Friday, June 22, 2007

The Days are dimming

Yesterday we went to Husavik, a fishing village with museums. Husavik is where the world (in)famous phallological museum resides. It was...interesting, however, at least among the non-human animals (no homosapien members allowed) you can pretty much say, they´re all variations on a theme, or, if you´ve seen one, you´ve seen them all. Better not to see them floating in a bottle, actually.

The high point of the day was being on the ocean, heading North (toward the sun!)whale watching. We saw humpback whales, porpoise, Minke whales, and even unbelievably huge Blue whales. They were close, as well. We could see details as the shape of the blow hole, the texture of the skin, the flexure of muscle. It was cold, but I was happy with whales, puffins, terns and friends with bottles of brandy and schnapps and lots of laughter all around. At midnight the sun was a brilliant orange at the horizon, dipping to touch the ocean for just a moment before the next day began.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Tuesday
What a day! (Iceland is a place that requires lots of exclamation points.) We went out to the farthest northern farm in the world today, forded a wide river four times which traversed a arid volcanic landscape that stretched for miles, both, as one would expect, in reality, but also visually. I could see yesterday´s weather and tomorrow´s, one on the southern horizon, the other northern... We visited waterfalls, (Hrafrabjavgafoss-or Raven-saving waterfall) and saw the columnar forms that cooling magma created. Magma forms columns perpendicular to the cooling surface, so the columns that are created when lava occludes a river are practically paisley patterns atop the more usual vertical columns.

I am now full of all sorts of information about Iceland from the fact that it is actually a raised section of sea floor, to erosio(and other geologic processes)occur here at 100 fold speed because of its ''soft'' basalt make-up.

Plover eggs, house ducks, swans, midges, and pizzas and a milk cow (stolen by a troll) called Bukolla. Huni tells me the Bukolla pizza topped with steak, bernaise sauce, french fries, cheese and peppers is the best in the world and can only be found in Rejkavik. I will report if it is really worth the ''Oh, my God'' he tells me it is.
The lamb chops served at the farm, Sevakot, certainly were. Lots of piano playing now at one in the morning, the light outside barely dimmed. Bill has a whiskey bottle out, Louis a glass of wine.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Eating doubletree cookies in New York

June 16, 2007

We were supposed to be in Iceland right now, or at least approaching it. Instead we are watching Saturday Night Live at the JFK Double Tree Hotel .
We got up this morning in four am darkness, took a taxi to the San Francisco airport, stood in a long line to check in, a longer line to go through security and then the flight was late. We were feeling relaxed in spite of the lateness as we had a four hour layover in NY, lots of time to spare to catch our connecting flight. Our extra four hours, however, were then eaten up by circling JFK due to inclement weather, flying to Dulles Washington to refuel because of all that circling, then flying back to JFK...We missed our Icelandic connection by minutes. I thought I might cry. It feels worse to miss something by a smidge than by a mile, somehow.
We got one of the last hotel rooms that was close, then stood for another long wait for the shuttle. As the shuttle pulled away Louis saw an old man who had also missed the Icelandic plane waving the shuttle down. Louis got the driver to stop so the man could get on. Once on the shuttle the man told me he only saw his son once a year and they were supposed to be meeting tonight in Rekyjavik. He looked tired and disappointed. We will see the man again tomorrow, I suspect, as there is only one flight to Iceland on Sundays, unfortunately not until evening. I am trying not to think about how I would've been waking up in Akureyri tomorrow, trying not to think of taking the shuttle back to the airport and how we might not get a flight from Rejkyavik to Akureyri when we finally get there. Sam is counseling us to get up early in the morning so that we can be partially adjusted to Icelandic time zone when we get there, so I guess I'd better try to get some sleep.

Friday, June 15, 2007

June 15, 2007

It's just about two in the afternoon and we are all in the state one would expect less than fourteen hours before flying to Iceland. Packing isn't done, but clothes are strung all over the house and a good number of them are waiting to be washed. There are four huge bowls of apricots on the kitchen counter I picked off our tree getting softer and softer waiting for me to pit them and put them in the freezer as future chutney. I haven't found my paint, my 2nd carry-on is stuffed and I still don't have a spot for toiletries because I have so much paper-books, articles, journals, postcard list-taking up room. Louis is returning library books, Sam is exchanging coins for cash at Albertsons, and I still have to decide if I'm going to go get that rubber computer sleeve or not. When does the college bookstore close, anyway?
Still, I'm amazing relaxed for an anxious person about to go on a really long flight on a really heavy plane over the ocean. Part of it is that Jesse and Nicole will be taking care of things for us here, and part of it is that I found illustrations from a Norse Edda (alliterative poems)from Iceland on line and they are such beautiful illustrations combined with calligraphic text that I became excited all over again to go to the Icelandic institute and hear about the history, the literature, the land, the flora, the fawna from people I am imagining to be giants of their fields.
I'd better get a move on now, get ready to get to that Wyoming of the North Atlantic. Pit some apricots.
Spring
Wow, Sally just set this up for me, she is a genius! I will be able to write from Iceland. let's see if this shows up