Moved

Well, I am all moved in to the new flat. Unfortunately it doesn't quite have the internet yet. We got a router, and we're supposed to be getting it free because Ahmad works for the government, but as always with these things there is vesen with getting it to actually work. I have never once managed to get the internet sorted out anywhere without some sort of hassle. So I am in Babalú writing this and doing all my various internet chores, like filing my tax return (quite simple, since I do not owe any tax at all at this point) and registering my change of address. 

Apart from being cut off from the internet, my fifth limb, everything is great in the new place. I have a bed and a chest of drawers in my room, and I made a bedside table from a cardboard box, and a bin from another cardboard box, with a picture of a bin on it. The actual bin that was in the box is in the bathroom, but I almost like mine better. One thing that is nice, which I didn't think about before, is that now I am able to live in a place where the room temperature is actual room temperature, rather than Icelandic room temperature. Heating being pretty cheap over here, most Icelanders seem to have become fiercely defensive of their right to walk around their home in their underwear, and they adjust their radiators accordingly. I myself was brought up in the "just-put-on-another-jumper" school of thought and appreciate being able to wear more than just my underwear without overheating. When the snow and cold weather stops, I reckon we'll be all right just having the heating off entirely. It actually did stop for a bit a few weeks ago, but then winter changed its mind about leaving. Hasn't snowed for a few days, though, so maybe spring will be in time for Easter. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Yeah, so all the essentials (apart from the internet) are pretty much sorted, after a few trips to IKEA and Góði Hirðirinn, and some work on bland.is. We own a washing machine as of yesterday, although it actually needs a part changing before it will be functional. I hope we get that sorted out quite soon, before I run out of clean clothes. But I suppose I can always go crying to a friend's house or to the Laundromat Café if things become critical. Anyway, I have to go to the shops now to get some stuff for dinner. Can't just spend my whole day off in this café.

Adventure in Hvalfjörður

Last night I went out on an adventure. Logi, Maria, Bjarni, Ewelina and I went out in Logi's jeep and drove to Hvalfjörður, which is a fjord north of Reykjavík. We were heading to a natural hot-spring that Logi knew about in order to sit in the hot water, drink beer and look at the northern lights. You may have heard, there have been some explosions on the sun recently, which is causing some cool auroral activity. The forecast site actually said that it would be "extreme", so we were pretty excited. 

The place was basically in the middle of nowhere, on a little peninsula inside the fjord, if that makes sense. So there was water on both sides, and mountains beyond the water. There was a man-made water-tight hot-pot sort of thing, made of rocks and presumably concrete, and the water from the hot-spring had been channelled into a pipe, which it was possible to move in and out of the pool. If you had the water always flowing directly into the pool it would be far too hot to stand, so we took it out and put it back in in turns. So of course it was fine once you were in, but getting in was a different matter. It was around 1°, with some intermittent snowstorms. Standing in the snow getting undressed and changed into your swimming costume in these conditions, by the light of a torch, is somewhat less than comfortable. I was shivering so hard I could barely stand up straight, but it was definitely worth it.

The moon was almost full, so there we were in this hot pool, drinking our páskabjór, surrounded by moonlit water and snowy mountains with the northern lights arcing over us. It was pretty incredible. The actual lights were not quite as good as I was expecting - they were mostly white rather than the green ones I've seen before, but still very cool nonetheless. It was getting on for midnight when we got there, and we left around two in the morning. The clear skies probably lasted for about half of our time there, and then the snowstorms blowing through started to intensify and the cloud lowered. We all looked like those Japanese monkeys, sitting there with our hair and hats encrusted with ice and snow. 

We waited for the next pause, and then got out, which was probably worse than getting in. I didn't get so cold, because you have a lot of residual heat from the pool, but I was dismayed to discover that my bag had blown over and partially filled with snow. And then I accidentally dipped my towel in the hot pool as I got out, rendering it useless. My pants were too wet to put back on, but the rest of my clothes were OK. I scrambled to put on as many as I could before I started to cool down and then raced back to the car in my socks, quite damp and covered in snow. My phone had also fallen out and been lying in the snow, but luckily it was absolutely fine. We arrived in Reykjavík at around three in the morning, definitely glad to get back to a warm bed.

Overall, an amazing experience. Definitely not something you do everyday, and something that you can probably only do in Iceland. This is an incredible country.

Reunited

I found Simon! I had pretty much given him up for lost forever, but it turns out he was in the pocket of a coat I don't wear very often all along. So happy. 

Swans

Well, there's been quite a lot going on in my life recently. The big news is that I am moving house very soon! My situation at the moment was only ever going to be temporary, and I was planning to find other accommodation some time in August. However, events have conspired so that I will be moving in with my friends Ahmad and Thomas a lot sooner than I had anticipated. It all happened very suddenly - we met at my house one evening to discuss living together, had a look at the listings, phoned the number for a three bedroom basement flat on Grenimelur, went to look at it and pretty much made an agreement with the landlord that night. You might think that is a bit hasty, but honestly, good accommodation in Reykjavík goes really fast. It is a great flat; my bedroom will be a bit small, but the communal areas are super spacious and it's an excellent location, just into 107, a short distance from where I am now. If everything goes well then this will be the first place, apart from my parents' house, where I will live for more than a year. I am definitely looking forward to that.

I have found someone else to move into this room, and then hopefully should be spending the first night in my new home next Thursday. Exciting! The only trouble is that my new toaster is pretty much all I own in the way of furniture and household appliances, and Ahmad and Thomas aren't much better off. Accommodation in Iceland is rarely rented furnished, and this place does not even have a fridge yet. There's going to have to be some IKEA-ing and some trawling of bland.is and so on to get some second-hand stuff. As well as the fridge, a bed is particularly urgent. 

In other news, the job is going OK. It's not so exciting or well-paid of course, but I've been working with some nice people and the free food and drink is good. I am not very good at cappuccinos, but otherwise I feel like I've mastered the coffee machine. The weather recently has been a bit rubbish, squally is the word I'd use, with a lot of hail, showers, sleet and brief flurries of snow. But on the other hand the winter darkness is well and truly over and the summer brightness rapidly approaching - in fact it's only just over a week until we'll be getting more daylight than Britain.

So I suppose I'll keep this blog updated on how the move and everything goes. In the meantime, I leave you with this picture of swans and one of my favourite views in Reykjavík. I know like eighty percent of the pictures on here are of the Tjörn, but it is hopelessly picturesque and I can't help myself. I'm sure you enjoy looking at it from all angles and in different weather conditions as much as I do, right?

Whooper swans looking for clues on the Tjörn. It's a different sort of swan to one you might enjoy in a sandwich in Britain. It has a rather bitter taste.

Toast

Hooray, I managed to get a job. As of Monday I will be a general skivvy at a mostly vegetarian café based in Kringlan, Reykjavík's horrible shopping mall. I mean, what's horrible about it is that it is a shopping mall. I'm sure it's fine if you like shopping malls, although for me they are like IKEA - I can feel my will to live ebbing from me as soon as I step inside. I'm sure I will get used to it, though! The café also has a premises on Laugavegur, but sadly it is no longer open and they are trying to sell it. 

I had a trial day yesterday, and after a while I got the hang of the cash register and the card-reading machine OK. It is not that hard, seriously I have no idea why advertisements for jobs in shops demand experience, you can learn it in less than an hour. I still don't know how to use the coffee machine, but I'm sure I am up to the task. Other things I will be doing include putting food on plates / in bowls, clearing tables and converting dirty cutlery/crockery that is in the wrong place into clean cutlery/crockery that is in the right place. And that's why you should go to university, kids, because it totally pays off. I know I sound like I have a massive entitlement complex and I'm sort of sorry, but it is only because all through my school days we were told: "Work hard in school, get good GCSEs, get good A-Levels, go to university, get a good degree and your reward will be a good job." Liars. I suppose they didn't count on the economic crash, though. 

No, but I am super pleased that I will be making some money and the job is fine, really. I get free lunch and cake, and I will be using my Icelandic a lot more than I am now (I am kind of slack about using it with my Icelandic friends, definitely not speaking it every day at this stage). It is my fault for learning to read poetry and conduct historical research instead of getting a marketable skill. Which incidentally I don't regret for one second - I love literature and history and I am really happy that I got to do that for four years. I just hope that one day in the future I will be lucky enough to work with what I love again. It's silly to expect these things to happen immediately, and nice to have a goal I suppose.

Anyway, to celebrate this important step on my journey to becoming a real human being, I went to Byko today and bought a toaster, because the house didn't have one and doing toast under the grill is stupid and takes ages.

The plug wouldn't work in the UK, so this toaster represents a big commitment to staying in Iceland.

Wisdom from the Days of Yore

One of my old university acquaintances posted something on Facebook today - his girlfriend was reading him extracts from the Hávamál and he wrote something about the bit where the slumbering wolf does not get the ham. It reminded me of all the excellent advice in there and I wondered if there was something that could help me with my current situation. If you don't know, Hávamál is a collection of little stanzas, each outlining some tip from Óðinn on how to live your life. The title translates to something like "Sayings of the High One" I think. It's extremely helpful stuff, a surprising amount still relevant today. Like:

Best is the banquet one looks back on after
And remembers all that happened.

So don't get so wasted that you forget the party, kids! Óðinn says so. In fact, some of the anti-binge-drinking stuff makes the Ancient Scandinavians look a bit less hardcore than they are usually depicted:

Drink your mead, but in moderation,

Talk sense or be silent:

No man is called discourteous who goes

To bed at an early hour.

But aside from maybe drinking more moderately, how can I benefit from Óðinn's wisdom in my daily life? I used to read my room-mate Emily this one all the time:

Foolish is he who frets at night,

And lies awake to worry,

A weary man when morning comes,

He finds all as bad as before.

That's not advice I need, though. I very, very rarely have trouble sleeping and even though I have a quite high level of worry at the moment you'll be pleased to hear I'm not losing sleep over it. But this might be a problem! Later in the poem, we find this stanza, which the translation I have back in England definitely rendered more amusingly, but never mind:

Early shall he rise who has designs

On another's land or life:
His prey escapes the prone wolf,

The sleeper is seldom victorious.

Now this might actually be something to think about. If I got up earlier, I could get more done, maybe be a bit more victorious in my life, maybe kill someone else and take their land.

There's also quite a lot of stuff about friendship, and that reminded me that I am super pleased that I am doing this whole depressing search for employment after having already lived in Iceland for a year. If I didn't have friends here I would be genuinely miserable, but luckily over the past year I've met some great people and they help me maintain my sanity and general will to go on, as well as being kind enough to encourage and support me in my quest to become a real person. If you're reading this and you're one of the people that I visit and exchange thoughts and gifts with, then thanks. You're a big help.

To a false friend the footpath winds
Though his house be on the highway.

To a sure friend there is a short cut,

Though he live a long way off.

[...]

If you find a friend you fully trust

And wish for his good-will,

Exchange thoughts, exchange gifts,

Go often to his house.

[...]

Young and alone on a long road,

Once I lost my way:

Rich I felt when I found another;

Man rejoices in man.

And if none of this had made me feel better, hey, at least I'm not dead! It's rubbish to be dead, because you can't keep cows or anything.

It is always better to be alive,

The living can keep a cow.

[...]

The halt can manage a horse,

The handless a flock,

The deaf be a doughty fighter,

To be blind is better than to burn on a pyre:

There is nothing the dead can do.

That last stanza doesn't have a line about the socially awkward still being able to do stuff as well, but I think it's implied. Anyway, say what you like about these people, they knew what was important: friends, not drinking yourself into oblivion and being alive.

P.S. Quotations from the W. H. Auden and P. B. Taylor translation, in the public domain, since the only hard copy I have to hand is in Old Norse.

Mávahlátur

Hey, team. Sorry I haven't posted anything in ages. That is mostly because, confining myself to the categories that I am willing to write about on the internet, not much is happening in my life, unless you would like to hear about various parties which I have been to. Those are just stories about me drinking too much, talking rubbish and getting over-excited about songs I know. Or about me applying for jobs and not getting jobs, which is even less interesting because it's mostly filling in forms. So instead I thought I would tell you about what I'm reading.

Mávahlátur, or The Seagull's Laughter, is the name of my favourite Icelandic film. I once went to Bíó Paradís, the little cinema on Hverfisgata that shows old and slightly less mainstream films (and also the only cinema I've been to in Iceland that doesn't do intermissions), all by myself because Mávahlátur was on and I wanted to see it again. I was actually the only one there, and that's how cool I am. It is a great cinema, though, kind of like the Showroom in Sheffield for those of you who are familiar.

Anyway, this film was based on the novel of the same name by Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, which I am currently about three quarters of the way through. I suppose essentially it's about women, more specifically Icelandic women in a little fishing town somewhere near Reykjavík in the 1950s. Of course there are male characters, but it's the women that run the show. Freyja comes back from America one Easter Day, where she emigrated after the war. Her US Army husband is now dead, and she moves into a little house that's already full of women: the orphaned Agga, her grandmother, two aunts and her grandfather's sister. Agga's grandfather is the only man in the house, and he's a fisherman, out to sea for long periods anyway. The expensively-dressed, purportedly vegetarian Freyja with her long hair and unnervingly pale eyes causes a bit of a sensation, especially when she gets involved with the son of the late doctor, a member of the town's upper class. This social drama / battle of the sexes takes place against a backdrop of post-war economic depression and male political unrest. So you've got class and politics and gender issues, all with a genuinely entertaining plot and some of the most beautifully drawn characters I've ever come across. It's a really excellent book - seriously the characterisation is so sharp and witty and it's brilliantly written. As far as I can judge such a thing, not being a native speaker of Icelandic. If you can read Icelandic (or I think it has been translated into Dutch and German), you should totally give it a go! Otherwise, you should try and get hold of the film, or simply wait many, many years for me to become an acclaimed literary translator, because this is a novel I would absolutely love to do.