This morning dawned perfectly October so I strapped on my rollerblades and went out along my favorite route by the sea. A bright blue windless day, it was the perfect time to enjoy the autumnal colors of landscape- the orange kelp thrown up on the beaches, the wheated grass, the mossy color of the seaweed, peppered with eider ducks. Across the bay, Esja slumbered stoically, unchanged in the chaos. The best bits of Iceland are still here. I didn't come to buy a no-money down Mercedes jeep with a loan in Euros, I didn't come so I could spend my weekends in shopping malls, and most of my friends are not that sort either. We're here, going about our daily business, having coffee, preparing for new babies, going to work, reading, talking, swimming, running. In the meantime, I've been collecting info from anywhere and everywhere about what to do now, reading everything I can, absorbing Icelandic financial terms, quizzing my dad (a voracious newspaper reader and all around clever guy).
A few say that heads will roll and are extremely depressed, predicting massive fuel shortages and a dark and gloomy time ahead, others say that there'll be some unemployment (inevitable when the such a major sector collapsed), a lot of restructuring and some discomfort but the future's bright. Time for fish, time for manufacturing, time for increasing the farming production, time for getting on with things, doing what Icelanders know how to do and get creative. Maybe the þetta reddast spirit will prevail. I think we all have to hope it does, since there really is so much to love about this place.
I had a long talk with HK, an economist friend today, and she said it was high time this happened. The foreign labor that came to work on the construction sites will go home, and no longer be sending their incomes out of the country, the economy will have to diversify, the people get creative. There's been an incredible pulling-together of people here, as the nudd-pottur in Laugardalslaug is full to bursting every day, people talking about what's happening, what should happen, what we can do. Most people I know are NOT going crazy buying as much food as they can, most are not storing their cash under their mattress. It's wait-and-see mode for now. The scale of activities at work now is such that we can only watch and keep doing our usual stuff, praying that the credit cards will still work when we go to pay the grocery bill (so far, so good).
Of course, everyone's got a story of someone who did something foolish, taking out a loan in foreign currency to buy stocks in one of the now-collapsed banks, only to then lose his job at said bank, someone else who invested their entire life-savings in a single bank, also to find themselves penniless. There's stories that the suicide rate over the weekend was alarmingly high too. But as HK pointed out, these are the things that every economist learns first off to not do- don't take out a loan in another currency than you're earning, don't put all your eggs in one basket. We may have all gotten by in the past by not being economists but maybe now it's time to start a bit more, be a bit more careful.
I would also like to point out that in spite of what it may have sounded like in my last post regarding the Iceland-for-Icelanders group, this was a small, much derided group, and not at all the general feeling of the populace. My experience with Icelanders continues to be a positive one. I've got some wonderful Icelandic friends here, and the people I work with are the sort to be truly proud to stand beside. The team spirit where I work is excellent, and after my boss spent an hour and a half yesterday explaining various economic ins and outs, the future of our company, and all the great ideas he had, I could only think, "this is worth sticking around for".
Showing posts with label pool culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pool culture. Show all posts
11 October 2008
23 May 2008
look, don't touch
This morning was so fragrant and gently sunny that I really had no choice but to do a morning swim. It was predictably good, full of honey-colored sunrays filtering through my outstretched fingers. On one side-breath to the left though, I noticed a cluster of people in the stands above the pool, their clothes marking them as a crowd of not-from-these-parts. They dutifully gathered around a tour guide who seemed to be explaining the magic of the Icelandic pool.
They stood there for probably about 20 minutes, during which I finished my laps and headed to the steam room. When I came out they were gone but another group was corralled in the roped-off corner near the former entrance to the pool. I heard that the first cruise ship of the season arrived yesterday, so I'm wondering if this is one of the new activities they're offering to ship visitors. Go, look at Icelandic People in their NATIVE HABITAT! Take photos of flowered bathing caps and early morning calisthenics!
I just don't understand why someone would want to just have a look at such a pool when for a few hundred krónur you could be sitting IN the pool. I hope this is not a summer trend, because no matter how comfortable one is in one's skin and bathing suit, it's a bit creepy to be stared at by a bunch of puffy-coat tourists with cameras.
They stood there for probably about 20 minutes, during which I finished my laps and headed to the steam room. When I came out they were gone but another group was corralled in the roped-off corner near the former entrance to the pool. I heard that the first cruise ship of the season arrived yesterday, so I'm wondering if this is one of the new activities they're offering to ship visitors. Go, look at Icelandic People in their NATIVE HABITAT! Take photos of flowered bathing caps and early morning calisthenics!
I just don't understand why someone would want to just have a look at such a pool when for a few hundred krónur you could be sitting IN the pool. I hope this is not a summer trend, because no matter how comfortable one is in one's skin and bathing suit, it's a bit creepy to be stared at by a bunch of puffy-coat tourists with cameras.
16 May 2008
apparently it's hard-coded
Today I did my swim in the morning, and afterwards joined the crew in the steam room. If you're after 8:30 but not quite to noon, the crowd is notably vintage, so I was the only person under 80 in the whole place. So I'm sittin there enjoying the heat when the entire steam room population of about 12 people suddenly erupts into song. The voices were a bit quavery and only one dude ventured into the harmony line, but the zest and enjoyment was undeniable. I'd have joined in if I knew the songs, but they were some kind of traipsing-in-the-mountains tunes that I'd never heard before.
Their enthusiasm waned when they realized they didn't know very many verses, but it was obviously entertaining enough that later when I was in the salt pot, some others that hadn't been there wanted the full rundown of the day's steam-room singing program. Later on in the locker room I heard yet more talk of who'd been there and what they'd sung. I guess it's a regular thing!
The group singing phenomenon seems to be unique to only a few of these northern countries- I'm told it happens in the Faeroe Islands, and I've witnessed drunken Danes in Reykjavík going at it, but the Finns and the Norwegians barely speak above a whisper so singing seems to be out. What is it about these places that make people feel the need to sing when in a large enough group, even when no booze is involved? It's actually part of what made the choir trip so wonderfully (and I'll admit nerdily) fun. I've always loved singing, and when you're in a group that also loves to do it and can do it in several parts, what better way to say you're happy with the trip and happy with your companions than to stop and sing a song on the street? We sang overlooking Tallinn, we sang in a restaurant, we sang on the street, we sang on the ship as we sailed. It's just one of those things that everyone really ought to try sometime.
(apologies to those waiting to hear about Finland.. I couldn't resist writing about this!)
Their enthusiasm waned when they realized they didn't know very many verses, but it was obviously entertaining enough that later when I was in the salt pot, some others that hadn't been there wanted the full rundown of the day's steam-room singing program. Later on in the locker room I heard yet more talk of who'd been there and what they'd sung. I guess it's a regular thing!
The group singing phenomenon seems to be unique to only a few of these northern countries- I'm told it happens in the Faeroe Islands, and I've witnessed drunken Danes in Reykjavík going at it, but the Finns and the Norwegians barely speak above a whisper so singing seems to be out. What is it about these places that make people feel the need to sing when in a large enough group, even when no booze is involved? It's actually part of what made the choir trip so wonderfully (and I'll admit nerdily) fun. I've always loved singing, and when you're in a group that also loves to do it and can do it in several parts, what better way to say you're happy with the trip and happy with your companions than to stop and sing a song on the street? We sang overlooking Tallinn, we sang in a restaurant, we sang on the street, we sang on the ship as we sailed. It's just one of those things that everyone really ought to try sometime.
(apologies to those waiting to hear about Finland.. I couldn't resist writing about this!)
04 April 2008
welcome, April
Iceland has rewarded our suffering through the soggy autumn with a stretch of lovely days in the past month, so this week I have begun the search for the perfect morning swim-in-the-sun. A few mornings ago I tried the early shift at my new obsession-pool in Seltjarnarnes.
The pool staff was still cleaning the pool, sucking the black sand that had blown in during the winds the night before, so the water reverberated with the rat-a-tat of the vacuum clicking over the tiles in the bottom. At every lap, a little more of the pool bottom was swept clean, leaving behind a faintly iridescent sheen to the tiles.
This pool's the salt water one, which makes the water have a faintly sour taste on the lips, and the corrosion around the metal drains leaves fan-shaped rust trails on the blue tiles below. The smooth velvet texture of the water is as comfortable as being tucked into a warm bed with a book and a cuppa, but the extra buoyancy makes swimming feel like the only motion your body was meant to do. Shoulders rotate smoothly, and even the breathing is not a conscious hold-and-inhale. I always lose count in this pool as the sensations take over, and this morning was no exception.
Wednesday morning I tried Árbær, where again the crowd was almost all at least 40 years older than me, and the angle of the pool proved to be less than optimal for the early riser crowd. Still, the morning people are all about the swimming so the experience is far more serene than the afternoon. Same for this morning in Laugardalslaug where the frigidity combined with sun masked just how many others were swimming. Once again I was the youngest by far, and the only one doing more than a genteel breast stroke.
This crowd wants me to be an old person in Iceland so I can swim in the morning in a flowered bathing cap and then join the crowds of 3 and 5 bobbing about in the shallow end. I almost never see grouchy people in these morning crews, like this morning when I was enjoying the tiny triangle of sun that had splashed across the salt pot. A sprightly pair in their seventies came up, and one said, "nice in there, isn't it", to which I replied, "well, it'd be nice if there were just a liiitle more sun", and he answered, "well, this guy'll help brighten it, since his name's Bjartur" (which means bright). We all had a nice chat about the plans for a hotel next to the pool, the temperature of the salt pot that day (note: this is always an acceptable conversation topic at the pool once the weather's been discussed), and then it was time for showers and work.
No matter what else happens here in Iceland, from the sinking currency to the nearly daily truck driver protests that have created the first real traffic jams I've experienced here, there's always the pool. There's too much to do at the office and your hummus gets mold before you expect it to, but a swim in the peach-colored morning sun plus a nice long soak make it all not important anymore. It's the way to start the day properly.
The pool staff was still cleaning the pool, sucking the black sand that had blown in during the winds the night before, so the water reverberated with the rat-a-tat of the vacuum clicking over the tiles in the bottom. At every lap, a little more of the pool bottom was swept clean, leaving behind a faintly iridescent sheen to the tiles.
This pool's the salt water one, which makes the water have a faintly sour taste on the lips, and the corrosion around the metal drains leaves fan-shaped rust trails on the blue tiles below. The smooth velvet texture of the water is as comfortable as being tucked into a warm bed with a book and a cuppa, but the extra buoyancy makes swimming feel like the only motion your body was meant to do. Shoulders rotate smoothly, and even the breathing is not a conscious hold-and-inhale. I always lose count in this pool as the sensations take over, and this morning was no exception.
Wednesday morning I tried Árbær, where again the crowd was almost all at least 40 years older than me, and the angle of the pool proved to be less than optimal for the early riser crowd. Still, the morning people are all about the swimming so the experience is far more serene than the afternoon. Same for this morning in Laugardalslaug where the frigidity combined with sun masked just how many others were swimming. Once again I was the youngest by far, and the only one doing more than a genteel breast stroke.
This crowd wants me to be an old person in Iceland so I can swim in the morning in a flowered bathing cap and then join the crowds of 3 and 5 bobbing about in the shallow end. I almost never see grouchy people in these morning crews, like this morning when I was enjoying the tiny triangle of sun that had splashed across the salt pot. A sprightly pair in their seventies came up, and one said, "nice in there, isn't it", to which I replied, "well, it'd be nice if there were just a liiitle more sun", and he answered, "well, this guy'll help brighten it, since his name's Bjartur" (which means bright). We all had a nice chat about the plans for a hotel next to the pool, the temperature of the salt pot that day (note: this is always an acceptable conversation topic at the pool once the weather's been discussed), and then it was time for showers and work.
No matter what else happens here in Iceland, from the sinking currency to the nearly daily truck driver protests that have created the first real traffic jams I've experienced here, there's always the pool. There's too much to do at the office and your hummus gets mold before you expect it to, but a swim in the peach-colored morning sun plus a nice long soak make it all not important anymore. It's the way to start the day properly.
20 November 2007
super sundays
I've written plenty about the crappy, miserable, sorry, soggy weeks we've been having here lately, but what I haven't mentioned is those few Sundays of glorious respite there have been interspersed. I took photos a few weeks ago of one of those days, and last Sunday was another. Just at freezing, perfectly still, and crisply sunny, the perfect day for the 45 minute walk to Laugardalslaug from my house. Although I have sunglasses, I wanted to let the brightness burn my eyes. Must save up the glory of light for the dark times later!
I started off along Snorrabraut where the berries on the trees (anyone know what those trees are?) had mixed with the moss along the wall-tops, and then continued straight out to the wide-open bay. When I was in Boston, I got a cashmere sweater as a Christmas gift, and the teal-blue color was called "Arctic ocean". At the time I thought it was pretty cheesy a name, but it really is the color of the sea on a bright winter day.
This walk is one of the great features of Reykjavík, allowing a nice stretch of time to appreciate the majesty of Esja all covered in snow at this time of year, and in the summer, it's the path where I rollerbladed. Going to the pool, I turned in at the bus yard, where this listing baby blue car awaits something around the corner from all the slumbering busses. Further down the street is a cluster of oddly vintage businesses- a shoe fix-it place, a shop with every shape of mirrors you'd ever want.
Then to the pool. Sunday swimming in this kind of weather is quite possibly one of the best things to do on a lazy weekend afternoon. The water seems clearer, each intake of breath is fresh and bright, the water smooth against my limbs. Afterwards, tired from laps and lying in the heated salt-water pool, I watch the rhythmic rotation of arms across the pool lanes, listening to the slightly distant echoes of the kids splashing in their pool, and the murmur of old-man gossip in the next hot tub.
Last time I left while the sun was still fully up, at the same time as the Royal Arctic Line steamed out of the harbor. Three weeks at approximately the same time, it was the just-post-sunset witching hour, when Esja looks its most imposing and frigid, and the pink after-glow of sunset fades into deepening blue skies.
Along with the sun's disappearance, the last moments of warmth in the day left as well, so by the time I got home, I was fully frigid. It took some spicy Indian food and the magic of an Icelandic wool blanket to warm up again, but it was worth it for the views and the sense of peace that always comes from the Sunday pool trip.
I started off along Snorrabraut where the berries on the trees (anyone know what those trees are?) had mixed with the moss along the wall-tops, and then continued straight out to the wide-open bay. When I was in Boston, I got a cashmere sweater as a Christmas gift, and the teal-blue color was called "Arctic ocean". At the time I thought it was pretty cheesy a name, but it really is the color of the sea on a bright winter day.
This walk is one of the great features of Reykjavík, allowing a nice stretch of time to appreciate the majesty of Esja all covered in snow at this time of year, and in the summer, it's the path where I rollerbladed. Going to the pool, I turned in at the bus yard, where this listing baby blue car awaits something around the corner from all the slumbering busses. Further down the street is a cluster of oddly vintage businesses- a shoe fix-it place, a shop with every shape of mirrors you'd ever want.
Then to the pool. Sunday swimming in this kind of weather is quite possibly one of the best things to do on a lazy weekend afternoon. The water seems clearer, each intake of breath is fresh and bright, the water smooth against my limbs. Afterwards, tired from laps and lying in the heated salt-water pool, I watch the rhythmic rotation of arms across the pool lanes, listening to the slightly distant echoes of the kids splashing in their pool, and the murmur of old-man gossip in the next hot tub.
Last time I left while the sun was still fully up, at the same time as the Royal Arctic Line steamed out of the harbor. Three weeks at approximately the same time, it was the just-post-sunset witching hour, when Esja looks its most imposing and frigid, and the pink after-glow of sunset fades into deepening blue skies.
Along with the sun's disappearance, the last moments of warmth in the day left as well, so by the time I got home, I was fully frigid. It took some spicy Indian food and the magic of an Icelandic wool blanket to warm up again, but it was worth it for the views and the sense of peace that always comes from the Sunday pool trip.
14 September 2007
in which I discuss girly things
This post is one that the gents may want to tune out, as it discusses the topic of moisturizers.
Now that you've been warned, I have to mention a particular product that I noticed had become the scent of pool locker rooms to me, Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea Honey Drops lotion. The spicy sweet smell has been detected in every major locker room of the Reykjavík Capital Area, is probably hot up in Akureyri, and all the country pools between too. It's so common that the flavors are now inextricably mixed with that of sulphur, toasted hair from the hairdryers, and a hint of chlorine. Someone's always around the corner slathering the stuff on post-swim. It's so popular that I've seen women in the duty-free at KEF with an entire shopping basket full of tubs. Icelandic women are ADDICTED to this product, so much so that they came out with a special supersize duty-free package of it, available only in the airport. Women were going all rabid-dogs on those too.
So last time I went through on my way back from Norway, I picked up the small size tub to see what the big excitement was all about, and joined the crowd o' honey-scented sheep and scooped it on last time I was at Laugardalslaug.
I get it now. THIS is the secret to not being all miserably dry-n-itchy in the winter when swimming regularly. This moisturizer goes with Icelandic pool habits like cinnamon and cider (another one of those things that I am missing as fall closes in). Icelanders are pretty trend-susceptible though, so I am curious to see how long the product love lasts before some new potion's on the market and out in every single pool locker room.
Now that you've been warned, I have to mention a particular product that I noticed had become the scent of pool locker rooms to me, Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea Honey Drops lotion. The spicy sweet smell has been detected in every major locker room of the Reykjavík Capital Area, is probably hot up in Akureyri, and all the country pools between too. It's so common that the flavors are now inextricably mixed with that of sulphur, toasted hair from the hairdryers, and a hint of chlorine. Someone's always around the corner slathering the stuff on post-swim. It's so popular that I've seen women in the duty-free at KEF with an entire shopping basket full of tubs. Icelandic women are ADDICTED to this product, so much so that they came out with a special supersize duty-free package of it, available only in the airport. Women were going all rabid-dogs on those too.
So last time I went through on my way back from Norway, I picked up the small size tub to see what the big excitement was all about, and joined the crowd o' honey-scented sheep and scooped it on last time I was at Laugardalslaug.
I get it now. THIS is the secret to not being all miserably dry-n-itchy in the winter when swimming regularly. This moisturizer goes with Icelandic pool habits like cinnamon and cider (another one of those things that I am missing as fall closes in). Icelanders are pretty trend-susceptible though, so I am curious to see how long the product love lasts before some new potion's on the market and out in every single pool locker room.
17 April 2007
incremental
Summer creeps up on Iceland in tiny steps that are almost un-noticeable unless you're feeling particularly sharp-eyed. This past few days have been almost-so, allowing for open coats at mid-day but keep the tights on, and the branches of the bushes starting to get barely fuzzy with green. Everything's still so tightly folded though that sometimes it seems like a trick of the eyes- a green halo that's but a trick of light.
The sun has also ratcheted high enough in the sky to fill the northeastern windows in my apartment with morning light, so I awoke this morning to a sunsplashed bedroom and drank orange juice in a glowing kitchen. The evenings are starting to get that endless glow that I associate more with summer now than hot weather, since temperatures are almost equally tempestuous year-round. Soon the shrinking darkness will be gone altogether
Little changes are happening elsewhere, like the new hot tub that just opened at Laugardalslaug, filled with heated seawater pumped from a borehole nearby. Of course it's the hot new activity so we were all stuffed in there like a bunch of simmering lobsters, but it was still worth the sit. The frothed seawater is a different look and feel from the regular tubs- foamy and fizzy, softer feeling, and definitely salty on the lips. They never make the new tubs big enough or with enough massage jets, but when it's a sunny blue-arc-of-sky day and I'm sitting in heated salt water, I'm not complaining, even if I have to negotiate with flowered-bathing-cap lady on my exit.
After the sample-sit, I did my usual swim, where once again I appreciated the individual flavors of every pool. The personalities are as distinct as with people- each locker room has a slightly different smell of soap and sulphur and the materials of the lockers and floors. The water in each pool looks and feels different too, and the people you see there are as distinct and individual by pool as they are by time of day. Mornings are usually the aquatic aerobics time at my local pool, so I can find myself with an entire lap pool all to myself while the bathing caps bob to light pop in the kiddie pool at the end. Afternoons are all about foreigners and seal-pup kids that flop across the lane markers, and the evenings are for the weight-lifting hnakki guys and the old men that like to chat in pairs and trios.
The pool fixes everything like a good friend does- when you're stressed, the visit re-balances. Sick? The steamroom makes your breathing easier. Have a problem to work out? A few laps of sensory isolation and it doesn't seem so difficult after all. It's all about taking it down incrementally. Make the sounds you hear only rushing water and the hum of pool machinery, the things you see only blue tiles and water with snippets of sky, the only motion the smooth pulling through water and everything outside the water will rebalance itself. The Reykjavík Spa City propaganda sounded kind of silly to me at first but when I walk home glowing with warm-water evening peace, I absolutely agree with all of it.
There are some things here that aren't about sneaky-slow changes though. In the matter of less than an hour, that sunny day has become a swirling thick snowsquall. Winter does not give up easily here but slowly, slowly things will grow again.
The sun has also ratcheted high enough in the sky to fill the northeastern windows in my apartment with morning light, so I awoke this morning to a sunsplashed bedroom and drank orange juice in a glowing kitchen. The evenings are starting to get that endless glow that I associate more with summer now than hot weather, since temperatures are almost equally tempestuous year-round. Soon the shrinking darkness will be gone altogether
Little changes are happening elsewhere, like the new hot tub that just opened at Laugardalslaug, filled with heated seawater pumped from a borehole nearby. Of course it's the hot new activity so we were all stuffed in there like a bunch of simmering lobsters, but it was still worth the sit. The frothed seawater is a different look and feel from the regular tubs- foamy and fizzy, softer feeling, and definitely salty on the lips. They never make the new tubs big enough or with enough massage jets, but when it's a sunny blue-arc-of-sky day and I'm sitting in heated salt water, I'm not complaining, even if I have to negotiate with flowered-bathing-cap lady on my exit.
After the sample-sit, I did my usual swim, where once again I appreciated the individual flavors of every pool. The personalities are as distinct as with people- each locker room has a slightly different smell of soap and sulphur and the materials of the lockers and floors. The water in each pool looks and feels different too, and the people you see there are as distinct and individual by pool as they are by time of day. Mornings are usually the aquatic aerobics time at my local pool, so I can find myself with an entire lap pool all to myself while the bathing caps bob to light pop in the kiddie pool at the end. Afternoons are all about foreigners and seal-pup kids that flop across the lane markers, and the evenings are for the weight-lifting hnakki guys and the old men that like to chat in pairs and trios.
The pool fixes everything like a good friend does- when you're stressed, the visit re-balances. Sick? The steamroom makes your breathing easier. Have a problem to work out? A few laps of sensory isolation and it doesn't seem so difficult after all. It's all about taking it down incrementally. Make the sounds you hear only rushing water and the hum of pool machinery, the things you see only blue tiles and water with snippets of sky, the only motion the smooth pulling through water and everything outside the water will rebalance itself. The Reykjavík Spa City propaganda sounded kind of silly to me at first but when I walk home glowing with warm-water evening peace, I absolutely agree with all of it.
There are some things here that aren't about sneaky-slow changes though. In the matter of less than an hour, that sunny day has become a swirling thick snowsquall. Winter does not give up easily here but slowly, slowly things will grow again.
30 March 2007
hot tub vignettes
So last night I was at my New Local Pool, where the lockers never cease to delight with their personal-changing-room ingenuity, the stylin wooden doors and shiny metal hardware, the white tiling, and the sassy rounded corners. They're so retro they're modern. Anyway, after another satisfyingly uncrowded swim (tip: 8pm or later is the best time to avoid crowds at Sundhöllin), I headed for the roof, where the hot tub crowd was all guys and me. Opposite me were two men in their forties, one with the neckless build of a former weightlifter who'd gone a little soft, the other scruffy and long-haired. Weighlifter man was talking about music- Joan Baez and the like, an unlikely pairing that had me listening in more carefully than usual, while the other guy performed his já-man functionalities (this guy in such a hot tub conversation just says "yes" and nods gravely). Then, weightlifter guy decided describing music was not quite enough, so he started singing softly, melancholy Irish tunes, while everyone else in the hot tub looked on in bemusement. He was obviously not disturbed by the onlookers, as he sang a few more tunes before the pair of them headed to the steam room. It's the first time I've had live performances while in a bathing suit.
This pool is a different flavor from where I used to go. This one's all about the individual bather, although the old guy pairs and trios are always a constant in any Icelandic pool. I've started to know some of the regulars, who even seem to be more conversational than the Vesturbær lot. There's the Ice-Pavarotti guy whom I had a nice chat with in the steam room, my former Icelandic teacher who was also a good 15 minutes of conversational practice, the bathing-cap lady who does her majestic laps in bright red lipstick. This is also the pool of tourists and foreigners. More than once when a conversation has started tub-wide, it's been one Icelander, an American (me), and a smattering of eastern Europeans and Thai. The foreigners are taking over Reykjavík, one hot tub at a time.
If there are other Americans, it's often because they're tourists, since this is the closest pool to most of the hotels and guesthouses, and thanks to its proximity to a can't-miss landmark, is easy to find. It seems that in the last week or two Tourist Season has begun, so I'm experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of people who don't realize that a pool is divided into lanes for a reason here, and all those people going backwards and forwards would like to keep going backwards and forwards. So here is my message to those who are coming to visit Iceland this year: If you're swimming and are participating in the clockwise lane-arrangement, we love you, especially if you're giving way to the faster people at the end of laps. You are the best kind of lane-companion. However, if you wanna do your deep-sea diving practice along the bottom of the pool, your water-pirouettes or express how hot you are for your girlfriend thanks to the trip to Iceland, do it in the open part where everyone else is messin' about and let me and bathing-cap lipstick lady have our lap lane. Otherwise, enjoy Iceland, try out lots of hot tubs, and don't forget to sing in a few of them. I've often had the urge but never been brave enough.
This pool is a different flavor from where I used to go. This one's all about the individual bather, although the old guy pairs and trios are always a constant in any Icelandic pool. I've started to know some of the regulars, who even seem to be more conversational than the Vesturbær lot. There's the Ice-Pavarotti guy whom I had a nice chat with in the steam room, my former Icelandic teacher who was also a good 15 minutes of conversational practice, the bathing-cap lady who does her majestic laps in bright red lipstick. This is also the pool of tourists and foreigners. More than once when a conversation has started tub-wide, it's been one Icelander, an American (me), and a smattering of eastern Europeans and Thai. The foreigners are taking over Reykjavík, one hot tub at a time.
If there are other Americans, it's often because they're tourists, since this is the closest pool to most of the hotels and guesthouses, and thanks to its proximity to a can't-miss landmark, is easy to find. It seems that in the last week or two Tourist Season has begun, so I'm experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of people who don't realize that a pool is divided into lanes for a reason here, and all those people going backwards and forwards would like to keep going backwards and forwards. So here is my message to those who are coming to visit Iceland this year: If you're swimming and are participating in the clockwise lane-arrangement, we love you, especially if you're giving way to the faster people at the end of laps. You are the best kind of lane-companion. However, if you wanna do your deep-sea diving practice along the bottom of the pool, your water-pirouettes or express how hot you are for your girlfriend thanks to the trip to Iceland, do it in the open part where everyone else is messin' about and let me and bathing-cap lipstick lady have our lap lane. Otherwise, enjoy Iceland, try out lots of hot tubs, and don't forget to sing in a few of them. I've often had the urge but never been brave enough.
06 November 2006
All hail
Last weekend was the perfect weekend to do Not Much with proper style. We had a lovely storm on Saturday night, which I spent as it should be spent- candlelit dinner with friends followed by lying on a windowseat with a wooly blanket, 80's movies and a purry tabby cat, while the wind blustered and the rain and hail clattered outside.
Of course, one must not stay inside all weekend, and the grand thing about Iceland is that the pools are always open, even when hail threatens. So, K and I went to Árbær, where I remembered again how much I love swimming. It's odd how many things have become part of my life in the past year that I can now not imagine being without. Crunchy onions on my hot dog, red currants, quick access to the freshest of air, and swimming. I love the smooth feeling of the water, the way a slight change to the angle of your head or hips creates a totally new streamlined effect, that rewarding zoom when you kick up the pressure against the pool. Then there's the frisson of movement at the end of the pool that results in a quick change of direction, the constant evaluation and reassessment of the timing so that the breathing and strokes come out just right at the end of the lane. I love the rhythm of the breathing, and how I can feel the difference in my singing control when I've just been swimming before. Yesterday, there were leaves on the bottom of the pool, so every sweep of my arm sent them swirling in a subaquatic tornado across the blue tiles, and the snatches of view when I turned my head above the surface were tree-filled and swiftly moving.
But I digress. I had that can-swim-all-day feeling yesterday, but as my arms just started to go leaden, the mushroom-gray clouds that had swept in started to shed prickly hail. I ducked under the water and rolled on my back so I could watch it fall on the surface. If I was close enough, I could feel the moments of cold as each ice-pebble dissolved on the warm water. When I nudged under the lane dividers and made my way to the nuddpottur, the kids were all ecstatically scooping up handfuls of hail from a corner where it had collected, and watching it melt in the hot water, delighting in the frigid/hot contrasts.
Weather here is certainly a participator sport when you know you can be almost naked out in almost every variation there is to offer. A bit different from the pool of my youth, where a sniff of rain was enough for the lifeguards to sound the everybody-out for fear of lightning. It's rather a non-issue here, so you're welcome to swim at any time- high winds, snow, rain, or hail. I already liked to be aware of the cycles of nature around me, and my childhood lesson on how to survive winter (do stuff outside regularly) still applies here.
As I type this now, the wind has kicked in once again after a relatively calm day, and I can see that snow has begun to spiral and hover in the streetlights. Perfect weather for a swim!
Of course, one must not stay inside all weekend, and the grand thing about Iceland is that the pools are always open, even when hail threatens. So, K and I went to Árbær, where I remembered again how much I love swimming. It's odd how many things have become part of my life in the past year that I can now not imagine being without. Crunchy onions on my hot dog, red currants, quick access to the freshest of air, and swimming. I love the smooth feeling of the water, the way a slight change to the angle of your head or hips creates a totally new streamlined effect, that rewarding zoom when you kick up the pressure against the pool. Then there's the frisson of movement at the end of the pool that results in a quick change of direction, the constant evaluation and reassessment of the timing so that the breathing and strokes come out just right at the end of the lane. I love the rhythm of the breathing, and how I can feel the difference in my singing control when I've just been swimming before. Yesterday, there were leaves on the bottom of the pool, so every sweep of my arm sent them swirling in a subaquatic tornado across the blue tiles, and the snatches of view when I turned my head above the surface were tree-filled and swiftly moving.
But I digress. I had that can-swim-all-day feeling yesterday, but as my arms just started to go leaden, the mushroom-gray clouds that had swept in started to shed prickly hail. I ducked under the water and rolled on my back so I could watch it fall on the surface. If I was close enough, I could feel the moments of cold as each ice-pebble dissolved on the warm water. When I nudged under the lane dividers and made my way to the nuddpottur, the kids were all ecstatically scooping up handfuls of hail from a corner where it had collected, and watching it melt in the hot water, delighting in the frigid/hot contrasts.
Weather here is certainly a participator sport when you know you can be almost naked out in almost every variation there is to offer. A bit different from the pool of my youth, where a sniff of rain was enough for the lifeguards to sound the everybody-out for fear of lightning. It's rather a non-issue here, so you're welcome to swim at any time- high winds, snow, rain, or hail. I already liked to be aware of the cycles of nature around me, and my childhood lesson on how to survive winter (do stuff outside regularly) still applies here.
As I type this now, the wind has kicked in once again after a relatively calm day, and I can see that snow has begun to spiral and hover in the streetlights. Perfect weather for a swim!
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