Ice

Coming back to my Icelandic Forces of Nature series: Here's number three, Ice. This was at Ráðhús Reykjavíkur, the Reykjavik City Hall by the lake Tjörnin a little over a week ago. Tjörnin is the same lake where all the swans are. You didn't imagine such a small place could really pride on two lakes, now did you?

We took a Reykjavík City Sightseeing tour with my grandma who was visiting last week and one of the stops was at the City Hall. The Hall is by the lake and also in a way surrounded by the lake since on the shore side where the main doors are the lake water forms a basin on both sides of the doors. Beside the doors there are two stone walls down on which water is running. There had been frost for a couple of days and thus the water had freezed into thick icicles along the walls. From the tips of the icicles though water was already dripping down into the basin.

After the tour I walked back to take pictures of the ice. For more ice pictures and Reykjavík sights check out the City Sightseeing album on my Picasa page.

Oh, and quite appropriately since I am announcing the second picture series on Reykjavík (the first being Reykjavík 101) this post is in fact the post number 101. I was really just going to brag about having posted over 100 posts until I realized that I actually have a cool way of disguising my bragging into something almost relevant.

Corner Store Gossip

Bobby Fischer passed away January 17th 2008. He was a chess Grandmaster, political refugee and later a citizen of Iceland.

I heard the news in our grocery store today, incidentally from a man who looked greatly like Bobby Fischer himself as I just realized when I was checking the information and saw his picture on Wikipedia.

I hope he lived a happy life on this tiny island that welcomes all eccentric wanderers with equal strength.

Snow

We got some snow. Here's some of it in our backyard photographed through our extremely dirty bedroom window. Although it was snowing too so that explains at least some of the blur.






















I was photographing these two guys from our kitchen window. They were standing in the middle of the street waiting for a car for a long long time. But they do have appropriate clothing.






















And they had an appropriate car as well. And appropriate speed in getting stuff inside too to be sure.

















The cute apartment across the street looks even cosier in the snowstorm with the christmas lights.

















Our corner. You can't see the church because it's snowing too much. But it is there.

Light

Yesterday I walked to the department around 11 am and the sky was full of colours of the rising sun. All the thin swirling clouds were coloured in vivid reds and oranges and the morning sky was light blue behind them. I took about a hundred pictures but didn't miss my appointment.

The day is still short. When I was walking back around 4 pm the sky was coloured by the setting sun. But the twilights are long. And even darkness is beautiful here.

Velkomin heim

That is what they say on Icelandair when your plane is arriving in Reykjavík: "Welcome to Iceland! – Velkomin heim!" I guess if you speak Icelandic you really are coming home. The first picture is from the bus window on the way to Reykjavík from the Airport. If you refer to an older post you will recognice a familiar mountain.

















Yes, I live here. Am I crazy to announce it? No. In Iceland everybody's adress is posted online anyway. The only affect this will have is that now I might get cool packets from my friends... ;)

















Yes, we heard that already. This was a huge add at the ariport. There are only two mobile operators in Iceland: Síminn and Vodafone. I don't have either contract yet.






















Hallgrímskirkja in evening light. I just love my new camera.






















And my home street and my favourite mountain Esja. I'm home.

Am I still leaving tomorrow?

This is how our bedroom looked this morning. Luckily, the situation is better now. The packing has passed the diverging phase and is now converging nicely. My suitcase is still 7 kilos overweight, though. I'm currently trying to figure out what I don't need. I don't think 20 kilograms is such an extravagant limit for a 5 month trip. Especially if your suitcase weighs already 5 kilos.

But it has been snowing today and hence everyting will be fine. I just ran outside to help my mum carry some stuff to the car. I had my new hiking boots and my new wind and rainproof coat and it felt nice to tread in the pure white snow.

New Year, New Camera

Yay! I got a new camera for Christmas. Well, I did participate a bit in the funding. But it's awesome. Now I just have to learn how to use it. The almost first try was at New Year's Eve. We went to a Russian restaurant Šašlik with my dad's family, since we had missed out on our Finnish-Italian post-Christmas dinner while we were sick. So Kirsi had the cool idea of showing Russian dining to Mari's boyfriend Franci and their friend Daniela, who were visiting for the holidays. Check the pictures for more details.

And then some extra pics from the first week of the year.

















With Kevin in Helsinki. Being Finnish. I told him that my camera is as fancy as it can be without being fancy and Kevin deduced that it is maximally unfancy.

















With our godchild Mari.






















Meeting with old old good friends.