Tryggvagata 4, Apartment 6, 101 Reykjavik

Our beautiful apartment. You can see from the dining room and the bedroom that we have huge windows, but because we're on ground level they are frosted over so that people on the sidewalk can't look in at us. Unfortunately we also can't look out. There's a strange feeling of living in fog.

My Viking Kingdom for an Icelandic Horse

We rode the Heritage Tour at Eldhestar Farm on October 11. Our friend Paula gave us the above pictures because we still didn't have a camera (but we do now and have been a bit camera-happy, so more visuals on the way). Above, Jeramy's with our friend Claire and I'm on Krueger (I'm not sure if his name is a reference to Nightmare on Elm Street, but I choose to believe it is).

My feisty black bread-lover had a mind of his own and we were promoted to the front of the line because he was too antsy to stay put. Krueger was a favourite of the tour leader, and she was quite excited that I liked his "little bit of speed." On the other hand, she yelled at our friend Elias, an inexperienced rider, who couldn't get his horse to behave. Rather than giving proper instruction, she shouted at him: "Your horse is not a machine. You have to ride him!" On the way home I asked Elias if he was upset, and he shrugged, "I'm not the one that has to live with her." But he also told me that Icelandic doesn't have a word for please or the subjunctive mood used as a polite form, so sometimes people sound more abrupt, even when they're speaking English, than they intend.

The ride unfortunately wasn't as exciting as it could have been. The mountain trail is closed for the season so we mostly toured farmland (we saw a lot of irrigation ditches). But one section of the ride, a valley along the ocean, was gorgeous and the sun came out and I was hot enough to take my arms out of the overalls they had given us. I loved looking at the geese, swans, and pastured horses along the route and Jeramy said I had my mouth open in excitement the whole ride--I'm giving you a small taste of my dorkiness in the above picture, even though it hurts my vanity.

I haven't been on a horse in over ten years, so this was a huge treat. Icelandic horses look like something out of a fairytale to me because of their forelocks and manes. They are very small and classify (height-wise) in the pony category, but Icelanders always refer to them as horses (apparently because of the breed's weight-carrying capacity, but possibly because Icelandic doesn't have a word for "pony"). Icelandic horses have a special lateral ambling gait called a tölt, and its speed approximates that of a trot, except the tölt is much smoother. Most of the horses we were riding weren't completely comfortable with the gait yet and so would switch to a trot, but the tour guide's horse was a master at tölting; consequently, her body was impressively still on the horse even when it was moving at the top of the gait's speed. The rest of us were bumping around a lot--it's difficult to post on a small horse's trot because their steps are small and quick.

This was my first taste of the Icelandic countryside and it was wonderful to get outside of Reykjavik and spend some time outdoors. I'm behind on the updates, but I have a lot more pictures and stories of the landscape. The day after our horsebackriding tour we left for a 3-day trip around the island, so more on that anon.

He's birds; I'm wolves.

If you're in Moncton before October 15, check out ATELIER D’ESTAMPE IMAGO's annual Outdoor Roadsign Show. Jeramy and I each have a sign.

One Long Night

Reykjavik is intimate: last night, we saw Jónsi Birgisson, lead singer of Sigur Rós, at Kaffibarinn and then Megas, the "Bob Dylan of Iceland," at Olstofa later. No, no, we have not run into Björk, although a friend of ours pointed out where Björk lives. Oh, and on Tuesday night, Jeramy and an old friend were lamenting the closure (and imminent demolition) of Sirkus one of the most amazing bars in Reykjavik (Sirkus will eventually be a shopping mall, if construction ever resumes after the kreppa and its resultant architectural slump); while reminiscing about his times at Sirkus, Svein revealed that one of his friends had been thrown up on, on two separate occasions--both times at Sirkus, both times by Björk.

Tonight, because Jeramy was studying and I was stir crazy, I decided to head down the block to Kaffi Zimsen, not necessarily a hotspot for celebrities (unless you count their ads featuring a young Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson), but they offer cheap beer on Thursdays. The place was empty at 8:30 except for a table of Icelanders and the British bartender. While I was drinking my beer and reading, I overheard an English conversation between them--the bartender was talking about the northern lights, spectacular in this part of the world. His opinion offered a striking contrast to that of Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler, whose meditative _Picture of LIght_ Jeramy and I watched the other day:


Mettler: We live in a time where things do not seem to exist if they are not captured as an image. But if you look into darkness you may see the lights of your own retina -- not unlike the Northern Lights, not unlike the movements of thought. Like a shapeless accumulation of everything we have ever seen. Before science explained, the Northern Lights were interpreted as visions, prophecies, spirits -- a trigger for the imagination -- images provided by nature framed by no less than the universe itself....aurora borealis...the lights with no bodies, pouring colours from the sky.... images from nature, images more special than any special effect.

Bartender: During the winter, you always feel drunk. It doesn't matter if it's a weeknight and you haven't had much to drink and the bar closes early--you look up at the sky and think "god, I'm completely tossed."

The Icelanders went on to tell a story of American treeplanters who, when asked how late they wanted to work their first day on the job, answered, "we'll work until dark."

In Iceland, the land of Vikings, huldufólk, and Verne's entrance to the centre of the earth, perhaps it makes sense to have an epic lightcycle as well. The bartender's answer to their story: "Imagine the summer is one long working day, and in the winter you come home to sleep for one long night."

Tyoowoohoo

Wednesday's are wonderful because entrance to museums is free in the city. Today we explored Reykjavik's Culture House, but we didn't get a chance to look at the Medieval Manuscripts, as they have been removed temporarily due to necessary maintenance of the display cabinets. (!) Some of Jeramy's classmates (studying Old Norse mss) swore they saw someone rushing into a back room with a pile of precarious original texts in their arms. After looking at the carefully sealed cases with nothing in them today, I couldn't continue to believe the seductive story. Still, it seems weird to perform maintenance on the cases built to house a temporary exhibit. Potentially they discovered (too late) that there was a problem with them?


Two exhibits were particularly interesting.
     1) A display about scribes and early book-making materials--in particular the reported marginalia of the scribes: "the lines are faint because my ink is weak" and "I find writing boring."
     2) The menagerie of taxidermic animals (above).


We didn't buy parkas, opting for a layering of fleeces, down liners, and shells instead (sticking to a budget, we decided we could use a collection of items we already own--but we did settle on two new purchases from 66 North, a specifically Icelandic outdoor clothing company). When I asked the sales person what she would recommend, she still favoured the parka--"it's like putting on your house."


Tonight we're off to see Olivia Pedroli (Lole) at Kaffibarinn as part of Bedroom Community's monthly events. I'm going to wear a skirt and try out my new leggings--will they be enough to keep me warm?

and here you are/and here you are/blow out the door

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd send a little update from Iceland to let you know how everything's going here. I love Iceland, and the city of Reykjavik is an amazing place to live. We have an apartment right off the old harbour (don't judge me too harshly for the pictures in the right-hand column because we don't have a camera yet, so we've had to make due with the photo option on Jeramy's cell). The blue and red trawlers in the second and third photo are being patched and painted right outside our front door!

We've been here three weeks now and time is going by too fast. Winter has arrived, as of yesterday--big snowstorm. The wind is cutting and the air is very damp, so we are off to buy winter parkas today. It's funny, but I didn't actually own a parka in Canada, only a woolen knee-length coat that isn't warm enough to beat the wind here. 

We went to the Blue Lagoon this past Saturday and we're going horseback riding in the country this coming weekend. Icelandic horses are gorgeous animals and I can't wait to get out of the city for a while. Both Jeramy's parents and my Aunt and Uncle are coming for Christmas, so I've had a wonderful time thinking of all the things we're going to do once they get here. We'll definitely go back to the Blue Lagoon, and we're thinking of spending actual Christmas on the Westman Islands, which are a two-and-a-half hour ferry ride from the southern coast.  

I've spent a lot of time walking and busing around the city. We've also been to a couple of pools in Reykjavik--going to the pool is a huge activity here because of all the natural hot water. There are tons of pools around the city, and people of all ages spend a lot of time in the large outdoor hotpots year round.

When I first arrived here, Jeramy read in the Reykjavik International Literary Festival 2009. The writers' festival featured a lot of writers from Canada, so it was nice to see so many familiar faces. The craziest part was that on my first day here (my plane arrived in Reykjavik at 6am), Jeramy and I decided to stop by an interview with Michael Ondaatje at the Nordic House (a cultural centre near the University). When we arrived, we had missed the interview (Jeramy had a class so we were late getting there), but everyone was mingling and having drinks. Soon enough, the crowd was getting on a bus and we were asked to go along (completely unplanned for us). We drove out to a penninsula near Reykjavik--and it turned out that we were visiting official home of the President of Iceland! We each met him and shook hands with him and then heard him deliver a speech about Iceland and the arts. Very surreal. Jeramy read the next day with some other amazing Canadian poets.

Also soon after I arrived I bought a pass for the Reykjavik International Film Festival. It was wonderful (although not quite as unexpectedly fantastic as meeting the president)--so many actors, writers, and directors around the coffee shops in town. I went to a ton of films (highlights included a Swedish film called _The Girl_, a Greek film called _Dogtooth_, and Lars von Trier's new film _Antichrist_). I was delighted to see that they had an entire category of the festival to "Focus on Canada" and a Canadian film took home the top prize of the festival--Xavier Dolan's _I Killed My Mother_.

The only down side to Iceland so far is that I've been kind of lonely here--I'm used to having so many wonderful friends around me! This weekend I started hanging around with another writer from Canada who is lovely and has a lot of Icelandic friends here already. She invited Jeramy and I to an open mic on Saturday night--which was all in Icelandic. It was very neat to sit through an evening of poetry and not understand a thing.

I miss Canada and all my friends and family. I hope everyone is well and I'm thinking of you all.

Take care,

Brecken