Reykjavik Harbor Watch

One of the things that really surprised me about housing in Iceland when I first arrived was that balconies are considered a nearly essential feature of home life. In Boston, I never lived in an apartment with a balcony, and none of my friends had balconies either. What's the point when winter is so long and tedious, when you only get a few months of use out of it' And yet, when I first arrived,

One thing that people have probably noticed when visiting Iceland is that the lopapeysa really is taken quite seriously here. It was conceived as a very serviceable garment in thick unspun Icelandic yarn, only in natural sheep colors, and usable as a replacement for a coat, with the patterns on the yoke and openings serving a practical function as well as a decorative one. Adding a multi-thread

The past three months have been an abrupt shift in quite a lot of my life parameters, and although late November was a rather rough phase, the outcome so far has been far better than I could have imagined. I'm working for a new company now, with people I've known almost as long as my time in Iceland, and I'm pretty sure a better group of colleagues can't possibly exist. They're smart, reliable,

As I discussed some years ago, Icelanders are very prone to trend mania, and just like a few years ago, I decided I had to try out the latest craze and see what it was all about. Last time I went through duty free, I bought the smallest size of the #1 best seller in the cosmetics department, the EGF serum. This thing has been gushed over on the international press, and stories go that women in

A few months ago one of the members of my choir announced that she had a plan to make a disc of musical favorites related to New Year celebrations, and she wanted us to be part of the effort. The director whipped up a new arrangement of one of the Icelandic classics, and during our annual weekend retreat rehearsal, we performed it along with several other favorites to an attentive recording crew.

Last week my choir held the usual Christmas concert that I've mentioned here before, and the event turned out to be one of those classic Icelandic evenings. This year's program was Bach's Magnificat, a glorious piece of baroque frivolousness, paired with a piece newly written over the past few months. The choir director has been in a composing program at school here, and decided to write a

It's past midnight and in my little corner of Reykjavik, I just spent 10 minutes with my chin leaning on the edge of my bedroom skylight, propped slightly ajar. It's quiet below, the sidewalks glazed with a crust of ice, and above me curves a smudge of northern lights. Christmas decorations have gone up, so although the inhabitants are mostly asleep, the houses along my street glow with fairy

One of the things I love about being able to speak Icelandic is that it's given me access to the mysterious world of small talk, Iceland style. As you might expect, a lot of it is pretty much the same as it is anywhere else in the world. For example, a few weeks ago I was waiting for the bus and an elderly gentleman ambled up to wait at the same stop. During the few minutes we stood together, we

on Saturday after a successful holiday shopping trip followed by coffee with a friend near downtown, I walked the long way home via Bræðraborgarstígur. The weather was starting to grow chill after a mild day, and a light drizzle had fallen during my coffee hours, so the dark pavement gleamed under the streetlights. This neighborhood is the postcode of so many parts of my life here, particularly

I'm lying awake in the eerie silence of a still Icelandic night, wondering why when the wind howls I can't sleep, yet when it's still, I miss its busy lullaby. Why is it that when I most need it, sleep eludes' It's that time of year when everything is crowding together, trying to jumble in the decreasing gap between now and Christmas. There are those handcrafted gifts to finish, packages to post