Yep, it's still snowing...

Last weekend, we were invited by friends to a "Summerhouse". A summerhouse is basically a house in a non-urban area outside of Reykjavík, with a distinct 'wooden' look, and includes all standard amenities such as a working kitchen, a TV... And a hot tub! Many people own such homes, but work unions also do, and they rent them out to union members for cheap.

We enjoyed the stay very much, and socialized and soaked in the hot tub at night for a couple of hours while the snow was falling softly on us. Classic Icelandic stuff :).

On our way back, we decided to stop by Gullfoss since it was quite close to the summerhouse. It looked quite nice, with the snow and ice on the sides. As you can see from the rest of the pictures, the dominant color here is white. That's because it's been snowing quite a bit this winter, and we're getting a bit tired from that... Anyway, on to the pictures:

Maybe I should Photoshop these tourists out...

Closer

And even closer

A very bundled up Jó

I could make this my secret lair

Snow covered lava fields

The sun managed to pierce through the cloud cover at times

Lots of horses

The wind was pushing the snow over the road, making for a cool effect


Reminds me of a chocolate cake covered in powdered sugar...

Northern lights!

Well, I had to wait until the end of January, but I finally got to see the Northern lights in Iceland. I had seen them in Tromso, Norway in October but not in Iceland... I was considering filing a formal complaint to the tourist office in Reykjavík for false advertising.


But last weekend, as we got clear weather and the coldest temperatures yet this winter (it dropped slightly under -10 at some point in Rekjavík, I believe), I finally saw them! I got a phone call from a friend alerting me to the appearance of the lights (yes, I am on a call-when-Northern-lights-appear list) and I managed to take a few pictures as we were on our way out of the house. You'll have to excuse the blurriness because I did not use a tripod, and it takes a long exposure to get a picture of the lights. Note that the lights appear a bit brighter in the pictures than they do in real life, but not by that much.


They might look still in the pictures, but they move pretty quickly, like sheets or curtains. They can change in intensity quite quickly also, so if you know they're out there, don't wait :).

We also saw them the next day on the drive back from Stokkseyri (45 minutes SE of Reykjavík, with the best lobster restaurant in the nation!). We had the advantage of the open sky and very little ambient light, so it was great seeing them playing around in the sky. According to Inuit beliefs, the Northern lights represent your ancestors playing with a ball of yarn. I like that interpretation. Although I think I would substitute giant invisible metaphysical cats instead of the ancestors, but that's just me.

Þorrabloated

One of the famous Icelandic events is Þorrablot, a tradition from viking times, where people eat "old-time" food. However "old-time" food in Iceland, is, well... hmm...

Let's just say that it's a good thing this country has evolved :).

We got some of that food at work (in celebration of Bóndadagur aka farmers' day or men's day). We also got invited to Jó's aunt's, who introduced us to some more of that food.

Here are some of the foods:

• Svið: singed sheep's head, blow torched to burn the hair before being cooked. The food that looks you back in the eye.
• Sviðsulta: bits of meat from the svid, pressed together, in gelatin.
• Súrt slátur (lifrarpylsa and blóðmör): two types of soured sausage, one made out of liver and the other a blood sausage kind of thing.
• Hrútspungar: soured sheep testicles, pressed in a gelationous matter. Was available at work but not at the dinner, so no pics unfortunately.
• Hákarl: shark meat buried raw in the ground for several month, then hung to dry. Smells like stale urine because of all the ammonia in it. The smell sticks to your clothes for a long time too. Hence the closed box in the picture.
• Lundabaggar: roll of lamb meat, soured.
• Saltkjöt: salted lamb. Very salty, but quite nice.

And here are the pictures...

Clockwise, from the top left: lifrarpylsa, lundabaggar, sviðsulta, more lifrarpylsa, hákarl, and blóðmör

Saltkjöt

Svið. The tongue tastes Ok. You eat the skin too.

Baked brains with peanuts, and ice cream. Ok, ok, so that's just an apple bake :)

Many thanks to Jó's aunt for providing us with this food :)

More snow!

So we keep getting more and more snow. We're not talking about massive amounts, but still on many days we get a few more inches.

After getting up late from bed on a lazy Saturday, Jó and I went for a walk on the SW coast of Reykjavík. We ended up by a spot there with some disused buildings, that were once used for drying fish. There were also pulleys and tracks leading to the sea, to pull boats/fish.

Small tree

Snowy yard

Abandoned Christmas tree

Abandoned equipment

Pulley

Tracks

Shacks

Nets

Looking in

Corrugated iron, graffiti, snow

Angelica, from above

The popular neighborhood ice cream store. They have two vanilla flavors, "Old" and "New". Notice the line of people. And the snow.

A couple of geese we saw on the way back

Our gloves, made by Jó's aunt :)

Snow!

For a place called Iceland, you'd think we get a lot of snow. But while it snows sometimes, it's usually a light coating, and it disappears quickly. Or it turns into very slippery ice (the temperature often oscillates around 0 degrees, so the ice melts and refreezes).

But not last night! We got a pretty decent snowfall, maybe 6 inches. So Jó and I did what we had to do... A snowman!

Our car was getting covered pretty well

The snowman! The pink background and slight fuzziness is due to the lack of flash. Trust me, it was dark.

For an idea of scale, here is our lovely model Jó (sporting an Inuit hat) beside the snowman

Isn't he just likable? I think he has a very approachable smile.

It will only get better from now on

December 22nd: a magical date.

Why? Well, because it's the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year! As you can see from the chart below, the sun today rose at 11:23 and set at 3:30, just above 4 hours of (alleged) sunlight. This being my first winter at this latitude, it's been difficult getting up in the morning at times, to say the least. But from today and for the next 6 months, each day will be a bit longer, until we hit the summer solstice and its 20+ hours of light goodness.

4h 06m 45s

Of course, by Monday we will already get 10 hours of daylight and temperatures as high as the hottest summer days in this fair town (19 degrees!). But that's because we will be in Beirut for two weeks :)

In the meantime, Jo and I would like to wish any readers of this blog Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

There's a tree behind us, I swear

The downtown Christmas tree, an annual gift from Norway, located by the Parliament

On an unrelated note: does this hat make me look Amish? Because that's not my intention...

Christmas stuff

A few weeks ago we went to a store and bought a Christmas tree. I grew up on plastic trees, but for the first time in my life, that was a real tree! :) Of course we got all sort of decorations for it too. It certainly helps having a nicely lit tree when it's so dark outside in the morning.

We also went to the nearby town of Hafnarfjörður this weekend. Jó had heard about a Christmas village, which turned out to be a stage on which some kids were singing / playing some music, and about 10 or so booths selling ornaments and other things.

And in one week, we will be leaving for a two week trip to Lebanon! I haven't been there in 2 years, so I'm very much looking forward to it :)

Captive tree

Decorated!

The kids choir, in Hafnarfjörður

There were plenty of trees there, of course

Skyr ornaments

Those dogs are more fashionable than I am...

Of course, we just had to take a picture :)

The sun was setting... I think it was around 3pm

I like the angle of that picture