back down the hill to where a former ferry-landinghouse served up a good meal.

Back down the hill we found a grand old building with a sunny terrace looking over the Elbe and a pasture full of cows. We lunched there, accompanied by frosty glasses of local riesling (not normally my favorite but this was dry and delightful) while a paddleboat flapped by, and a majestically furry cat sought shade in the cool soil of a potted tree. Then, since it's a shame to go anywhere called a wine road without actually purchasing some wine, back up to the winery on the hill. There we were shown the paces of the locale, and when it turned out they had a guesthouse with a free room we decided that reaching the Polish border that day was really not all so pressing. Why not stay here in a room named after one of the grape varieties grown there, a princess fairy-tale of a room, complete with half-timbered ceilings, curly iron bedstead, a wall of windows overlooking the courtyard, and cheerful striped curtains?

After a pause that refreshed, we climbed back into our American rental hampstermobile and descended to the river valley again, where we found a tiny ferry chuffing cars across, and buildings marked with the high water levels from the flooding some years ago. Then, on to Meissen, with its tempting medieval skyline. We climbed up the hill to the castle, a white flourish of fantasy with a walkway encircling the base, then snuck up a staircase to admire the soot-stained twin towers of the cathedral inside. A winding road descended from the castle into the old town below, past crenellated brick house-tops as well as forlorn forgotten remainders of the GDR era.

We stopped to try the Meissner fummel, famous more for the story than the flavor, I'd venture. History goes that this yeast-bubble of a pastry was invented due to an 18th century messenger that was rather too fond of the local booze and kept tipping off his horse and failing to deliver things on time. So an inventive baker came up with this fragile pastry, which the messenger was required to deliver intact along with the messages, a feat that was only possible if he remained sober enough to cling to his horse. Nice story but as a flavor it was like eating sourdough bread crust without all the chewy yum inside.

We returned to the car along the riverbank, and back at the winery we tried out the restaurant on the first floor of the building. I'd already been told that Germany specialised more in the white wines, but the dornfelder that we sampled there that night was unforgettable. Of course it could have been the pinkly descending dusk, the unexpected delights of finding such a charming (and inexpensive!) guesthouse, the perfect scale of Meissen, or the foamy cucumber soup with smoked trout we had as an appetizer. Whatever it was, the evening was divine, made even more delightful by the short "commute" back to the fluffy crispness of bed upstairs.

The next morning we went down to the cheerful breakfast room where our shy hostess had set our table with crested china and a heavy silver coffee service. A basket of fresh rolls stood at one side of the table, curls of local ham and a variety of cheese at the other side, along with grown-up grape juice (this was not Welch's by any means) and a locally produced wine jelly. We ate ourselves silly before getting directions to the Schloss itself, a frilly yellow marvel set among manicured grounds and surrounded by grapes.

That day's delights continued on, with more unexpected finds as we explored other small roads. We fell upon the hunt castle at Moritzburg, complete with a chinoiserie mini-castle surrounded by peacock breeding grounds, and punctuated by a lighthouse folly (and strangely, protected the the same huntsman statues as we'd found in a secluded corner of the Schloss Proschwitz grounds), and then as we penetrated further into the former GDR territories, the abandoned leftovers of decades of brown coal mining and neglected buildings. We visited a town now in two different countries, separated by a river that had been bridgeless during the GDR times, and ended the day in another confection of an overnight, the Cloister Marienthal.

This is but a sample of the awesome, leaving me resolved that next time the trip should be even longer, leaving more time to explore these eastern parts. It's not the easy-to-love charm of Bavaria, but the contrast between the abandoned remnants of the GDR, the incredible Baroque castles that survived all the impossibility, the lack of tourist gloss, and the interesting flavors of Silesian cuisine and Proschwitz wines have me definitely ready to go again.

window on Germany

so I just spent some of the hottest weeks of the year in Germany, where I learned the value of summer dresses, cold radler, and shade.

I already knew that Germans aren't as interested in air conditioning as we Americans are, which is fine when you're in a castle that breathes ancient cool from its stones, or a marvel of carefully engineered efficiency. The rest of the time, things can be a bit stuffy, and I had to wonder why I never saw a single fan anywhere. When I was a kid, summertime meant sleeping to the lullaby of the box window fan. The size of half the window, these babies went on the windowsill and sucked that marvellously cool night air into the bedroom. Cheaper than air conditioning and much more comfortable than going without breezes. Why haven't the Germans figured this one out?

The second and much more distressing absence was that of window screens, which I only saw on a single window in a single guesthouse during the entire trip. Unlike Iceland, Germany breeds plenty of mosquitoes who do the exact same nocturnal ballet as they do in Massachusetts. They're also just as attracted by the light, so apparently, the proper way to handle this is to diligently and carefully close all open windows at dusk and keep them closed until you go to bed. Once it's dark, they're safe to open.

We failed to do this one night, and the result was mosquito air raids all night. Since it was stuffy in the room (see the first point here) and since Europeans don't believe in sheets, just duvets (see previous conversations here), staying totally covered up in a mini-tent of blanket protection was a non-option. The next morning, fat mosquitoes, hungover from their blood-fest, festooned the walls. Weeks later I'm still finding battle scars on my legs from where I was munched on.

This is the country that has made a name for itself by coming up with the best and brightest in modern engineering, and they can't figure out a window screen? Is there nobody that finds it annoying to sit in a stuffily closed room as they eat dinner or read before bed, or dislikes the threat of being an insect supper should they wish for some fresh air?

In almost every other respect, I've been impressed by what I've seen in Germany. They've got a spectacular train and motorway system and clever features abound in their cities and homes, so I hope someday I will understand how these two simple, yet essential features of summer comfort seem to have gone missing there.

summer nights

It's a forgotten delight that I have been absorbing as best I can while here in Germany, after having not seen a properly dark night during all these summertime months in Iceland. The days here are warm and moist but the evenings, after darkness falls, are positively magical. The first evening here, S and I took the long way through the forest and alongside the fields to the small Franconian village nearby. We walked at dusk, interrupting few along the way- a rabbit or two, some kids hard at work on some mini-excavation project. Mostly it was just us and the scents and sounds of the dusk.

On our return route, we stopped by an inn with a friendly-looking terrace, and there we sat beneath a chestnut tree for a wheat beer. There was no music there, just the nearly whispered conversations from the three other tables, and some rattle from the neighboring cowshed. Above us, the stars filled in the sky, and we settled into vacation feeling as our glasses emptied. Finally, time to return, past the cow barn where a few curious ones snuffled at my hand and gazed at me with their liquidy eyes. We followed the path back, by the trout breeding ponds, along the fields now clattering with crickets and overstuffed with wildflowers, ending beside the cornfield, ripening silently in the dewy summer dark.

the national hobby

I'm in Germany now, for my third-ever visit, and I'm still getting used to the special ways they do things here. For example, I am still marveling over the wonders of the German roadside food-stop.

Less than two hours after stepping off the plane the first afternoon here, we stopped at a standard sort of rest area off the autobahn where I found myself confounded by the selection, and dazzled by the brilliant sparkle of the immaculate glass and countertops. Of course, when in Germany, it's simple for me to choose what my first meal should be. It must be sausages. But then, what does one have WITH it? There's dumplings and potatoes and fries and a salad bar with all sorts of pickled and brined bits to put on top, and then there's beers and beers and beers (just off the highway, no less).

A few meandering trips through the vast food service area and we settled outside on the patio next to the water feature. Ladies and gentlemen, I remind you that this was a highwayside food stop, and yet we were sitting on a terrace flanked on one side by rosebushes and on the other side by a pond decorated with water plants and complete with its own mini-waterfall. Beyond the pond was a charming little castle-jungle gym for the kids, and the whole area was perfectly well-tended. The rose bushes were clipped, the pond scum-free. The only thing that possibly disturbed the moment was the enthusiastic bees that found radler far too interesting and had crowded inside my empty bottle.

For dessert and coffee, we retreated inside, where we sat at tables decorated with fresh bamboo shoots in vases, and where the chairs at the empty tables had all been perfectly aligned at a welcoming diagonal. This appears to be just your average German approach to highway travel. No Sbarro's, no Panda Express, no sticky menus on the tables. Amazing.

Of course, this kind of tidy takes a lot of work, and I'm coming to realize that the national hobby of Germans is the keeping-tidy-of-things. There's the car washing and polishing, the hedge trimming, the house painting and fence re-aligning. One must make sure the driveway is free of weeds and the trees don't get too tall. All in all, a lot of work but the end result from the perspective of a relaxed summer traveler is quite delightful. I'm relishing it tremendously.

summer barbecuing

One of the staples of an Icelandic summer is the single use grill. These are available at every grocery store and discount shop, and often at most gas stations as well. They're an aluminum pan filled with coals, covered with a sheet of paper soaked in some lighter fluid, and topped with a metal mesh. The idea is that you can have all the joys of barbecuing without having to own all the apparatus of grilling, and when you're done you don't have to carefully carry all the ashes back home.

On the covers they depict fat kebabs covering the entire grill surface, sizzling merrily. Of course this is rather far from the truth. The first challenge is to get them lit, which requires a wind-free spot (good luck with that in Iceland!), and a little prayer and a little bit of lighter-action. If you're fortunate enough to for the flames to take hold, the next feature to enjoy is that there is never a full pan of coals, so you maybe have 2/3 of the grill to work with, which always burns inconsistently. Still, it's enough to make a dinner for two with several grilled components. Word to the wise though- avoid the one that is labeled as being "handy, rapid, and sure!". We had a few of these on a trip to the West Fjords last year and discovered that all 3 of the claims were totally false. We got creative with the primus stove in an attempt to ignite the thing but ended up melting the aluminum and getting no reaction whatsoever out of the coals.

Enough of the boring stuff- what to cook on the onesie grills anyway? Well, in addition to selling these made-for-camping grills, the grocery stores sell all kinds of delights that make for the perfect picnic. To start, there are these nice shrink-wrapped packets of lamb, beef, and pork that are already seasoned in a variety of tempting flavors. Want Argentinian-seasoned beef chops, dry-spice lamb ribs? It's all available in an easily packable flava-bag. You can add grillsósa if you like, available in a dazzling selection of flavors- sundried tomato, green peppercorn, blue cheese.

On to the veggie department, pick up a package of the huge mushrooms stuffed in cheese and ready for the grill in their own little aluminum pan. These come with blue cheese (if you go to Hagkaup), cream cheese (if you go to Krónan- but skip these, they don't have enough zip) or my favorite, the industry standard ones filled with a soft cheese that's zipped up on garlic and herbs. Grab some Icelandic-grown red or yellow peppers, and then in the dairy section, grab a triangle of Akureyri blue cheese. When it's grill time, slice the peppers in half and mash some blue cheese inside. When the pepper starts hissing and the cheese has melted, they're ready (and soo mm good).

For dessert if you still have room, pick up a pair of bananas and some chocolate (I prefer the orange Sirius variety). Slice the bananas on one side, stuff with chocolate, and grill until the banana oozes and the chocolate is all melted. Add some screw-top wine or a few beers and that's all you need to have a grand time.

The best part, of course, is finding the perfect spot for this grilling where you can contemplate a great view, soak up some sun, and enjoy the amazing freedom and solitude that is summertime in Iceland. The countryside is chock-full of these staggeringly beautiful locations where the only company might be a few birds wading in the waves or a solitary Arctic fox slinking by, perhaps attracted by the smell of the sizzle.

In some ways this summer is becoming the swan song for the community I know here. At the last party I attended I talked to so many people who were planning to stay until the end of the summer and then move on to jobs elsewhere in continental Europe. As long as the weather's nice we can all ignore the situation a bit and get to our grilling and admiring of sunsets but sooner than I'd like to think, the great weather will be all over and then what?

sensational summer

The smell of white clover and angelica, the scent of ocean breeze on an otherwise oddly sultry day, that tangy mixed flavor coming from the short birches and the black cottonwood. It's the discovery of piny running paths on Öskuhlíð that almost feels like I'm not here in Iceland.

The flavor of over abundant rhubarb baked into cakes, of grilled lamb and mushrooms stuffed with cheese, of new restaurants serving properly middle eastern fare, of Bulgarian salads. It's that unexpectedly sweet taste of one of the famous flies from Mývatn, inhaled on the downbeat before singing, the creamy cool of soft serve at þingvellir.

There's the feel of sun late in the evening, still warm enough for balcony-sits, the unexpected sensation of actually getting hot enough to sweat while on a run, the sensation of endless adventure potential on these sunsetless days.

It's summer in Iceland and while at times I feel terribly betrayed by this country that's busy destroying the livelihoods of so many people, it's still difficult to resist the allure of so lovely a place. Most weekends have been spent off somewhere, finding new favorite waterfalls, investigating power stations and old tractors, hiking over ridges and sometimes revisiting old favorites. It's good for the soul but bad for blogging.

Like many people here I've been focusing a lot of my time on the domestic delights, although I'm planning my first properly European summer vacation later this year (meaning it's a luxurious span of nearly two weeks) and I am most certainly getting out of this country. As great as it is here, I need my breathing space.

economic stimulus

Earlier this week was the conclusion of the annual bike to work not-month-but-more-than-a-week, and as a bikeless person I contributed by walking to work on a few of the more sunny days. When yesterday turned out to have a promising forecast I set to again, even though my walk would no longer count towards the the tally for my company (during the bike-to-work event, the companies are grouped according to number of employees, with rankings based on the total number of kilometers logged).

Much of my route is the same as the one I described a few years ago, and yesterday morning had much of the same feeling. I stopped by the same bakery for the same cinnamon-peppered scone and a cup of coffee, then made my way across Tjörnin and up Laugavegur. Morning Laugavegur might be one of my favorite experiences of the street, when the Tíu Dropar girl is setting up the outside chairs in anticipation of the afternoon sun that would make it the perfect people watching spot, the sun already warm but the breeze off the snow covered mountaintops to the north is still fresh and cool.

I paused to read some of the love letter exhibition that's now lining shop windows, wondered about the number of curled blue ribbons tied on empty flagpoles and doorhandles, admired the string of skirts that the Red Cross clothing shop had hung from their store high across the street, and of course paused to scratch the tigerstripe cat that was already drunk on sun down by Hlemmur.

On my way home these past few weeks I've remembered that I need a spatula, or would like some noodles from the Asian grocery store by Hlemmur, or stopped to get some fancy chocolates as a barbecue treat from the shop known by its ugly plastic awning and excellent selection. It's hard to resist a scone from the numerous bakeries along the street in the morning, and more than once I've also grabbed lunch fixings from one of the early-opener shops. It's my own way of contributing to the economy here, and I have a feeling that more walking would continue this trend of patronizing the local businesses.

Plus, it's one way that I really relish this most glorious season here, being able to see how the purple flowers that spill over a fence just around the corner from the office have gone from green buds to nearly open in just a week and a half, and witness the pattern of snowfall that still drapes atop Esja and its neighbors. There's also that smell of growing here, now familiar from the past four years and yet still otherworldly, this blend of black cottonwood, arctic birch, and lava-moss.

The news here continues to be depressing at times, the exchange rates continue to go in unfavorable ways, but life still goes on. People still laugh, have parties and concerts, do barbecues and explorations, and at least the arrival of summer makes things feel a little less distressing. Volleyball in the yard, fresh rhubarb growing behind the garage ready to be made into cake, and the opportunity for picnics on the beach in the evening all provide excellent reminders that life still is pretty great. I live in a gorgeous place and am surrounded by wonderful people with whom I can enjoy these fleeting moments of summer sun.

final rewards

I've mentioned that in the deepest winter there's that time that happens here in the summer that makes it all worth it, and yesterday was one of those days. Since I returned from Oslo, the days were solidly and nearly unrelentingly all about the cloud, so yesterday when it was warm enough for t-shirts and with only the slightest of breeze, the entire Icelandic nation went outside. I arrived at choir practice early and spent the 15 minutes I had lying in the fresh grass outside the church, eyes squinted in the sun.

This is my fourth May here and it's just as magical as the first time, except now I know that the spicy scent in the air comes from the newly unfolded black cottonwood leaves, and the rich scent of the plants in shade reminds me of camping trips and hikes, bonfires and endless days of Icelandic summer. It all happens so quickly too- in the 2 weeks that I was away, Iceland went to the ordinary gray most-of-the-year look to blossoming with green and perfumed air, and night became eternal sunrise/sunset. The birds returned, leaving evidence on the top of my car every morning, but bringing songs that, in the still of early morning make it easy to forget I live almost in the center of town.

In spite of what I've written here that generally exudes positivity, my life in Iceland hasn't always been easy or overflowing with awesomeness. I miss family, I miss times of guilt-free native language speaking, I sometimes swear at the impossible weather, the ongoing paperwork that allows me to stay here, and the tiny size of the community can be claustrophobic. But when it all comes together there really is no better place. When I'm swimming in the sun and the timing is just so on each lap, the turns a smooth ripple of interruption with a view to my toes, when I'm learning a new song with this choir that's become so much a part of my experience here, finally able to laugh at the jokes and when the weekend's full of plans with friends, it all does seem worthwhile. I know nobody's life can be great all the time, but here the moments of down are more extreme, and the ups equally or more so. For one thing, the past three years certainly have not been boring.

(we will return to Finland in next post, I promise!)

Summertime slowdown

Well, just as promised, summer in Iceland has brought about an almost complete change in the office atmosphere. Unlike the US, this time of year is holy and for Not Working, so although there are people in the office, the most busy looking thing is the table fan oscillating gently, ruffling the paper stacks on the empty desks. People will take 3-4 weeks off, traveling a little, and often just hanging out at home. The REAL vacation feeling doesn't properly begin until the second week of being away from the office anyway, everyone says here. There are plenty of package trips to sunny places in Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands, but many people will do that and then spend a week of fixing the summer house and hanging out at home on one end.

Outside the office, the mania generated by the summery weather continues. I had visitors in my house most of July, and the weekends and the non-work hours have been full of excursions, trips to the pool, or just sitting around outside, anywhere that's not in the shade. The country is sun-drunk, lying in all sorts of odd places just to catch a ray or three to store up for the long winter ahead. I've seen people sprawled against the warm stones of a building foundation, lying on the unused steps of the old Landspítali building, their lab coats hanging from the door handles. Any chance to toast your shins to a crisp.

On the days when rain clouds sweep across the city, I stay inside and weave, watching the tourists traipse up the hill below the window, shrouded in slickers and hoods. The bouclé I'm working with slides off the shuttle too quickly, the rattling of the bobbin mirroring the clatter of rain on the window, but soon enough the tangles are smoothed out and the project comes off the loom. I put another warp on to weave some more, measuring out the rainy afternoons in weft picks.

eating locally

One of the things I get asked about oftenish is the quality of the food here. Yes, it is expensive, and choices are limited, but that doesn't mean you can't eat well and still stay close to the land. This is something A has thought about quite a bit, so while she was around, we got to talking about it, and thinking about the localness of the meals we were cooking. It's hard to go 100%, but it's actually quite easy to have a pretty good time with mostly locally produced food.

One dinner we made was so good we spent the evening congratulating ourselves on our better-than-restaurant flavors, and then had to have it again a few days later. The menu was:

Main course:

• Icelandic lobster (Vestmannaeyjar)
• with butter (Selfoss)
• and garlic (not local)

we saved the shells from the lobster and made a lobster stock, adding more Icelandic butter and some local carrots for a delectable summer soup.

Salad:

• tomatoes (Hveragerði)
• cucumber (Laugarás)
• red pepper (somewhere over the hill as well)
• spiced feta (Búðardalur, although the oil & seasoning was not from Iceland)
• lemon (also not local)

Garlic bread:

• Bread baked in Reykjavík from flour ground about a mile away (imported wheat)
• Italian cheese (some things aren't the same unless they're the Real Deal)
• Butter (again, Selfoss)
• Garlic (again, from Far Away)
• Basil (from my own windowsill)

It can be frustrating that still so many of the things we buy and eat here come from overseas, but at least when you're eating Icelandic produce, it is a very local experience. I can see the chicken farms where my eggs come from practically from my kitchen window, I have probably passed a cow or three in my time here that has produced the dairy I consume, and I have been through most of the towns producing the vegetables I eat from here. The ships that catch the fish and lobster are a part of the daily landscape of life here, and the processes they go through are very close to the surface. I know some of the farmers, the fishermen, and the millers that are all contributing.

However, there are still some things that are just Not The Same when compared to where I am from. It's impossible to get a decent apple here, not to mention strawberries that haven't come in from Holland on their little bubble-pack mattress, and sweet corn! How I miss the sweet corn of a late New England summer. On the positive side though, I had the first of the season's local blueberries last night, picked straight from a bush in Hvalfjörður, and mixed with that wild-hillside flavor of krækiber.

all over again

My friend A from the US has been visiting this past week, and on her first weekend, we went up to Snæfellsnes and stayed in Hellnar at the fantastically situated hotel there. It's not big, and is obviously more popular with the locals (I'd say I heard about 90% Icelandic in the mornings), but when you're eating breakfast with the view of the whole peninsula spread out in front of you, you can understand why.

We borrowed a car (thanks K & S!) and toured the area at the most leisurely pace I've ever explored, watching birds on the cliffs, stacking pebbles at Djúpalónssandur, surprising sheep at the tippy-tip of the peninsula, visiting horses and wandering along the lava cliff pathway between Hellnar and Arnarstapi.

I rediscovered the secret hot spring I'd been to years ago, and we watched the midnight sun splash across the mountains while tucked in the bathwater-perfect pool. The next day we spent half the day lazing on the yellow sand beach, watching the volcano gathering clouds to its peak at regular intervals. That beach is so marvelous- it's in a lovely location, with the soft sand clustered between the lava cliffs, but so still and unpopulated that I could hear the busy flight of every individual fly as it hurried over my head between grass tufts.

We also hiked across the lava at Búðir, to the caves there, inspecting the hundreds of tiny plants that give such life to these lava expanses- forget-me-nots, wild purple geraniums, herds of buttercups, columbines, poppies, and arctic birch.

A is really into birds, so I learned all about the types that live and nest here. It's baby bird season now, so the seas were full of little bobbing fluff-bits, baby eider ducks feeding on the reedy seaweed at the shore edge. The arctic terns are also in full swirl, so driving on the northern end of Snæfellsnes was full of terns in the turns ("those are the bachelors", said S).

Since the first weekend, the weather has continued the freakishly unicelandic streak, and the only disagreeable thing about it is that it brings the flies. We were at Þingvellir a few nights ago in a haze of midges (thanks H for the evening tour!). Still, the lake was lovely as always, and the flowers are obviously enjoying all the heat. We finished the ring around the lake as the sun dropped behind the mountains, and returned to Reykjavík among the swirls of fog that had developed in the low-lying areas.

Having her around has made me do some of the things I have always meant to do, like visit the Landsbókasafn on Hverfisgata where some of the oldest books in Iceland are on display in a lovely turn-of-the-century building that's all marble floors and droll door handles. We also spent an afternoon walking in the botanical gardens, and sipping coffee in the little café there. It's cottonwood season now, so the white seed parts have covered whole sections of lawn and built up in piles that look like fairy snow- slow drifting, and even packable like a snowball that oozes moisture when squeezed hard. When we were in the gardens, the plants were almost all in bloom and had also captured the cottonwood fluff, frosting branches and blossoms in a thin halo of white filaments.

This is my second July here, and I'm amazed at everything I have managed to miss the first time around. Perhaps it's the weather this year being consistently, suspiciously sunny, perhaps it was something else. At any rate, it's continuing to be one of the best places to spend a summer.

a chacun son paradis

Saturday continued the glorious weather theme from last week, so I headed out to Snæfellsnes with K, the Danish vistors M and J & L, the Italian nephew. Unlike when I went in January, the hillsides now were bursting with green, the fields spotted with baby horses & sheep. It was a great day for mowing, so tractors spiraled alongside the road, and the scent of grass rose from the neat strips of drying hay as we drove out.

First stop, the yellow beach at Búðir. After nearly 2 years in Iceland, I've gotten used to beaches being black. It's how the world works here, so this one looking so much like the New England quartz sand shores seemed out of place. When I got a closer look though, things were back to Iceland-usual. The shimmering shiny "sand" was actually tiny particles of cream shells, crushed so fine they resembled sand, and mixed with just a peppery touch of lava black.

I could not imagine a more spectacular setting for a beach, tucked between black lava turrets, below mountains still spotted with snow, sprinkled with tiny flowers, and surrounded by the crystal-clear rich teal water. Happily, the area was also quite unspoiled by interfering constructions, so the only visible architecture was the scenically placed little church.

We still had more things to see though, so we headed back to the car, through the fluffy horsetail, the cool grass speckled with buttercups, the waving lupines. On the road for a little longer, K dropped all the visitors off with me as the guide, to walk from Árnarstapi to Hellnar along the hillock-y cliffs. The path hugs the coastline for the first part, offering views to the lava-sculpture western edge of the island, and to the right, glimpses of Snæfellsjökull, hugging clouds to its upper crest. A little further, the lava closes off the sea, and it's just you and all the miniature Arctic flowers growing in the stone cracks. On Saturday they were at their most splendid, a mix of buttercups and columbines, and dozens of other small-scale plants, including wild thyme. The scent of the last one mixed with all the sea flavors coming from over the cliff, a rich combination I gulped deeply in hopes of storing it for wintertime memories.

When we came to the rocky Hellnar shore, we walked through a wedding celebration in full swing- kids romping in the grass, adults dozing on the hillsides, and two grills busily prepping lamb. After a Kaldi and cake stop in the delectable café there, we continued on to Djúpalónssandur. Although I've been to these beaches at the end of Snæfellsnes many times by now, I still ended up leaving with pockets full of the smooth pebbles, looking more like candies than something washed up and tumbled by the surf.

By then, it was getting to suppertime, so we clambered back in the car and rounded the end of the peninsula, destination Grundarfjörður. Here, down by the sea, is an unassuming restaurant, still wearing stained-glass Christmas wreath decor in the window. The inside is jammed with what looks like everyone's leftover house decorations, homegrown paintings, and a dizzying variety of lighting from a multicolored glass chandelier to vintage wall sconces. The tables were covered in white crochet tablecloths, and in the ladies room, someone had handpainted two Italian cherubs on the wall next to the sink. Truly a homemade restaurant. The food was a simple, plentiful, and insanely inexpensive all-you-can-eat buffet- the traditional kjötsúpa, lamb, two kinds of fish, sauces, fries, potatoes, and salad.

The proprietor is a former policeman, an endearing older gentleman who told us all to be "dugleg að borða" (diligent eaters), and with food this good, it was not a problem. The kjötsúpa was the best I'd tasted anywhere in the country, and after a day at the beach, the buffet style was appreciated by all. After we'd all enjoyed several helpings, we were offered schnapps ("to wash down the flavor of all this terrible food"), coffee, and exhortations to sign the guestbook. K was sent with greetings for her whole family back in Reykjavík (her ancestors are from the area), and an offer for a bottle of cognac, "just for the back seat to sip on during the ride back".

We left the restaurant in approaching gloom, with the sun hiding behind the imposing shape of Kirkjufell, and the clouds rolling in overhead. After such a glorious day, a slightly more subdued lighting was the right kind atmosphere for the trip back, and when we finally reached Borgarnes, there was one last flash of orange before we all turned our eyes Reykjavíkwards, roadsore from all the driving but full of fish and glorious memories.

no other place

Yesterday was a new kind of Iceland I've hardly seen, the Hot Weather Iceland. I left work a bit early to pick up my branspankin new visa, and on my way home my jeans actually started to feel uncomfortably hot, a rare experience here. So I changed into a short sleeved dress to head down for groceries, although all the reports of the temperature said it was just around 60f.

This Friday afternoon Laugavegur brought to mind Newbury Street in Boston on any sunny weekend. Everyone had pulled out their best Hot Weather gear, since who knows if this is your last chance for the year. Cafe patios were all jammed to full capacity and beyond, and every patch of grass and garden was cluttered with chairs and squirt-gun toting kids.

Tourist influx has hit hard, and also served to remind me that it wasn't really that hot, since there were plenty of windbreakers, mackintoshes, and fleeces. This is summer as it should be though- never hot enough that shorts are the obvious choice, always a smidgen (or more) of crisp breeze, and the endless light that makes it seem that you've got all the time in the world.

Everyone living here scrambles madly to take advantage of these short months of spectacular awesomeness, and the weekends are crowded with barbecues, road trips, rafting expeditions, camping, hiking, and plenty of time at the pool. It's pretty easy to find all kinds great things to do here with this much amazing landscape so close.

Even just in Reykjavík it's easy to love the land. Yesterday evening I went for a rollerblade down round the airport and by the geothermal beach at Nauthólsvík. The air was blooming with the scent of wild roses, and on the imported-from-somewhere yellow sand, people played volleyball and did all the usual things one does at the beach. Odd looking here.

Returning from the airport circuit, I continued along the edge of Fossvogur, skirting the bottom of Öskuhlíð. Here the lupines have taken hold fiercely, and although they are an invasive species, it's hard not to feel a surge of glee when sailing through a craze of purple all spotted in yellow buttercups, a sea breeze tickling your back. In summer there is really no other place quite like Iceland, especially after having seen it through the winter months. It's been hard for me to sleep, so much do I not want to miss all the amazing light, the stupendous midnight skies, the scents of sea, growing things, and lava.

hefðbundinn

Part one is here
We held our concert on Saturday evening, and as I stood singing in the middle of the steps, I realized that this church is one of the few I have ever been in that have proper views-to-the-outside windows, rather than stained glass that preserves this separation in the Holy Building. As we sang, I watched the water, the mountains, and the ships leaving the harbor from the trio of pointed windows opposite.

When we were done, the Húsavík choir came up and performed, its whole soprano and alto section sporting the exact same sensible-lady-of-a-certain-age haircut. Is there only one hairdresser in town, and is she only trained in one haircut? When the singing was done, we all shared a solemn shot of whiskey, priest included, and then we were free of obligation until the next day.

After dinner, some of us tried to go to the one bar in town, only to discover it was locked up tight, to the contrary of its posted hours. Turns out it was closed for the Big Event that night, the sveitaball in the sports house. These events are apparently quite common in smaller villages all over Iceland, translated roughly as "country ball", an all-ages party with live music. In this case, it was the superspecial one in honor of the holiday in celebration of sailors. Sjómannadagur is huge here, given the seafaring history of the land, and it was evident at this ball. The sports hall had been fully tricked out in woolen mittens, netting, net floats, boat parts, and mannequins dressed in foul-weather gear. Nothing says "celebrate" quite like a sou'wester on a plastic figure.

However, literally EVERYONE had turned out for the event- the priest, the leathery 80 year-old sailors with their faded tattoos, the young crop of sailors, farmers from all over. The clothes reflected all levels of enthusiasm too, from jeans all the way up to one woman sporting a fuchsia ball gown and tiara. The vibe was kind of like a wedding without the bride and groom- everyone dancing as they pleased, and clusters talking animatedly along long white tables. In the bathrooms (the sports locker rooms) women gossiped, fixed their makeup, and in the hallways, the guys who'd reached trúnó stage of inebriation slapped each other on the backs and expressed their love and respect for each other. I had some strange and random conversations with people, such as the one with a kid who offered ...amorous attentions and then when I refused, he offered me a job in a slaughterhouse in Húsavík ("but it's a great job!"). Hard to resist such local charm.

The band playing was Greifarnir, a group that'd hit it big here in the 80s and was originally from Húsavík. The songs were all the kind that everyone knows and can sing along to here, a catchy sound that kept people dancing late into the sunny night. I finally packed it in at about 2:30, and walked home in the silence of a town that's all busy dancing somewhere else.

The next morning I woke up in time to go to the pool in the crystal-perfect day. It was a workable country pool with two huge hot tubs, but a sadly crowded lap area. Still, I packed in a few laps and then lounged, reading the ads on the wall ("hot dogs! Best straight from the hot tub") and watching the kids on the slide. The weather was once again the kind that made it hard to believe I was in Iceland with all the sun, the green, the warmth, the bright dandelions crowding the hillsides.

On the way back from the pool, I went to a little craft shop downtown, housed in the oldest building in Húsavík. The small, huddled building was stuffed with felted things, knitted things, painted things, all created by people in the area. These shops are all over the place in this country and they're always worth a visit. Duty called though, so I headed back to the guesthouse to change for the service. So the choir assembled and we went back to the church where we all sang up in the loft, crowded around the organ that breathed and gasped like a living being next to me.

And finally, time for coffee, since this was not only Sjómannadagur but also the church's anniversary celebrations. So off we all went to the one hotel in town that had a sizable ballroom, stuffed with as many tables as it could hold for the afternoon, all set with coffee cups and paper napkins monogrammed with a little picture of the church. On both ends of the room were enormous buffets drowning in goodies, and with the exception of the marzipan-covered cakes, entirely homemade. The whole community must have been baking for a week to pull that off- all the food I'd seen at the birthday party a few months ago, but entirely homemade. Cookies that melted with deliciousness, kleinur that had been freshly fried and were delectably crispy. We all ate ourselves delirious before we had to pack up and stuff ourselves back in the vehicles and hit the road again.

The clouds closed around us once more as we returned to Reykjavík, and I learned that we had happily escaped what had been a stormy and soggy weekend in the south. Just like the first time I was in Vík (a famously wet place), I learned that we had gotten lucky with this northern trip, and that Húsavík had put on all its charms to ensure that it got special billing as one of my new favorite places in Iceland.

busy city

Now that the daylight has gone into overdrive, Reykjavík blooms with activities, people, and energy. I returned to Iceland just in time to experience the thrill of enormous French puppets traipsing through the streets of the city in a multi-day extravaganza that sprinkled itself all over the city. There are still pieces remaining, in the form of a city bus sliced half open with a knife, a car with a tree through it up near Hallgrímskirkja, another car impaled by a huge fork down by the sea, and various other cars that sustained peculiar damage from very large objects.

On Friday night, one puppet slept down by the harbor in an enormous bed. On my way to rehearsal on Saturday, I came across the other puppet asleep near the national museum, its chest heaving gently as it slept, fingers undulating slightly. On the way back from rehearsal, I joined the procession after it woke up, winding through the streets back to the harbor. These things were a marvel of engineering and human power- breathing, blinking, and walking, thanks to the airborne exertions of the dozens of puppeteers.

The troupe staging this performance, Royal de Luxe, has been putting on these large-scale theatrics for almost 30 years, but rarely abroad (says their French Wiki page), so we were particularly fortunate to witness it here. Reykjavík is a good scale for this kind of thing, since all the other elements were within easy walking distance. I hope they travel further to the west so the US can experience it, because it was one of the coolest public art performances I have seen. I loved the unexpected previews of all the mutilated cars, the enormous silverware, and the thoroughness of the younger puppet's movements (she showered! She licked lollipops!).

The weather has been agreeable of late as well. Perhaps not the warmest temperatures, but clear and golden. The cafes are at full hum, and the bike paths that interlace the city are clustered with people. This is Reykjavík at its most glorious, the time we all suffer through the gray days of January to be able to enjoy. And on that note, I'm heading out for yet another rollerblade along the topaz sea.