Calabrese Concerts

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

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

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

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

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

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

lucky number seven

I've just completed the move into my seventh home in Reykjavík, back in my original moved-to-Iceland postcode, and a few blocks from this place. It's a lovely old house from the 1930s with graceful proportions and funny little details like a frosted glass window on the narrow bathroom door, and a pantry. Unlike my last apartment, the ceilings here are so high I can only see into a third of the kitchen cupboards, so I'm no longer ducking to get to my fridge or closet.

One of the grand things about this neighborhood is that it's old enough to have proper vegetation, so the view from the kitchen window to the back is a jungle of berry bushes, tall trees, shrubs, rhubarb, and cats that prowl through the underbrush. From the front of the house the view is bounded by the mountains to the southeast, with bits of ocean visible between the cute houses opposite. It's a street I remember walking down in 2005 on my way to the immigration office, never imagining that someday I would occupy one of these lovely places.

Our downstairs neighbors have lived here for decades- he's been in the house since he was 3 and he's now in his 80s. They've got a book binding room and a Finnish sauna in the basement, and the garden overflows with plants I didn't know could live happily here, like deep pink peonies that are blooming now against the warm stone wall of the house. It's a lovely place to live.

Since returning to this neighborhood I've returned to Sundhöllin as my local pool, a spot that seems most frequented by tourists who wander lost in the mysterious maze that is the locker room. These mini-dressing rooms are one of my favorite elements of this pool, as well as the generously sized hot tub on the roof with views over the city (and into the apartment opposite once occupied by a friend). I've noticed that the locals who go there seem to have certain locker loyalties, so while I'm lacing up my shoes I overhear the classic old pool-going men specifically asking for locker sixty-two please. I haven't noticed any particular difference in the lockers, other than the importance to get a high number so as to avoid the boring overflow lockers, so I do wonder what the attraction is.

But back to lucky number seven, where I am typing this while watching the little calico cat that lives opposite prowling the territory, and admiring the flowering trees that line the street. I've realized that with the exception of my first home here, I've always had a view- a snippet of mountain, a sheen of sea, maybe both. It can spoil a girl to have a couch oriented so that the seagulls and the airshow are all on display. This is why there's no need for a TV- an open windowshade is all I need.

I'm still finding out about the neighborhood essentials though. Yesterday en route home from downtown I found a video store, and there's a bakery that seems heavy on the chocolate-themed baked goods but not so much on the breakfast staples, but I'm still hunting for the last-minute-open-late shop. Plenty of guesthouses and hotels around though, and we certainly don't lack for tourists because of that. It's a great place to walk around, full of architecture that varies from late 19th century to a few more modern 70s looking places, trimmed with charming gardens and friendly cats patrolling their section of pavement. The only downside is that I've had to learn how to parallel park properly for the first time in my life. Can't have it all, I guess.

in the name of science

Yesterday was a perfect clear sunny spring day, so S decided it was time to see if he could collect samples of the volcanic ash for his research institute. We headed south along the ring road, passing the cars collected at Hellisheiði, and all along the road pass Selfoss who'd pulled over to gape at the plume that was so crisply visible on the horizon. From 70 km away it seemed surreal, beautiful and painted on the horizon, a clear plume etched above a perfectly white mountain. Hard to believe it's causing so much damage everywhere.

But, to collect samples we had to get closer, so at Hvolsvöllur, we stopped at the first road block on rte 1 where Björgunarsveit informed S he had to talk to the local police for permission to pass into the dust zone. S came out of the police station with a big grin and a hand-scrawled note on one of his business cards. Permission to enter, and a phone number if we had troubles. Then, we turned into Fljótshlíð along the same road where we'd gone to visit the first eruption. Flagged past the road block there, we entered a new kind of ghostly landscape, nearly devoid of humans, with only a sprinkling of horses munching below the menacing plume in front of us.

Second checkpoint came before the dubiously slouchy bridge that had survived the flood, the old single-lane bridge across Markarfljót. There, the license number was noted down and we were waved across the bridge into the territory where the floods had raged through. The land there was guttered with deep channels, embedded with ice chunks, and totally barren of human activity. We passed Seljalandsfoss, normally choked with tourists, now empty and oddly thin on water volume. A bit further, the picnic spot where families had gathered two weeks ago, now barren, with the picnic tables rucked up crazily against the hillside by the now-subsided flood.

When we came to the intersection with rte 1 again, the road to the right was totally missing, a channeled expanse of mud peppered with ice chunks in its place. To the left, an improvised track climbed over a levee and continued on the still-intact portion of the ring road. We passed a few people there- some camera men, some photographers, an occasional other vehicle emerging from the darkness ahead.

In front of us, the dust cloud rose like an evil tidal wave, pouring down brown from the glacier to our left and surging towards the sea and the Westman Islands. Spirals of dust rose up from the road, and the fields on both sides were monochromatically gray under the thick coating. We drove in only as far as needed to a place where the dust was scoopably thick along the roadside, then S turned so that he'd open the car door on the lee side. Out he went, while the rest of us waited in the closed car, breathing through masks and watching the gloom slide over the mountains.

Iceland is already a fairly sparsely populated place, but to be somewhere like this that would normally be full of tourists and traffic was creepy. The landscape was silent except for the ash blowing down the mountain, and the scrape of S's scoop on the pavement as he collected ash outside. After 15 minutes or so, he'd filled his bucket with a few kilos and we zipped out from under the ash cloud, pausing to examine the chunks of glacier that had washed out on the mud, to watch the repair work on the road, and then to watch the plumes of ash ejecting furiously from the eruption site. As we watched, lightning zapped from particles to the glacier, and sparks of red and white lit up spots within the cloud. This was no fluffy friendly cloud up closer- the density looked more like cauliflower than a cloud, and the sediment raining down from each new ejection was clearly visible in long sheets falling to the ground. At the edge of the crater, a thick carpet of ash was crisply delineated against the remaining portion of the glacier, still cleanly white.

From there we returned to Hvolsvöllur to wash up and eat at the N1 there. Unlike the previous volcano trip when we stopped there, there were no tour busses, no crowds jamming the grill line. Just a few photographers had taken the tables facing towards the eruption, where with telephoto lenses and wireless they were broadcasting photos to the world. We had a nice chat with the guy at the counter who told us all that our Icelandic was so nice, the coffee was free, and then from there back to Vegamót were D&J picked up their car to head home.

Compared to the last eruption, this one is spooky, unpredictable and not tourist friendly, so the opportunity to get this close was extremely fascinating. I took plenty of photos which are here.

hot views

By now I'm sure everyone's heard of the latest excitement to reach us here on the island. The volcano at Fimmvörduháls has even been covered by the revered news service at Fox to the delight and amuseument of most people here.

So yesterday when the weather was clear and spring-like, S and I skipped out of the office early to see what we could see. At Hvolsvöllur we turned on to route 216, following a string of Jeeps making their way into the river valley. Blithely ignoring the several "road closed" signs, we followed the road through two river crossings and through increasingly bumpy and muddy terrain until we found friends J & D who'd come earlier to hike.

On the way in, our first indication of excitement ahead was a massive plume of smoke drifting gently seawards. The closer we got, the more clearly we could see the individual belches of smoke that dissolved as the expanded skyward and floated over the glacier. Even closer, the lava spurts became clearly visible, the tongues leaping high in the air from the left side of the newly-forming mountain.

We'd hoped to cross the mighty Markarfljót but in its springtime fury and with a rather light vehicle that might have floated in the fast water, we stayed on the far side and just walked across the tundra until we reached the river's edge. We settled on a bluff above the river, about 7km away from the explosion's center, and unpacked the goodies. J & D, experienced and efficient nature travellers, had come with crispbread, cream cheese, avocado, and tabasco, so we layered up some sandwiches and picnicked as we watched.

The location is already known for being tremendously beautiful, a long river valley edged by mountains and topped with glaciers, opening south-westward towards the sea and the setting sun. With only a gentle breeze and the full sun on our sides, the addition of these fireworks was almost too much to handle. We passed the binoculars along our line, watching the lava as it shot skyward, then solidified and tumbled down to the newly forming mountain. We watched the dozens of small planes, the helicopters as they circled. We inspected the tires and size of the vehicles that did make it across the river, and counted the people who'd hiked to the top of a nearer mountain for a close view. We tried to describe the effect of the lava- was it more like a blow torch, a snowgun at a mountain resort shooting off something quite the opposite temperature?

Mostly we just stared and tried to take at least some photos that would capture how remarkable the sight was, grateful to be here to bear witness to such a phenomenon. As dusk began to fall and the sunset lit up the smoke plume pinkly, we decided we simply had to stay long enough to experience the colours in the dark, so we waited and watched, observing that the plumes of lava seemed to be spreading. When we first arrived, only the left side had been visibly active, but in the dark the whole ridge was alight, burning above us like a Lord of the Rings signal fire.

Finally, just before total darkness, we trekked back across the jumbled landscape and to the cars again, wary of crossing rivers in total darkness. We shouldn't have worried though- the entire route back was well illuminated by the hundreds of people who'd come out to see the scene. The crowds and vehicles were reminiscent of some fourth of july fireworks spectacle, except in puffy coats and hats instead of light summer dresses. After we crossed back over the first river crossing, the crowds became even deeper- tour busses with little footstools set out for the comfort of the tourists, dozens of cars not river-worthy, and hordes of people marching through the tundra. Mania of such a proportion I have never witnessed in such a relatively remote area.

And then, the 2 hour drive back in the dark, during which I kept looking back to see just how long the eruption would be visible. Past Hella, I could still see back for kilometers, the bright orange plume rising high above the low, flat lights of the few farms we passed. At Selfoss it was finally swallowed by the dark night and all seemed finished. But then, as we passed through the snow-striped heath at Hellisheiði, a pale arc of northern lights swept through the sky. Perfectly ended.