A Lovely Afternoon

I suppose at this point I should mention my accommodations in the Hotel Floki.

 

 I am quite taken with it.  Iceland is famous for being expensive and I felt very fortunate to find this hotel that has both dormitory style and single double and triple rooms (across as many as five different buildings.)  The history of the place is wanting to offer a room that the rest of us could afford and I heartily support that mission (especially as it has allowed me to come and visit a country that might be prohibitively expensive otherwise.)  It is not as close to town as many of the other hotels, but it is still an easy walk and in fact is also close tot he BSI bus station, so one could save money on the airport ticket if one wanted by walking from the station.  They put me in a building a little bit farther North from the main building, a very unassuming place, but also very clean and pleasant.



The rooms as you saw in my earlier post are tiny. I expected this and am actually very satisfied with mine. I believe it must be about 7' x 10' as the bed takes up an entire side of the room, but it comes complete with a nice desk, a very comfortable bed and a refrigerator (and after all the point is to be somewhere else and not sitting in the room all day.) It also has free wifi!

Our concierge is a very helpful gentleman from Belo Russia, who has put up with all my questions with patience and a great sense of humor.
For example, he recommended an eating place where the locals go - the BSI bus station.  So I had my Icelandic dinner today at the bus station - a lamb steak with brown sauce 9also known as gravy.)

The cafeteria was decked out like a bus-scape and included mileage markers and windows painted onto the big windows that looked like a motorcoaches'.



Those mountains in the background are painted on the windows. The little windows at the bottom are the actual exterior landscape.  There were regular people there including a man and his son each wearing a mask on his forehead.  The little boy was fascinated with the chess set there and chess sets seem to be found in many public locations. I also saw one in a sitting area at the National Museum (and in a coffee shop as I passed by.

There were many local specialties including sheep's head.  Everything came with potatoes and various carbs, but so far I have been vigilant. I had my lamb steak and also some yoghurt and lunch meat that I bought at the grocery store .

 

After lunch it was off hurriedly to the National Museum. I didn't really have much of an idea of where I was going, but it turned out to be farther down the same road and past a lovely park.

 

These guys were all over the place.

 

 

And these guys had a crest on their heads (but I didn't catch it on film.

You can find bronze statues all over the place and this park was no exception.

 

 Finally I made it to the museum. (I was worried I would get there at closing time and so I rushed myself a bit. ) I have to say, though that reading about Icelandic history and culture was quite inspiring.

I suppose I am guilty of being a bit blithe about Iceland and considering it just another rigid and severe Nordic culture. This however does not seem to be the case.  (At least this has not been my experience.) The people have been lovely and I do not find the buildings as star and social realist as I did the ones in Stockholm and Copenhagen.  I love the cleanness and the bright colors. Of course looking at the exterior of the museum doesn't take away from my earlier stereotype:

 

...but look how modern and exciting the front of the museum is.

 I found the artifacts beautiful and interesting. Iceland was settled relatively late for a European country (Karl der Grosse (Chralemagne) was already established in Germany at this time).

 

Christianization occurred through the Danes and tried to take away many of the stories of the old gods, but luckily it also helped get many of these stries written down.

 

What follows are some sundry images from various parts of the museum.

 

I wish I had gotten a clearer shot of this gorgeous Gothic piece. It is so beautifully carved and has similarities with the work of Lucas Cranach.

 

Here is an earlier Romanesque madonna from around 1200.
 

 

And still more picturesque artifacts.

The most exciting thing however was there was a special textile exhibit that had just opened that very day!!!!!!! That will be the subject of the next part of my blog.

Back Tracking

Okay, so now that I am officially jet-lagged and not sure what to be doing, I thought I'd go back and fill in some gaps in my narrative.

From the plane ride: Even though I had reminded myself several times, I still forgot to bring one of my dozens of sets of ear phones. This was actually a good thing, because I wasn't even tempted to look and find out what was available on our individual screens and was forced to think about sleeping. But, as we approached Iceland, I knew it was time to wake up so I explored the children's menu and they had this drawing program that allowed you to color in their images or draw your own. Here's what I did!

 

Sorry it is so out of focus. The white dots are actually snowflakes, but you can't really tell.

Here is a shot of some of the clouds we passed over.  You can see that the sun is rising in the distance. I htink this must have been about 5:30 AM (CST).  We'd achieved full sunrise by 6:08.

 

On my morning walk, I pretty much zombied around and took random pictures.  This is another one that didn't turn out well, but I found it interesting because it was some kind of comedy theater with two guys in overalls - obviously farmers.  As far as I could tell they were Minnesota farmers - so you can see the Scandanavian influence is far reaching (obviously they are Islandic farmers - but I'm sure I've seen these guys hanging out in the Old Country Buffet.  (wink!))

 

After passing the theater, I passed this lovely wall.  Some of you may be familiar wit my endless quest to make an outdoor mosaic in our climate challenged Minnesota yard.  I thought this showed that it could be done.

 

My hotel host, Eugene, from Belo-Russia tells me it doesn't get all that cold here (at least not compared to where he comes from (only to minus 10). That wouldn't be as cold as MInnesota, so maybe I still don't have the answer to my quest.

 

This clean, but colorful street scene really captures my first impression of Reykjavik.

 

I've encountered a couple of dogs and cats already on this trip.  This cat was very affectionate. I always take a picture of the first cat I see on a trip for my partner. I don't know why. It seems like a tradition that I dare not break.

I wound my way through the shopping district (everything was closed because it was like 8:00 AM on a Saturday morning)!  So I headed to the shoreline through what seemed like the scuzzy part of town. There was a store called (of all things) Romantik.  There were dozens of huge posters of women dressed in sexy costumes, nurse, temptress, etc. (Of course it turned out to be the same 2 or 3 women in a lot of different costumes. (I wonder if they are models and have nothing to do with the women at the establishment.) Anyway, you can check out the website if you want to know more. I headed towards the water. There is this really cool looking sculpture in the harbor.

Ya' gotta love all the orange! it really makes the image pop!
I guess no one is immune to the "charms" of urbanization.

Here are a few additional pictures from my visit to Hallgrimskirk. To me one of the most prettiest parts was the entry, where you could see a series of fresh green Rothko-ish abstract paintings before entering the actual church.
 

 

Here is the obligatory interior shot.

It had a gorgeous organ (that I actually got to hear playing when I returned back later this afternoon hoping for a less rainy picture from the bell-tower.

I also loved this huge bronze door.  I went home after going up to the top of the tower. Pictures from that part of the walk next time around. Of course I was completely lost by then after all my meandering, but I remembered if you followed the street that goes out the back of the church in a straight line you would eventually (after only a ten minute walk) reach the hotel.  That worked just fine
AND of course on the way back I just happened to see a souvenir shop that had decided to open - so guess who has already made her first yarn purchase of the trip!  (I doubt it will stop there!)

On My Way To Iceland

Here are a few photos of the trip to Iceland. Of course itwas cloudy for most of the trip, but just over Greenland there was a break in the clouds and you could see the mountains and the snow.

Then it was cloudy again for a long time and when we descended there was a minimal view of Iceland through the fog.

  

Our shuttle took us  through the lava fields which were strangely sterile and craggy things, but then turned into fields of stones covered in moss, thus lush and barren at the same time.

 

It is drizzling, but I took a long walk waiting for my room to be ready for me.  The streets were absolutely desserted (probably because it is a Saturday morning - but it was a strange feeling to walk alone through Reykjavik's streets.

 

 

Of course I went to see the famous Hallgrimskirk  very nordic and stark - quite a no-nonsense place.

 

That's Leifur Erickson in front - they guy that discovered America.  Now I'm back in my room - it's tiny, but very clean and hospitable. The skies are clearing a bit and I'm torn between taking a (really long) nap and heading out again.

 

Which will it be?

Sternzopf again!

I test knitted yet another version of Sternzopf for someone and here is the finished piece. I'm not sure if I did the best job of blocking, but it definitely looks different fromthe two prior versions!

Can Spring really have arrived?

I've been gently reminded that I have not blogged for awhile and so I thought I would post a couple of quick pictures to send a flavor of my world. I have been extremely busy with work and the light has finally started to shine forth from the end of the tunnel (just about the same time as the weather has finally agreed to  resemble Spring). (Of course if you had asked me yesterday I would have told you that Spring had decided not to visit us this year. I was so cold that I had to turn on the heat and I actually slept in long underwear last night (something I am loathe to do even on the coldest nights of winter!) Today (at last) it is sunny and almost warm and the plants in the yard have finally decided to come out of hiding. Even the warblers are starting to arrive.

Of course the first flowers to really go on display are the weeds. As you can see they have more than a foothold on our yard.

We owe the German emigrants a debt of something for bringing their beloved dandelions over from Europe. Alas, we try to combat them, but as you can see we are losing the battle.

 

Even the lawn mower doesn't manage to make a dent in them, so short of a neutron bomb, I think we are pretty much stuck with them. On the more pleasant side of things (and the house) there is however this to look at. I am so glad I decided to get those Japanese lanterns. I have a feeling of peace and comfort when I look at them and remember the beautiful gardens of Japan.

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Oh and one more thing. It is road trip time of year - so I hope to be posting some travel blogs pretty soon.  Of course the destination I chose is rainy, windy and cold right now (go figure!) so look forward to hearing more complaining about the weathe. What is a vacation, if not the chance to realize how much you like the place you complain about all the rest of the year?

Recent Niebling Piece

Just finished my second version of Herbert Niebling's Sternzopf. Here's what it looks like.

Here's the first version. Not a very good picture of it alas!

Snow

We had quite the storm come through last week and the flakes were huge and they came down really fast. Of course it was overcast, so I couldn't get a very good shot of the snow, but I actually like the expressionistic almost dreamy quality of the picture I took:

 

I know I haven't put much up of late. I'll probably post a picture of something I test knit for a Knitalong very soon, but I want others to have a chance to get started before I post my version.  I'm about 6 rows from finishing the big project that I have been working on for months. Of course it isn't very big. I guess it will be a neck scarf instead of a shawl unless I find an edging I really like to make it a bit larger. (The idea of working on it for another 6 months is more than I can bear, but at least with an edging you can feel like its on the way to being finished. I've lsot my t-pins anyway, so I can't finish it until I find them!!