to be continued...

I haven't stopped writing entirely, but my other project has thus far not had such a cohesive theme as this blog. It's been a collection of thoughts that didn't fit here for the past two years, and continues to be where anything non-Icelandic goes.

For anyone interested in reading further, see here. I'll update whenever something entertains or amuses, so keep it in your feed for sporadic surprises.

on the flipside

Last month I returned to Iceland as a visitor for the first time since I moved. It was a work trip so after landing in KEF, I went straight north to Akureyri. After a refreshing evening at Kea following the best Arctic Indian food you’ll ever find, I was work-ready. My company’s hired some Portuguese contractors, so this was their intensive training week and introduction to All Things Icelandic (snow-related mishap+superjeep rescue included). After several long workdays in the northern office with the dev team, they’re back in their local office, working remotely like I am.

When people who’ve never been to Iceland come visit, Icelanders generally put on quite the hospitable show, and this was no exception. On the second evening there, coworker B opened his house to us, and he and V started in on the cooking straight after work. I set off from the hotel with the Portuguese contingency, three regular smokers used to city living. I’d warned them that we had a 2.5 km walk ahead of us, and they gamely trudged on despite the steeply sloped dirt road we had to climb near the end. All three of them were perfect gentlemen determined to keep pace with me, now well trained on Norwegian hillsides.

We arrived to busy preparations for the usual impress-the-visitors meal- lobster prepared in copious amounts of garlic, butter, and parsley, V’s special potatoes (each potato is prepared with thin vertical cuts almost to the bottom across the whole potato, then roasted while constantly bathing it in oil), and of course, grilled lamb steaks with a generous dollop of béarnaise. I was in charge of the salad preparations, but everyone pitched in with shelling lobster, mixing of sauce, setting the table, opening beers, and choosing music. One of the Portuguese guys commented that he’d never seen so many men in the kitchen before. As the only woman there, I was only too happy that I wasn’t solo preparing a meal for 11 hungry programmers.

Dessert was provided by F, one of the Portuguese guys who’s been working with us almost a year- he had port wine (“for the good times”) and another local schnapps (“for the bad times”). Both were finished before the night was over. The party broke up soon after since the next day was work as usual, but the evening was a success by all accounts.

A few days later, I flew to Reykjavik to finish up some errands. It was an unusually beautiful and clement Friday afternoon, so the streets were choked with all the usual 101 fashionable suspects. After a few months away in a rather more practical environment, the studied styles of passersby was clearly evident, and the high turnover on Laugavegur shops made for an entertaining, albeit slow trip back to my hotel.

Even staying in a hotel in Reykjavik is peculiar, having now only done it one other time. Fortunately, the place I found at a bargain price was right downtown and happens to have one of the latest in cool restaurants, Snaps, right off the lobby. After a power-hour catching up with J&D over tea in my room, I met H with plans to have dinner together. Despite the crowded and noisy atmosphere of the restaurant, we decided to give it a try and were seated with brisk efficiency right near the open kitchen. Our cheerful waitress left us to peruse the menu while we watched delicious dish after delicious dish whisk by behind us.

Both of us kept it simple and ordered exactly the same thing- cheese soufflé to start, the fish of the day, and lemon tart for dessert. H spent many years of her childhood in France, and I’m no stranger to the country either so we were delighted to find so many of our lesser-known but much loved French favorites on the menu. Fortunately, the flavors exceeded expectation, and the service was full of good humor and didn’t rush us in the slightest, despite the busy Friday crowd. We had a good long chat while interrupting ourselves with exclamations over the deliciousness of the meal.

Many hugs later, I climbed the stairs for my brief sleep before my early morning travel back to my new home. It had been an intense visit but a good one, and although I don’t regret the move, it’s excellent that I continue to have reasons to return to such a magical land.

the ship has sailed

A few days ago, the piece of paper arrived at my new home that signifies I am officially no longer a resident of Iceland. The reasons for my departure are numerous, involving work possibilities, my relationship, and the need for a change after the family events of earlier this year. It's been a difficult few months, with competing interests on both sides of the Atlantic and my life suspended somewhere between. I haven't really felt like I belonged anywhere, so frequent was the flying back and forth.

The last day that felt like I was a resident in Iceland was the Sunday after the movers had come and taken away my household, when I turned the key over to my landlord for the sweet attic apartment that was home for almost four years of my life in Reykjavik. My flight was in the afternoon, so I woke early and went down to the sweep of bay that's edged by Seltjarnarnes to the left, Esja and Akrafjall to the right. It's where I saw my first sunset in Iceland that May evening in 2005, where I drove all those times going to see S, where I ran the times I did the Reykjavik half marathon, where I saw so many northern lights shows. With a coffee and a sandwich from Jói Fel in hand on that bright, chill morning, it seemed like the fitting place to sit and watch some of my last hours as a local go by.

The next few weeks were taken up in a whirlwind of cities spanning four countries, before I finally landed for good. Since then it's been a time of acclimatization, waiting for the Ice-homesickness to hit and finding it strangely absent. My new home is lovely, and since the arrival of the furniture, very cozy. Outside the door is a vast forest waiting to be explored, full of scents and plants that take me right back to my childhood in Vermont, thousands of kilometers away. After work, the luminous Scandinavian evenings stretch out invitingly, warm enough for balcony sitting, or ambling through the forest, or discovering the waterside paths that edge along the base of the hills and the river that opens into a vast fjord. The air this time of year is scented with all the things I forgot I missed- lilac, lily of the valley, that earthy, busy smell of forest underbrush after rain.

It's also fantastic to have access to all the great fresh produce that never seems to make it intact to Iceland. Cherries, fat red tomatoes, strawberries, enormous radishes, peaches, apricots. I'm burying myself in fruit nearly every day, digging up new thrills every time I go to my new favorite store, the one where all the immigrants shop. We're eating salad every day, full of new things I didn't know existed, and vegetables I forgot about.

Fortunately, I haven't had to completely sever my ties with Iceland, since I'm still working with the same great group of people who've been my work companions for the better part of my career. I'll have to go to reconnect with the head office occasionally and of course they come here, bringing me Icelandic barley and a reason to scrape the tarnish off my Icelandic speaking skills. Some of the friends here are people I met in Iceland, so there has been some reminiscing of old times back on the rock. It's nice to be around people who understand some of the mystery of my last home.

And so once again, I'm a foreigner in a new land. Despite this being technically somewhere I've never lived before, something about it feels so viscerally familiar that I'm constantly surprised that I cannot speak the language. It's partly because the place has been an undercurrent of my life for the past six years, and partly because the landscape is so comfortingly familiar. It's a weird and wild combination, this comfort mixed with excitement over the new place, bewilderment when I occasionally forget where I am, and poignancy when I wish I could tell my father about how I appreciate all the tools he gave me that are making the setting up so much easier. Not sure where this is all ultimately heading but the movement is definitely forward.

in the wind

My father died a few weeks ago. In the surreal few days that followed his passing, I kept myself busy with the many logistical details that had to be handled, threw myself into cleaning and helping my family. In the back of my mind, the winds of Iceland swept through my head, holding me together until I could return to the solace of the wild winter nature.

Two nights before he died, I saw some of the most powerful northern lights I've ever witnessed from Reykjavik. The house opposite looked to be inhabited by aliens, alit with green fire from behind, and as the night progressed, the show spread across the sky with the leaping fingers of light reaching high above the city, the ribbons waving horizontally, the pulsing glow pulling energy skywards, celestial fireworks for my father. He passed less than 48 hours later. After I returned to the country, it was ten straight days of rain, the relentlessly gray skies matching my sorrow.

I knew I had to be strong for my family, for my mother in her shock at the sudden new circumstances she found herself, living alone for the first time in her life. There was no time for solace or sorrow when I was there; I had to save it for later.

When I returned to Iceland, walking from the bus in the dim morning light, I already felt readjusted as the wind sloughed off my grief and blew life into my nostrils. That weekend S took me all the way to Jökulsárlón, a 750 kilometer round trip through the rainstorm. We stopped to record videos of the wind blowing the streams of waterfalls off into mist, we paused to eat the essential road-trip-in-Iceland hamburger, we made bets over whether or not we'd be alone at the lagoon or not (I won a cake out of this bet).

At the lagoon, we paused on the glacier side briefly to inspect the floes there, then crossed quickly to the other side, where the real magic happens. The tide was coming in rapidly, furious roaring waves crashing around the crackling chunks of ice, turning Land Cruiser sized ice blocks on their side. Along the high tide mark, a neat trail of herring lay, a reminder of the recent and mysterious mass herring death. We walked out towards a long finger of sand that stretched back towards the channel, rapidly being consumed by furious tides from both sides. S braved the water to go to the end while I stayed and simply absorbed it all- the wetness of the rain, the surge of wind gusts, the sizz of sand grains rushing across the beach. I built a small cairn from the black stones that lay scattered on the beach, a beacon for my father's soul, all the while knowing that it would be soon consumed by the encroaching waters that came from both sides.

Iceland may not be where I was born or where I grew up, but it is certainly a place of healing, of cleansing, of sorrow and redemption, a place where my soul finds its center amid the chaos it may find elsewhere. In these times where my thoughts travel their darkest paths, knowing there is this place where the sea is a never ending palette of blue, where the wind is spiked with scents of lava, moss and promise has made all the difference.

wintry weekend

Back in December, my company had the (first!) annual Christmas dinner, an essential work tradition for any Icelandic company. Since our headquarters are located in Akureyri, I went up a few days early to work in the office before the Saturday party. I've always been in Akureyri either for work or on my way through to somewhere more remote, with an occasional stop to stock up on groceries or wine, so I was excited to have a full unplanned day with nothing to do but explore the town.

I woke late on Saturday after the  boisterous next-door neighbors partied late in to the night, and with the persistent December darkness, I wasn't in much of a hurry anyway. The day, when it finally dawned, promised to be snowy but much warmer than Friday's -14c - just right for a nice long walk. I'd planned to visit the industrial museum which listed a 2-hour window it was open, only on Saturdays.

First essential stop was of course coffee, at the bookstore café, where I added a muffin to my cappuccino, browsing through the knitting book collection as I finished off my rather lazily late breakfast. I then buttoned into my magically impervious vintage American military coat and headed south, deeper into the fjord and towards the industry museum. Along the way I passed my old office and the grand old theater building, then descended into my new favorite part of the town, the old seaside village where the houses are tiny, low-ceilinged, and cheerfully painted.

The lightly falling snow meant the day never fully broke through the clouds, but in the dim blueness, the holiday decorations were all the more festive. Every house had something on offer- ropes of lights hung in heart shapes in windows, white fairy-light wreaths, a snowman newel-post, or a glimpse of a decorated tree inside the house. At the edge of the old town, I took a snow-rutted footpath beyond the skating arena to my ultimate destination, the Icelandic industry museum. My colleagues had been telling me all week about how Akureyri had been a bustling production town, with a soap factory, locally produced shoes, and all manner of other interesting things, so I was really thrilled to check the place out.

Unfortunately, despite the door prominently displaying the opening hours, I found no sign of life within or without, and after inspecting the many mysterious machines lying silently under an increasing blanket of snow, I retraced my footsteps idly. As I wandered back the way I came, I passed the Akureyri museum, a short hill-climb behind an old church. Despite my skepticism that it would actually be open, I climbed the hill anyway, to find the door open and a cheerful youth inside at the desk. He proffered the guestbook, saying that until Christmas it was free entry, so I shrugged off my coat and plunged into the history of the area through three thoroughly documented rooms of photos. My favorite photo series was that of the Italian fruit vendor who introduced some skeptical farmers to kiwis ("what are these, fuzzy potatoes?") in the 80s.

Opposite the photo rooms, the main galleries displayed artefacts and stories from the earliest settlements through the mid 20th century. I learned about soap manufacturing, the area's days as a trading post, and the style of houses enjoyed by the wealthy and endured by the poor. By then it was nearing 4 and I felt conspicuous as the only visitor, so I thanked the desk fellow and headed back to my guesthouse.

A few hours later, dressed in holiday best, I met my colleagues at the evening's venue, an old storage building for one of the early stores in the area that I had just learned about in the museum. The place has been refurbished elegantly and can be hired out for receptions or meetings, and in the wintry gloom, candle-lit and set for dinner, it was a great place to celebrate what has been an amazing year with the company. It's been a year of exploration and new experiences, both at work and in this small fjordside town. Akureyri was a delight the first time I visited in 2005, and it has only become more firmly rooted in my heart since then, even in the depth of winter.

outdoor essentials

One of the things that really surprised me about housing in Iceland when I first arrived was that balconies are considered a nearly essential feature of home life. In Boston, I never lived in an apartment with a balcony, and none of my friends had balconies either. What's the point when winter is so long and tedious, when you only get a few months of use out of it? And yet, when I first arrived, the balcony-free apartment was looked upon with a bit of pity despite being in a very charming old house.

The next apartment had a balcony but turned out to not be as useful as one might hope due to its northfacing seafront location. It was possible to do the occasional barbecue, well anchored with heavy stones, but wasn't really a comfortable place to sit and enjoy the day due to brisk breezes off the sea. Furthermore, it only received direct sunlight late on summer evenings when the rays were no longer particularly warming.

I've been through several other apartments since then, some with outdoor space, some frustratingly without, and I have to say that life in Iceland is definitely much better when viewed from a balcony. Where I live now, it may be a rather tiny space, a bit more than a meter square, but the southern exposure and genteel neighborhood views means it's actually almost useable. On sunny days when the breeze isn't too persistent, I tie open the door and let that marvelous Iceland air pour through the house, and on rainy days I press my nose to the windowpane and imagine the days when it'll be possible to sit out there again.

Plus, if you want to do one of the essential Scandinavian weekend chores when housecleaning, a balcony is a must. On dry days, the neighborhood blooms with duvets tossed over railings, and now I can do it too. For a while there was no railing on my tiny outdoor space, which resulted in a few mishaps where my duvet and drying rack ended up in the garden below, but I've mastered the technique now with a few well-placed clothespins. After a few hours in the sun and wind, the duvets take on the most marvelous lava-air scent that puts me to sleep instantly.

And on those winter nights when the darkness pins itself tight to the window, it's a ritual to step out into the frigid air while I brush my teeth, just to scan the sky in hopes of seeing northern lights. Somehow this is far nicer than looking through a window. Iceland's weather is always more interesting when you interact with it, and my tiny balcony is the perfect way to do that, in any season.

for the love of knitting

One thing that people have probably noticed when visiting Iceland is that the lopapeysa really is taken quite seriously here. It was conceived as a very serviceable garment in thick unspun Icelandic yarn, only in natural sheep colors, and usable as a replacement for a coat, with the patterns on the yoke and openings serving a practical function as well as a decorative one. Adding a multi-thread pattern on the edges makes the design less stretchy so the cuffs and hem are more durable, and on the yoke, the double yarn adds warmth to the chest area.  In more recent years, the choice of color, pattern, and yarn weight has exploded, and now you can find these sweaters with all kinds of crazy designs- I've seen pink background with skulls, animals, flowers, and the traditional designs reinterpreted in all kinds of thrilling color combinations. With lighter weights of yarn, they're more versatile too. If you want, you can now even design your own on the web, and the measurements will all be taken care of for you.

I started in on my first pseudo-lopapeysa a few years ago, going with the free vórmorgun (spring morning) pattern off the web, designed by one of the biggest names in Icelandic sweater-design, Védis Jónsdóttir. I thought that having no sleeves and a relatively simple color pattern would make this a good starter project, plus, it really is just the thing for Icelandic spring, when you want to wear light colors but the weather really just doesn't cooperate. It didn't take long to make and although I messed up the decreases and found the white wool I chose rather unforgiving to variations in stitch consistency, I wore it a few times before deciding the style really wasn't flattering to my body type. It's now clothing my friend H, who looks fantastic in it.

Round two of the lopapeysa effort was another classic, but again I was overzealous in the measurements and the result ended up rather long, and with curiously lacy underarm stitching. A second vórmorgun vest I made as a Christmas gift finally came out exactly how I wanted, so I moved onto a more ambitious multi-color pattern, the blockbuster Riddari design. I once commented that in Iceland you're more likely to see someone wearing the same lopapeysa pattern than wearing the same skirt, and with this design it's really true. In my choir alone I can think of 5 people that have some variation of this pattern.

This sweater came out perfectly and still looks fresh despite nearly two years of daily winter wear. I'm now on my fifth lopapeysa, this time finally for me, and I'm looking forward to the day I can wear it. I wrote once about the magical warmth of the Icelandic blanket- this is that same coziness in portable form.

I keep coming back to these sweaters because they are so fun to knit, especially in the winter during choir practice. While the sectional rehearsals are going, the altos and sopranos always have several projects going. There's K with her endless and unbelievably rapid sock knitting, A with her beautiful baby sweater, and in the back row of the sopranos before Christmas, smaller projects blossomed left and right. Silent interludes are often punctuated by the ping of a dropped sock needle, and whenever I need help I always know where I can get it. These ladies are endlessly helpful when it comes to sewing up the underarms, figuring out how to unroll a curling hem, or how to interpret some of the pattern abbreviations that are cryptic in any language.

Another reason I like making these is because the value gained by making them yourself is so great. You can see from the link above that in finished form, these sweaters aren't cheap. However, one visit to the Icelandic knitting association downtown and you can walk away with the material to make your own for about 3000isk. Although they might look terribly complicated, the design is really very simple, just three tubes that are merged to form one tube. All you need is familiarity with multi-color knitting, basic increase and decrease skills, and some practice with double-pointed needles. Much easier than lace knitting, and one of the most rewarding kind of sweaters you can make since there's barely any sewing-up that has to be done at the end.

A book came out before the holidays, a sort of Icelandic pattern book greatest hits in hardcover form, and I've been drooling over it at every visit to my local Hagkaup. Like most Icelandic books, it's a bit more than I can justify spending on a whim, but with the beautiful new photographs and the possibility to own all the best patterns in one book has me thinking it won't be long before it's on my bookshelf. I probably don't have long to decide though- these kinds of books are generally only published for one or two runs, so it's likely not going to be available for much longer.

Fortunately, whether or not I have the book, the Icelandic wool sweaters are a warmth that keeps on giving, and identifies Iceland-lovers the world over. Whenever I've just landed somewhere on an Icelandair plane, I can almost always identify a passenger or two who's likely to be Iceland-bound on the return flight. This is definitely one (unofficial) national costume appreciated by both tourists and natives.

chapter new

The past three months have been an abrupt shift in quite a lot of my life parameters, and although late November was a rather rough phase, the outcome so far has been far better than I could have imagined. I'm working for a new company now, with people I've known almost as long as my time in Iceland, and I'm pretty sure a better group of colleagues can't possibly exist. They're smart, reliable, funny, interesting people whom I've seen through many thrilling years are completely trustworthy as well. I feel extremely lucky to be part of this group and doing such interesting projects.

 New job also means new office, and also more frequent trips to Akureyri to sync with the team up there. The office in Akureyri was previously occupied by an investment firm, and although the entire building is now empty, it feels more like they're just out at lunch than they moved out. The company letterhead and official stamps are still in the supply closet, the firm's name is on the wall, and the ladies room is better stocked than at a fancy hotel. Perfume, makeup remover, hand cream, hair pins, and hairspray are all neatly lined up on a glass table beside a fancy lamp. I'm the only woman who occasions the place so it's a very luxurious experience.

The building is a lovely old one with thick walls, a huge brick chimney in the center, and an elegant pre-2008 renovation inside with frosted glass walls etched with the names of the now-disappeared banking divisions. From the windows the view is pure Akureyri- a vast sweep of fjord and in the darkness, the pulsing heart of lights someone put on the opposite side of the water. Mornings there have been my favorite, especially the day I arrived this week. The fjord was hung about with clouds, but as the sun rose, the undersides shown rosily, and a beatific light poured in the windows and shone on our development manager.

Lunch there is rather fun, since there are only a few frequented spots among the working crowd of the north. The daily menu at Strikið is usually good value, and I'm sure to run into a few of my former colleagues who've found work at other nearby places. After lunch we can stop by and visit some others who set up shop together and inherited the famous foosball table.

The post-work time's also as cozy as I've come to expect from visits to Akureyri. My new boss's wife works in tourism, so she recommended a guesthouse as a possible home-away-from-home, and she didn't steer me wrong. The place feels like being at home, with a dining room stocked with all the necessary crockery, free use of the kitchen, tea supplies, and even candles and a lighter so your room is properly home-like. With the wooden floors and furnishings typical of Icelandic homes, it's no hardship to spend a night or two here.

In the mornings I can just cross through the center of town to get to work, along a route where people leave their cars unlocked, idling, and empty while they pop into the bank, or dash into the bakery for their morning cinnamon bun. It's that kind of town, Akureyri is, and visiting it always reminds me of why it's so good to live in Iceland- the views, the air, the cozy feeling, the people I've been so fortunate to have in my life.

girly things, episode two

As I discussed some years ago, Icelanders are very prone to trend mania, and just like a few years ago, I decided I had to try out the latest craze and see what it was all about. Last time I went through duty free, I bought the smallest size of the #1 best seller in the cosmetics department, the EGF serum. This thing has been gushed over on the international press, and stories go that women in Iceland and abroad are using it with rave reviews.

This is my first foray into serums and I've never used a product with magical promises like this before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but so far I've been underwhelmed. After a month of using it every night before bed, just like instructed, I haven't really seen any difference. It's just like with every other skin product I've ever tried. Some smell nice, some don't, some make my skin really unhappy, but none have really produced results impressive enough to make me buy again. So, I've got to say that unlike the last time I ventured into Icelandic woman-products, this one has failed. Maybe I'm just not in their target age group or something.

In other more positive news, I discovered that the Icelandair shop is selling a dress designed by a friend of a friend. The first time I spotted it in the catalog I wasn't particularly thrilled by it and didn't realize the few degrees of separation between me and the dress. In November I was on a Skype call with my longtime friend K, and as usual, we segued into discussions of Fabulous Dresses. She mentioned that a friend of hers is the head designer for a label in town, someone I've had sunny wine-soaked afternoons with, someone whose house has hosted several fabulous dinner parties, someone whose dog I've walked when I lived on the same street.

After our call I stopped by the store downtown, and to my surprise, many of the dresses and skirts in the store were indeed gorgeous and fit me superbly. I had a friend coming to Iceland buy the dress from the Icelandair duty free, and have been extremely happy I did ever since. It's the perfect weight of jersey with the perfect neckline, and I love that someone I know had a hand in its delightful craftsmanship. Such is life in Iceland, where the people you spent an evening dyeing your eyebrows with are the people designing beautiful things with international recognition. Also, K rarely steers wrong when it comes to gorgeous dresses.

Update: Reading the morning news I discovered that yet again there's a mania for this EGF serum, this time in France. What am I missing here?

*since America cares about this, nobody has paid me or given me anything to write about either of these products

Icelandic new year flavor

A few months ago one of the members of my choir announced that she had a plan to make a disc of musical favorites related to New Year celebrations, and she wanted us to be part of the effort. The director whipped up a new arrangement of one of the Icelandic classics, and during our annual weekend retreat rehearsal, we performed it along with several other favorites to an attentive recording crew.

She was recently interviewed on the national radio program, and it included a snippet of the best one as the intro. This song's tune and lyrics make me think of Vikings stamping around a bonfire in the deepest dark of an Icelandic winter night, and even though this is only a clip, I hope you can feel it too.

The rest of the program is an interview with my choir member for anyone who wants to exercise their listening skills, and it closes out with another recording of another New Year favorite, as performed by a very enthusiastic choir comprised of several generations of Icelanders. I can't wait to get the CD and hear the rest of our contributions, and hear what else is included.

musical magic

Last week my choir held the usual Christmas concert that I've mentioned here before, and the event turned out to be one of those classic Icelandic evenings. This year's program was Bach's Magnificat, a glorious piece of baroque frivolousness, paired with a piece newly written over the past few months. The choir director has been in a composing program at school here, and decided to write a chorale as his final thesis. As he finished the chapters over the fall, we rehearsed them along with the Bach piece, re-learning as he re-wrote, trying to grasp his new sound and do justice to his creation as we brought it to light.

The rehearsals with the baroque orchestra began a week before the concert, and at the last rehearsal on the Sunday before our concert, things were sounding a bit iffy. Soloists were getting lost, the timing of the instruments was off, the choir anxious and uncertain of entrances, notes that had been changed at the last minute, unable to hear each other, shuffling the risers in the back rows.  Too late to do anything but hope at that point though, so the on the evening of the performance, as I watched from the side chapel as the  church fill with concertgoers, I hoped we'd do justice to this new piece, and to all these people who were paying to hear our efforts.

As always though, once the overture began, nothing else mattered but the Bach that we'd been practicing for nearly a year. It's a piece I hope I sing again, although as each movement whizzed by I found myself wondering if or where that might ever happen again. There wasn't much time to ponder this since we filed offstage the instant the last chord was over to mill about in the church's cellar.

Finally, time for the director's piece. Somehow, despite the frustrating performance, it all came together just how it was supposed to- the girls' choir came in right on cue, the soloists remembered their pieces, we found our places and our voices in the choir, and at the end, the director's look of gratitude directed at us said it all. The audience seemed to agree, and one standing ovation and several encores later, I marveled at all the only-in-Iceland features that came together to make this evening possible. There we were, an amateur choir composed of a very motley crew of people, representing all ages, many different professions, a sprinkling of nationalities, along with the elite from Iceland's symphony orchestra, some of the best soloists the country has to offer, all performing a piece that had been written just in a few months by the guy who's guided our choir through four countries now. Doesn't happen every night in a girl's life.

We rounded out the evening with a champagne toast and a hilariously cheesy cake featuring a full-color photograph of the director, as ordered by his wife (she ate the piece with his face on it). The elation of the well-performed concert combined with the liberal champagne made for a joyful and conversational after-party. As it began to wind down, I slipped off my fancy-yet-uncomfortable concert shoes, and back in my boots, I walked the few blocks home in the crisply starry night, arpeggios still trilling in my ears.

midnight memories

It's past midnight and in my little corner of Reykjavik, I just spent 10 minutes with my chin leaning on the edge of my bedroom skylight, propped slightly ajar. It's quiet below, the sidewalks glazed with a crust of ice, and above me curves a smudge of northern lights. Christmas decorations have gone up, so although the inhabitants are mostly asleep, the houses along my street glow with fairy lights. The mysteriously mild November has now descended into deep negative numbers, so I'm wrapped in wool from the neck down.

Propping one's chin on a windowsill is rather akin to leaning on a pasture gate- it's the right place for a good ponder. After reading through a few years of my blog archives, I thought about all the things I once marveled at that have become so ordinary I don't even think about them anymore. I've learned to rip open milk boxes and how to fold them securely closed, I learned to stab juice boxes with a knife to allow smooth pouring, I'm no longer lost when it comes to figuring out what frozen goods to buy, even if the labels are all in Danish, and the plugs and switches I thought were so fascinating are forgotten in the midst of everything else on my mind.

When I go to the same gym I once visited with my friend T, it's the classes in English that feel wrong, not the Icelandic ones. I've learned all the body part words I need to know, and adjust my hands, my hips, my shoulders without a second thought to the language. This happened again earlier this week when I once again met H (still editing after all these years!). Our conversation began in Icelandic, shifted to English, flowed through Icelandic again, and continued this pattern as we worked through texts in both languages. As the wine bottle emptied we tried a few moments in German as well but abandoned that as the Icelandic crept in again.

My body's adjusted to the place too- recently as I exited the bakery on a particularly windy day, my grip automatically adjusted on the cake box so it wouldn't go sailing across the parking lot. Not so when I first arrived and an enthusiastic gust of wind ripped friend K's car door from my hand and bent it so badly that the door never shut properly after that. I think about the wind still, of course, but more as a practical concern. Which windows need closing, which direction is best for the run today, or should I just do inside-yoga instead?

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be integrated somewhere, and I've realized how differently I think about this place compared to those first months. I remember being so aware of how isolated this little island is, imagining the vast black oceans beyond, the empty frigid mountains that ringed the city. Now, when I think about Iceland this night, I think of H across the street in her green-wallpapered bedroom, J nested amid her handmade felt-crafts a few streets away, M still in the apartment where I first met her in 2007, only now with tiny S sleeping at her side, K's family in their rambling home smelling of delicious cooking. Further afield, there's M in his cozy house with the crazily hand-tiled bathroom, V in his neat village on the edge of Eyjafjörður. In between lies a string of familiar places that I've visited and stopped at during the dozens of trips I've taken. This island is no longer a remote, forgotten piece of lava, it's a place crisscrossed with memories and people and experiences.

nammi number one

One of the things I love about being able to speak Icelandic is that it's given me access to the mysterious world of small talk, Iceland style. As you might expect, a lot of it is pretty much the same as it is anywhere else in the world. For example, a few weeks ago I was waiting for the bus and an elderly gentleman ambled up to wait at the same stop. During the few minutes we stood together, we discussed the changes in bus policy and how the mild weather was pleasant and would hopefully last until Christmas (naturally, it didn't). During the subsequent bus ride, I complimented a fellow passenger on her fabulous boots and she returned with an admiration for my red patent-leather pumps. Pretty standard.

It gets more interesting at certain places, like the downtown post office. This isn't the easiest post office to choose, since it requires paying for parking, but one woman behind the counter makes it worth the visit. She's apparently a legend in at Pósturinn according to a friend who works in another branch office, and it's easy to see why. First of all, she must be the fastest stamp-canceler in the West, but she's also perennially cheerful. Last time I was there, I was mailing packages containing Icelandic wool and slabs of suðusúkkulaði to friends in America, and as she weighed and stamped my packages we discussed the contents. I said that this pairing was popular for almost everyone in America, but when I was going to visit my parents, I had to include that classic Icelandic fish jerky, harðfiskur, in the mix since my mom's such a fan. "ahh yes", said she, "those are nammi* number one, two and three in life."

Interactions like this make me think about the reputation that Icelanders sometimes get of being unfriendly on tourist websites and in guidebooks. I've never really felt that way, and the more I can communicate on their level, the less I feel the reputation of unfriendliness is warranted. I always thought small talk and striking up conversations with people you don't really know was a typically American thing, but the more I see of this island, the more I realize that it's just the way humans are. Particularly when you're in these remote areas where people can be few and far between, those small conversations with an unusually charming gas station attendant, or over the merits of harðfiskur add a little sparkle of human connection to life.

*nammi is one of those fabulous Icelandic words that doesn't have an exact direct translation into English. It means candy most often, but also refers to any sort of yummy treat.

open curtain policy

on Saturday after a successful holiday shopping trip followed by coffee with a friend near downtown, I walked the long way home via Bræðraborgarstígur. The weather was starting to grow chill after a mild day, and a light drizzle had fallen during my coffee hours, so the dark pavement gleamed under the streetlights. This neighborhood is the postcode of so many parts of my life here, particularly along Öldugata, my first Icelandic address. It's a great street for walking, as is Bræðraborgarstígur, particularly just after dark when everyone's home and cozy, preparing dinner or just hanging out.

It's also a neighborhood that's not much inclined towards curtains, and just like old houses in Vermont, the oldest ones are built closest to the road, so a pedestrian feels almost part of the tableau within. There's that studenty looking kjallaríbúð at knee level, the sink piled with dirty dishes in the 80s-style kitchen. Next, the warmly lit living room lined with books, a bright red toddler-sized dress hanging on a door beam. I glance into one on the corner where my head's level with the bottom of the window, a girl on her laptop behind a lacy paper window decoration.

The views into windows here is a theme I've mentioned a few other times, like when I first moved here and was living in the same neighborhood, and again some months later when I was walking through the area where I live now. Compared to some other nations, like Germany, where curtain-drawing is an essential dusk routine, I wonder why it is that the people I live among don't seem to bother pulling the curtains. Do they like the virtual participation of the passersby? Are they proud of their nice decor, do they simply feel like there's no point in closing the curtains when everyone knows your business anyway? Maybe they're just trying to keep track of what the latest incarnation is of the ever changing weather.

This is my own reason for not wanting to pull the shades, at least. I'm always popping out to the balcony to see if perhaps it's clear enough for northern lights, to admire the moon or the stars, to smell the night air or listen to the clatter of people on the street below. During the dusk and dawn hours, I want to have full sky visibility for maximum cloud and sun-effect enjoyment. It helps to live on the top floor with strategically placed windows so I'm not sharing quite as much as those houses I passed on Saturday, but I have added something in case anyone does glance heavenward and see my tiny window. I've set a millefiori bowl there, illuminated from within on occasional nights, my small contribution to the patchwork of color that is downtown Reykjavik.

Christmas crowd

I'm lying awake in the eerie silence of a still Icelandic night, wondering why when the wind howls I can't sleep, yet when it's still, I miss its busy lullaby. Why is it that when I most need it, sleep eludes? It's that time of year when everything is crowding together, trying to jumble in the decreasing gap between now and Christmas.

There are those handcrafted gifts to finish, packages to post, and the massive editing project I took on a few weeks ago looming in my after-work hours. My head's full of superplasticizers and adsorption rates, my fingers nimble from all the tri-color knitting, but chaos has descended at home where the music bags, knitting bags, gym bags, and sheafs of paper are in an ever-rotating cycle by the door. Bach is also coloring the month as fevered preparations continue for a dual Magnificat performance. It's a world premiere, no less, since the choir director's foray into choral music has become more ambitious with a full length chorale.

It's the season for special foods and special traditions, perfumed with clementines and cinnamon. I was in the office of my car's garage and when that telltale scent wafted from behind the desk, the two off-duty mechanics offered me a clementine, and the scent theme followed me to the office and then to choir rehearsal. Everyone's eating them, the boxes stacked high at the grocery stores an easy temptation.

Any business that can joins in on the holiday frenzy. Flyers for holiday cleaning deals clog the mail slot, the radio blares with ads for pre-holiday carpet shampooing, hairstyle bargains, and Christmas outfit sales. A new shop opened last weekend in one of the malls, and the stock that was expected to last five weeks sold out so quickly the store had to close after only being open a few days. Shopping at this time of year is a serious business.

Through this whole time, the weather's been peculiarly warm, the kind of weather that's just at home in an Icelandic spring or summer as it is in descending winter. Days may be short on light, but they're crammed with cloud varieties, and just the kind of dramatic light I so love about this place.  This afternoon, after a rather dour morning of heavy clouds, the sun pierced through with marvelous island-illuminating side-light, so the harbor islands shone like gold coins, the white departing boats freshly starched dinner napkins spread on a navy table. It may not be a particularly Christmassy effect, but in the middle of such a crowd of activities, moments like that always remind me to breathe in the view and appreciate in every way exactly where I am right now, jumbled thoughts and all.

moment of silence

One of the recent news items has had me thinking a lot about this country, the people who live here and the people who visit. Late Wednesday, a young man called the emergency number to say he'd lost his way out on one of the glaciers in the south, and needed help. Teams from the volunteer rescue squads were immediately on the job, despite the call going out in the middle of the night. Over the next few days, hundreds of people volunteered their time to search for this lost visitor. When I called some friends on Saturday, they were all still busy helping out, cleaning the vehicles that came back from search efforts and restocking for the next trip out.

Sadly, they found the young man later that day, his body in a crevice where he'd probably died from exposure. I suppose it's a better ending than the last time such an event happened when two German tourists went hiking and were never found again.

This story made me think again of how powerful the nature is here. It's a country where the wind can blow entire ship containers into the sea from a dock, a country where people can go missing and never be found, where the weather can change instantly, and where you can never be too prepared when you venture out into the wilderness. Most people are smart and sensible but for the thousands who are, there's always the one horrible sad story. There are plenty of sites reminding people of the dangers here but I'd just like to reiterate it because the consequences can be so awful- don't go into the Icelandic highlands alone, tell people where you're going and when you intend to return, and most of all, go prepared. You always need more clothes than expected here, and climbing on glaciers is not something someone should do unless they're experienced and properly equipped, especially this time of year. Glaciers in the autumn have had all summer to melt and are full of crevices that can be hard to see. The nature here is amazing partly because it's so powerful, but it's not the kind of power that's worth toying with lightly.

The other thing this week made me think of was how incredible Icelanders are in emergency situations. It's a nation that knows how to get on the job swiftly and seems to be quickly innovative when the need arises. During the search, local hotels and associations pitched in with food and accommodation for the tired search parties, and all the rescue team people who weren't sufficiently trained for highland search missions were helping to support in dozens of ways. I've seen this kind of quick and flexible response to other unexpected situations here many times over the years, from volcanoes to floods, and even in the case of the Haitian earthquake, when Icelandic search and rescue teams were among the first to respond.

So thank you to all the searchers, and for anyone who goes out to enjoy Iceland at its best (and sometimes at its worst), please come back safely.

saturday morning

eating my yogurt with bananas and toasted pecans, looking at the promise of today from three windows. To the south, the red berries still cling to the trees in the yard, although the chatter of starlings makes me wonder how long that will last. In the north, the rain-striped skylight looks to lowering clouds huddled over Esja. It's that time of year when Iceland spends more time shrouded in rain than anything else, but when I look to the east, the clouds are punctuated with hints of palest blue. Promise for later. It's been months since I wrote since as always I think it's always the same things that I write, of the purity of the lively air here, the simplicity of the tiny town, the coziness of community rituals.

And yet sometimes I still want to remember a certain moment, often the quiet ones when it's just me, my thoughts, and the Icelandic sky. Today's full of plans for holiday shopping, visiting friends, and delicious new dinner recipes to test, but for now I'll sit here, chin in hand, and watch the bird-ballet in the rowan tree beyond the balcony.

daily poetry

Walking home from a cozy evening with an international group of women, Danish jazz from a colleague in my ears, I just looked northwards and caught the first glimpse of the northern lights this year. The air was still balmy and full of the smell of green, and the breeze stirred it gently across my face as I walked.

It got me to thinking about the strings of moments over the past months where I felt like I was exactly where I wanted to be, where nothing else mattered but being in that place right then. The sunny pause on a rock in the east fjords to listen to the awakening spring with A over Easter, singing Icelandic anthems in the total dark of a dripping cave on Snaefellsnes in June, the summer afternoon trekking through the northern pine forest with J & D.

It's those moments abroad, cycling beside the Pegnitz with S on a humid German Sunday, part of the fabric of activity along the river banks- rhythmic gymnasts, families barbecuing, the shouts of joy from the nearby swimming pool, the conviviality of the cafes by the path. Or, late afternoon at Katama, drowsy from the chill of the Atlantic juxtaposed with the still-warm sun. There's a book that could be read but for that moment all that matters is the sound of the surf, the sand between my toes. It's a long lunch beneath the trees in a Bavarian village, just the right amount of town square activity bustling by, the huge ancient trees above shading the tables coolly. It's meeting a friend's new son for the first time, skipping from air conditioned lobby to air conditioned lobby on a sweltering Boston afternoon. It's the run through the wonders of Regents Park in torrential rain.

I'm not sure where this is all headed, but for now I'm stringing these beaded memories together, a year of change and snapshots I hope I never forget.

spring, but not

today's the day that officially we are all supposed to have removed our winter nail-tires. It's appropriately ironic that today I woke up to a white world, and since then it's been snowing on and off. The view outside my office is one of those classic Icelandic days, the sky aswirl with clouds and pierced by gentle shafts of sunlight. A crowd of seabirds has just taken off and are reeling against a dark portion of the sky. As the sun hits their wings they glint like silver glitter. The sun's warm though, and the days are already light well past 9pm. It's inevitable that the snow will have to capitulate, one of these days.

So, you want to work in Iceland?

Ever since about a year into this blog, I've been getting emails from people asking me about ways to move here. They stopped abruptly at the beginning of October 2008 but always reappear in a spike during the first few months of the new year. I can't quite figure why, given how idle this blog is, but since it doesn't seem to be disappearing, this post is for all of you frustrated would-be expats. I've found that I am answering the same questions over and over again, which means it's time to make it into a post. I should preface this by saying that when I moved to Iceland it was when the banks were all hiring aggressively and when the general unemployment was extremely low. The current situation is very different. The jobless Icelanders and EU residents I know here are having trouble making ends meet, and most of the expats that made up the vibrant community that made the mood her festive are mostly gone. Every month a new friend shares the news of his or her departure, and now even the half-Icelandic couples are beginning to leave.

With that said, if you're still gung-ho about moving here, this is the advice and information I can offer. Keep in mind that this is based on my own experience moving here several years ago. Since then the visa situation has changed quite a bit, and the job market has changed even more so.

First of all, if you're coming from the US or some other non-EEA country, as most of my would-be Iceland residents seem to be, you'll need residence/work permits. As with most countries, this means you either need to be a student (with a verified income source), in a relationship with an Icelander, or with a job here. I'm going to address the third category mostly, since that's what I did and what most people ask me about. These visas are easy enough to get if you have a willing sponsor, although the lay of the land is a bit different now than it was when I arrived some years ago. They used to be free, now are not, they used to be one-size-fits-all but now are divided between skilled and unskilled types. Of course, there's the issue of the kreppa which has the employment situation for everyone here in a bit of a question. I keep hearing about all the foreigners leaving, that the hiring fairs for jobs in other countries are jammed, that everyone's running for the ferries to Europe. I know some of these people personally, who've found jobs and are packing their things up as I type.

That said, there still has to be space for foreign workers, particularly ones who are handy writing in English. Given that the consumer base within Iceland is so shaky, the companies that want to stay afloat are searching for business in foreign parts if they can. If you're looking for jobs in construction, I recommend looking elsewhere, since the Icelandic construction companies are even sending their people abroad, mostly to Norway.

How to find that job is a bit of the tricky thing. The best way, given the scale of this society and how much it thrives on those personal relationships, is to actually be here in Iceland. Americans can stay as a tourist for up to three months in the Schengen territory, which would definitely give you enough time to build contacts. Although there is a Craigslist Reykjavik, nobody uses it, so finding those job leads when you're not here will probably be best attained through a website. I'm a bit rusty on the search methods lately but in my day I found a lot of information on mbl.is, in the "atvinna" section, as well as the available government jobs at this site. It's a good way to start learning some of the words in the language anyway. Now that there's google translate and plenty of handy apps to deal with this, it's much easier than it was when I was searching.

There are a few English postings on the Reykjavík Grapevine's website, but none of these are hte kinds of jobs that are likely to sponsor a visa for a non-EU/EEA employee, and then there's a nice comprehensive English-language list of companies operating in Iceland at this chamber of commerce website. I used this as a base list to look at which companies had English-language websites and would therefore be amenable to the idea of having a non-Icelandic employee. From there I actually walked into quite a few companies, introduced myself, and said I was looking for work. Although none of those panned out, I only had one experience where I wasn't welcomed and at least offered coffee and a tour. Company bureaucracy is very minor here, so it's frequently possible to talk to the main decision makers in such an informal fashion.

Should your job hunting meet with success, the next step would be to get that paperwork squared away. It's all explained on the immigration office's website, and my experience was that the Icelandic HR people (if you are lucky enough to work for a company that has one) have little to no experience filling the papers out, so it's best if you're willing and able to do it yourself. I recommend reading through before you try to move and get those bits of paper together that you need from your home country, such as the criminal record. Makes it that much easier when application time arrives.

If you're interested in starting language studies before you arrive, the online Icelandic course offered by the University of Iceland was a great start for me. I used it once a week for a few minutes and found that I'd learned enough to skip the intro level classes once I got here. It helps to get accustomed to the sounds of the language so you're at least familiar with pre-aspiration and the staccato rhythm of Icelandic before you arrive.

One thing I am also often asked in these emails I get is, "how difficult is it to move to Iceland? Is the winter hard?" I can't tell you that. Difficult depends on you and your concept of what is complicated. The winter's harshness depends on you too, as does your interest and ability to deal with what is definitely an island lifestyle. I still always advise coming to visit Iceland for more than a whirlwind summer tour. Come in the winter if you can and see if you still like it in the dark, in the snowsqualls, when you're stuck in Reykjavik and can't see beyond the end of your nose.

The other thing to consider is that if you're not marrying an Icelander or with an Icelandic significant other, this is a complicated place to be long-term. It's extremely family oriented, so every holiday will find you smooshing your way into a local family, cobbling together your own expat mixture, or fleeing the island. With that said, the Icelanders I have become friends with are wonderful, vibrant, interesting, intelligent and well-traveled people, and the non-Icelanders I've met are a great mix too. It's an interesting place to live and I don't regret having come here at all. It's just not for everyone.