August snow storm

I have never experienced any other place where the weather is as unstable as here in Iceland. No surprise that the term "Icelandic Low" is established and is available in many languages in Wikipedia, together with a striking picture.
During the last couple of days the news were putting out a "snow storm warning" for Friday evening. Not quite the forecast one would expect for the end of August (though it doesn't seem to be unusual in Iceland!). Farmers started to gather their sheep from the highlands last week, two weeks before the offical big sheep gathering event in the beginning of September. Quite understandable, last year a severe snow storm had hit the Northern part of the country at almost the same time of the year burying many of the sheep under deep snow. This year, the low-pressure area didn't hit the land quite as hard as the year before but it uprooted some trees in Reykjavik, still blows untamed over the North East, and it brought snow. Snow in August. The wind had become colder and colder during yesterday afternoon forcing me into three layers of overgarmets and wool gloves. Grey thick clouds were blown rapidly over the tops of the lower mountains covering them into a thin layer of icing sugary snow. Mentally I said Goodbye to the summer and thought about winter preparations and skiing ... just to wake up this morning in bright sunshine and mild temperature. Puzzled, I took a walk up the mountains, and the sun was shining and the birds were singing and the leaves were green while I took pictures of the mountains of the highlands covered into cold white coats.

Mt. Strútur in a cold white coat in the morning light.

Glacier Eiríksjökull completely white on the last day of August.

Close-up of Eiríksjökull in his ice sugary snow topping.

What I learnt from running

One week ago I ran 10 km in the Reykjavik marathon. It was the first race I ever did and it still feels a bit weird and exciting when I think about it. I had never done any race before and I ain't even a very passionate runner (I am actually more into hiking, biking and cross-country skiing). But however, running provides some benefits and taught me some interesting lessons. I am grateful for that and I decided to write about them.

A blog article about a few good lessons I learnt from running.

So, how did I get the idea to start running though I am not crazily passionate about it? It was March and I was restless. I was unhappy in a PhD program (this is another story for another day) building up negativity inside me. Furthermore, it was between the seasons meaning there wasn't enough snow left in the Swedish lowlands for skiing but still too much ice on the ways for biking without special tires. But the negative energy was urging me outside and getting moving. So I grabbed some crampons to put under my shoes (we had just bought little gum crampons to put under walking shoes) and started running slowly. I then ran several times per week and got the idea that I could take part in a race if I just would become good enough. At first, I ran 25 minutes in slow pace and then added five minutes per week until I could run longer than one hour feeling good.

The benefits of running are apparent: movement is healthy for the body and the mind and the same goes for getting outside into nature regularly. And I learnt some precious interesting lessons:

Pace. It is sooo important to run (or move actually!) in your own pace. When running too fast I would end up breathless or with stitches in the side after a short while. So I started slow, very slooooow (almost walking) and I did not only learn that this is just okay but that it is the only way to make long distance running work and enjoying it.

Time. Time actually goes hand in hand with pace: give yourself enough time to get used to the running movement and for improvements in performance, for example for extending the training session or your pace. Don't get angry on yourself when you are not as fast or don't run as far as you would like in the beginning. It will come. Trust in it, relax and give yourself time.

Rhythm. It is easier to run when you adjust to a certain rhythm. This rhythm is yours and you have to find it yourself (remember: it is slow in the beginning). Music might help you to adjust your steps to a certain rhythm. I actually never listened to music when I ran but used the sound my feet made when hitting the ground as my rhythm. This worked well most of the time.

No matter the weather! You are more independent of the weather when you are running than you might think! I have been running in the cold, in snowfall, in pouring rain, in fog and in gusts of wind, and it didn't matter to me. I am heating up fast when I am running, so the first 10 minutes are not so pleasant but after that it is great to look at the "bad weather" and feel warm and cosy by my own body heat.

Strength. I felt regularly how I got stronger in my feet and in my legs and I even see it in the leg muscles. That is a great feeling!

Diversity. I learnt about myself that I am very bad at running the same route many times. I just get so bored and feel tired and exhausted after a little while. However, when I change the route often and when I choose ways which offer a wide beautiful view then I am running much longer and often faster than I would have imagined! The good thing about Iceland is that there are wide beautiful views almost everywhere.

Alternating. When I am not in the mood for running I go on little mountain hikes. It improves the stamina just as well as running and makes life much more interesting than running monotonously.

Believing. In the beginning I thought "Running for 10 km? Never, I can't even do 5 without feeling exhausted." Wrong! I did 10 km in the Reykjavik marathon and it wasn't a big problem. So I guess the same goes for 21 km ... or even 42 km?

No matter the weather! Running in pouring rain and 2°C in Húsafell.

Reykjavik marathon

When I am not working, hiking or knitting I run marathons.
...
Just kidding, I never ran any race. Until yesterday when I ran 10 km in the Reykjavik marathon. I have been planning this since March but I was not sure if it would come true. Until August when I signed up for it. I have been running more or less regularly since March starting with running in slow pace for 25 minutes and now I can run longer than one hour feeling good.
The Reykjavik marathon is the biggest sports event of Iceland and takes place in August every year. There are several distances: a full marathon (42.2 km), half marathon (21.1 km), 10 km, 3 km and shorter distances for little children. This year around 14.000 people had signed up for it and alone in the 10 km race were over 6.000 people competing. Quite a big event!

Reykjavik marathon 2013 (www.visir.is).

Many famous Icelandic persons are taking part in the run and promoting the races to encourage people to take part in it. This is for example Pétur Jóhann Sigfússon, a popular and funny actor doing the main advertisements for the races and taking part in the half marathon:

Pétur Jóhann after finishing the half marathon (www.visir.is).

It was possible to run for a broad range of charities and after thinking a little bit I decided to run for the birds of Iceland collecting money for them. And I managed to gather 6000 Icelandic kronas (almost 40 EUR)! Thank you so much, dear contributors!

Having gathered 6000 ISK for the birds of Iceland.

The 10 km race started at 9:35, so we had to leave early in the morning from Húsafell (it is a 1.5 hours drive to Reykjavik). The weather was very rainy and foggy and I was thinking that I will freeze my ass off in the marathon T-Shirt and the thin trousers. (No need to worry about that, I found out later, when I was running and heating up a lot.) The participants in the races were supposed to pick up their race material (T-Shirt, number, time measurement chip, information booklet) the day before and Gauti's aunt was so sweet to do this for me because we live so far away from Reykjavik. She was taking part in the race herself and treated us with a good runner's breakfast with toast, cheese, bananas, apples and juice. When we went into the city the streets were crowded with cars trying to find a parking space and runners in vibrant neon-coloured shoes. And I was getting so excited! Everybody looked so professional in their tight neon-coloured clothes, headbands, heart rate watches, and belts with tiny water bottles around the hips - and here I came with some thin hiking trousers and socks pulled over the trouser's legs, my pink hat which I wear all the time everywhere, and one half-bloody shoe (from a former run accident where I had hit my little toe on a stone). But nonetheless, the exciting happy atmosphere was very contagious and the excitement made butterflies dance around in the stomach and made my legs and arms tickly and I couldn't wait to start the race! There was music in the start area, happy chatter and laughter, lots of children and volunteers holding big coloured signs with numbers between 40 and 65. Those were the times we estimated to finish the run. Running 10 km in less than 40 minutes is a very very good timing. I knew a bit of my personal times from my training but honestly, I had never run 10 km before and no real idea how much time I would need for it, so I joined the "60-65 minutes" group deciding that this would be a good timing for the very first 10 km race. (And I am a slow runner.)

Me at the 60-65 minutes time estimate mark.

Then all of a sudden there was a shot in the air and the race started and the whole big crowd around started moving. Walking actually, because we were 3 minutes away from the start mark and were walking slowly towards it, the runners in front us were starting to run and I was dancing on my feet because of excitement.

Walking/dancing towards the start mark.

And then the start mark was above us and everybody started running at once, chatting and laughing and waving. It was just great! All of a sudden there was a propeller plane coming from behind flying low over us (landing on the nearby Reykjavik airport) and I was so tickly in my body because of this exciting atmosphere that I started to run faster and faster. ... Until I reminded myself that I had to run 10 km and not waste my energy within the first two km. We were moving as a big mass through Reykjavik and everybody was chatting and laughing ... until the first km mark. Then it became a bit more silent people saving their breath for running and at the second km mark it was quiet apart from the many feet hitting the ground and the breathing of people. We were running through some residential areas and people were standing with their kids in front of their houses cheering for us, clapping their hands, playing music and using big metal candy boxes and wooden spoons as drums. Children were reaching out their little hands exchanging high fives with us runners. The course continued along the coastline giving view on the grey Atlantic ocean. It started raining and the wind blew waves of tiny drops into our faces. Running running running. I kept a rather slow pace for seven kilometres, grapping some water at km number 4. At km number 8 they offered us more water and energy drinks. I usually dislike energy drinks because of their crazily sweet and artifical taste but I was curious if it would feel any different after running 8 km. ... It was. It tasted good. I threw the cup on the street and started gaining speed. The ballons with the "60-65 minutes mark" were at least half a kilometre in front of me and I was zig-zagging between people and overtaking in order to reach the white balloons. 9 km mark! I gained more speed and reached the 65 minutes balloon around 200 metres in front of the finish line overtaking them and running through the finish line with arms raised into the air!

Crossing the finish line with arms raised in the air.

My timing was 1 hour, 4 minutes and 2 seconds which I think is good for the very first 10 km race. They gave all of us who had finished the races medals. This is mine:

Finished the 10 km race and proud of my medal.

Later on when we took a little walk on Reykjavik's shopping street Laugavegur we did a little photo experiment: Icelandic Christmas Lads meet Reykjavik marathon runner. :)

Icelandic Christmas Lads meet Reykjavik marathon runner.

And I do not have more to say than: Great run, great day!

TV socks

For my birthday in May I got two books filled with knitting patterns of socks and hats and mittens - a loooovely present! I already finished several pairs of socks, mittens and hats (I don't always stick to the patterns in the book but use them sometimes as a source of inspiration). But I sticked carefully to a pattern called "sjónvarpssokkar" (TV socks), a rather old and simple sock pattern. Actually I am not sure if they originated in Iceland or in Denmark but the idea is to keep the feet warm while sitting on the sofa and watching TV. The book suggested to use three strands of unspun lopi (which is the name of the unspun wool which is sold here in Iceland), so the socks became rather bulky and keep the feet very warm. Perfect indoor socks during the cold season! It is not always so easy though to knit with unspun wool since the yarn is rupturing so easily and so often ...

The pattern works different than most sock patterns: first a cloth is knitted using almost only knit stitches enlarging the part of heel a bit. Then the cloth is sewn together at its long ends and voilá, it becomes a sock.

Sjónvarpssokkar (TV socks)

Easy to knit interesting project. But probably it would get a bit boring to knit really many of them. 
They are a present for Gauti´s mom, by the way.

The tongue, the ostrich and the goat's mountain

Iceland has countless mountains and many of them have quite interesting names ... 
One of the easiest walkable and yet most beautiful mountains in the Húsafell area is Mt. Tunga (tongue). It is a rather flat and long mountain and at its Western end are two rivers confluecing, hence it carries the name tongue. It is a really good destination for evening hikes in the summer time, especially around sundown. The view is wonderful (three glaciers, a part of the highlands, a huge lava field, the Húsafell forest and the upper part of the Borgarfjörður fjord) and the declining sun bathes both landscape and the sky in beautiful yellow, orange and red colours. We were hiking up Tunga in the beginning of July and walked it up again some days ago. Gauti took some really good panorama picture and here it is:

Panorama from Mt. Tunga.

The panorama shows (from left to right):
Mt. Strútur (the ostriche). Really nice view from it. I was up there two years ago and Gauti and I want to hike it up again when we both have the same day off and the weather is calm and clear.
Eíriksjökull, the glacier of Eirik the viking. I have the (crazy?) idea in the back of my mind to hike this one up one day.
Hafrafell (male goat's mountain). Gauti and I plan to walk this one up some time.
Langjökull (long glacier), second biggest glacier of Iceland. I have been up there several times and it is gorgeous to be up there (but the weather can be very different in different parts of the glacier ...).
Mountain road Kaldidalur in the foreground. Closed for the longest part of the year. Possible to drive it with a normal car if you take care of the holes and the water and don't tell the car rentals or the person you rented the car from ... We did it once with the car of Gauti's family and decided to tell them afterwards. :)

Knitting labels

A new try to sell my selv-designed hats and gloves: Snorri gave me permission to put them into the shelf of his little shop at the waterfalls Hraunfossar. They are lying there now and I am sitting in the shop working a sunday afternoon for Snorri and I got some time to make knitting labels giving a bit of information about my knitting wear.

Knitting labels in progress.

 However, if you have ideas for changes or improvements (or correct my English) don't hesitate to tell me! I am going to print the labels tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way, here is a picture of Hraunfossar where the shop is. They are translated as the "lava waterfalls" because they arise from under a big lava field. Quite beautiful work place, isn't it?

Hraunfossar. The picture was taken in the beginning of August when a lot of melted glacier water was colouring the river grey.

Luckless at the farmer's market

Close to the village Reykholt is a little farmer's market hold every two weeks during the summer. I was invited by Gauti's family to try to sell some of my knitting work there. I knit a lot and started to design my own patterns this summer. Sometimes I am completely taken up by designing patterns, sometimes it is like an obsession. Usually I go out and take pictures of plants and birds or take in some leaves and use Excel to create a kind of "pixle pattern" out of them. The picture shows the three hats and the two pairs of gloves I was trying to sell. The green hat (a children's hat) has the Golden Plover on it, the red one white dryas flowers and the black one downy birch trees. The pairs of gloves have a simply white dryas pattern and the downy birch pattern in autumn colours on them. They were between 3.000 and 3.500 Icelandic kronas (20-25 Euros). Maybe too much?

My knitted hats and gloves with selv-designed patterns.

So this is not much to sell yet but I am knitting more at the moment. I was pretty luckless at the farmer's market today, I didn't sell anything. Gauti's mom said it would be good to get a bigger collection people can rummage in, having both children's and adult wear, socks, shawls, fillets, and so on. That is probably true. But I think I did not have the right customers. Mostly there were women coming in wearing beautiful Icelandic pullovers and shawls which they probably knitted themselves. No need for some more knitting wear of course!
Maybe it is best to try to sell to tourists coming to Iceland. I don't know. Maybe it might be good as well to knit some small things which can be sold on little money. Let's see. Maybe I will be more lucky the next time or in another place ... Or maybe I should try to sell the patterns themselves ...?

Skagaströnd

So there is this little fishing village Skagaströnd in a bit of middle of nowhere in North West Iceland. And despite its small size this fishing village has everything what is needed: a not-too-small grocery shop, a kindergarten, a music school, a pharmacy, a physician (though only on thursdays), an Icelandic country music restaurant, an Icelandic country music radio channel(!), an artist house where around 100 international artists meet per year and a fortuneteller museum. I think nobody is unemployed in Skagaströnd, everybody has his occupation with fishing, working with the kids or ... fortune telling. (Yeah, that's right, there are professional fortune tellers in Skagaströnd.)
So just a little well-functioning fishing village. But I have a feeling that over time the inhabitants have become a bit weird ...

Fishing village Skagaströnd.

Art in the harbour.

For example, nobody, truly NOBODY, wakes up before 11 a.m. Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. a few newly awake people in pyjamas can be seen coming out their front doors to take the newspaper inside. Maybe somebody is driving his dog for a walk (yes, I have seen a guy who was DRIVING his dog instead of walking it). The afternoon goes by slowly and calmly, doing a bit of work in the little harbour, mowing the grass or cutting some hedges. But when the evening arrives people wake up finally and it gets pretty lively in the little village. Kids are sent outside to play, the fishing boats leave the harbour and the farmers think about haying. It seems though haying isn't done the usual way in Skagaströnd. Next to the summerhouse of my parents was a little grassland where somebody had cut the grass and put part on it on a pile and had spread part of it over the land.

Hay waiting for to be taken home ...

Then the time had arrived to take the hay home. But the tractor was broken and on several evenings at 11:30 p.m. a farmer came and tried to jump start the tractor with a Mercedes by flooring the gas pedal completely. Obviously, that didn't work, so the next evening two guys with a little girl came, walking around on the land, throwing the grass a bit around and then trying to use an old Russian Lada with a little trailer to bring it home. (Interestingly, the Lada was accompanied by jeep tires ...) That didn't work neither, obviously, so they went home, the next day it started raining and it seemed they had given up the haying process.

The old Lada used for haying.

Once my mom went for a walk and told us that when she was passing a farm, the farmer came running out, saw her and let himself fall into the grass. He jumped up fastly, ran inside and came out with his wife, both of them looking at my mom and then letting themselves fall into the grass ...
The same day I went for a walk to some cliffs at the coast and there I found a suitcase with some stranded goods and a letter.

A suitcase with stranded goods.

Hello girls and guys. My name is Hákon and I am seven years old. The seagull is a good bird. He is beautiful.
Verse 2.
I went away with my cousin Iris today.
Verse 3.
The Arctic tern is sometimes good, sometimes bad. She pecks but then one has to sway the arms above the head.
21 April 2013.

Finally, when we left Skagaströnd, some guys on some diggers had taken the road in the village apart. It is a weird little place and honestly I miss it a little bit.

Fishing in the highlands

I live in Húsafell, a little place and summerhouse area far inside the country (in Iceland 60 km from the coast is considered as "far inside the country"). Shortly behind Húsafell the so-called highlands begin, the uninhabitated huge inner area of Iceland. In many parts, the highlands are stone and sand desert but the area between Húsafell and the North Western part of the country is rather green and characterized by countless little lakes. Its name is Arnarvatnsheiði, the "Eagle water highland". The sheep are grazing here during the summer and many of the lakes have fish in them (char and trout) because they are connected to rivers. My friend Snorri is taking care of the area and selling fishing licences in his little shop. And when my parents were visiting he invited us to a fishing trip on Arnarvatnsheiði.

Mountain and glacier Eiríksjökull seen from Arnarvatnsheiði.

It is only possible to go to Arnarvatnsheiði by jeep since the way leads over a huge lava field and crosses the river. Snorri himself was one the guys building this way and in most parts it consists of many turns following the shape of the lava. (Usually I was getting car sick when being driven through all those turns ...) The last time I stayed healthy. The jeep was packed with us, two fishing rods, several rifles and we were pulling a trailer with a hay roll behind us for a horseback riding group which was going over Arnarvatnsheiði. The rifles were Snorri's and used for polar fox hunting. It is a special experience to drive over the big lava field. It is like a desert consisting of dark grey asphalt-like rocks sticking into the air, many of them showing the flow direction of the lava. The only thing which is growing on the lava field are white fluffy mosses and here and there tiny birch and willow trees. But once arrived at the lakes the area is fertile and green.

Fertile lake highlands with Mount Strútur and glacier Ok in the background.

We were stopping at Arnarvatn litla, the little Eagle lake, trying our luck with fishing. My dad was walking far into the flat like with the fly fishing rod while I was fishing from the margin. We caught ... nothing. Nothing at all. But Snorri found some beautiful whooper swan feathers, so we decided to be happy with that and continued.

Close-up of a Whooper Swan's feather.

Then we stopped at a delta of a little river which Snorri said has always fish. So I cast the rod - and almost immediately caught a big char! I was getting all excited reeling the fish in, my mom came running with the net ... and the fish got free and went away and never came back. That was the only time we saw a fish that day, by the way. Snorri was lying in the grass chilling and my mom was taking pictures of the unsuccessfull fishers, the landscape and the plants.
... But it turned out later on that it wasn't an unsuccessfull trip. We caught something. But it was not a fish. It was a bird. A little fluffy white golden ball of feathers was running around close to us and Snorri encouraged me to try to catch it, it was a Golden Plover hatchling. I was running after it trying to crap it somehow without hurting it but oh, I was clumsy, throwing myself to the ground without getting the little bird. Snorri caught it in the end and gave it to me, the little fluffy Golden Plover.

The little Golden Plover calling for his mom which was close+by.

The unsuccesfull fishers.

White dryas hat

I created a new knitting pattern and knitted a hat with it. My inspiration were the white dryas flowers which one can find almost everywhere out here. They are white and yellow, however, I used different colours in my hat, I didn't have enough of the other colours.
I am quite content with this pattern. :)

Hiking on Mt. Spákonufell (the Prophecy Woman's Mountain)

I am spending a couple of days in the North on the peninsula Skagi. My parents are renting a summer house in the little fishing village Skagaströnd. (A small but quite interesting place, by the way, I think I will honour it its own blog entry a bit later.)

Behind Skagaströnd rises the beautiful Mt. Spákonufell into the sky. With its nearly 650 m it is not a huge mountain though it seems high because it is so close to the coast line. On top of it is a big plateau and I was excited to hike up there. So today I went up.

Mt. Spákonufell

Spákonufell can be translated as the “Mountain of the Prophecy Woman”. One of the first “land takers” at Skagaströnd was woman Þórðís. It was said that she was able to see the future and that she hid a treasure on her mountain and only a woman which is not baptized or member of any other religion would be able to find it. No chance for me then ...

Though the walls of the plateau on top are rather steep it was easy to hike up the mountain. We took a break at Álfasteinn, the Elve’s Stone. There I was changing hiking fellow because my parents decided to go back and I met an Icelandic woman who was hiking up and decided to join her. And it turned out that I am good enough in Icelandic now to communicate with anyone in Icelandic! 

Chilling on Álfarsteinn (Elve's Stone). I don't know if the inhabiting elves were happy though that I was sitting on their stone ...

 That was fun because she, Anna Margret, told me she would be hiking guide for a group of visitors coming next week and she was practicing the way up the mountain. She also told me that it was possible to see six “sýslur” (counties) from the plateau, all the way to Borgarfjarðarsýsla where I live.

The path was mostly easy to walk and we got a nice view on valley Leynidalir and on the sea both West and East of the peninsula. More and more mountains occurred in our view the higher we went, old snowfields from last winter and small streams far down in the valleys.

Blueberries and crowberries were growing all along the mountain slopes, mostly not mellow yet, though, anyway, we were stopping every few minutes to stuff ourselves with the first mellow berries we found. (Anna Margret’s GPS device told us later that we were walking for two hours and stopping for  1.5 hours eating berries …)

The last few metres to the plateau we had to walk on a little ridge, and it was both beautiful and scary to look down the steep hills at both sides.

The mountain ridge with Skagafjörður in the background.

The plateau itself was perfectly flat on top and completely overgrown by fluffy white mosses. The view was great: mountains and sea and mountains and sea … The world is somehow so different on mountain tops, it is almost not possible to see any valleys in the distance and the world seems to consist of many many mountains …

No place on Iceland is without a guest book, no matter if it’s on a farm or the top of a glacier … The guest book of Spákonufell was situated in a treasure chest on a stone pile on the plateau and it contained the book, a colourful kite, a pile of retro postcards and a stone with a rune symbol …

Anna Margret opening the treasure chest.

So what can I say about hiking up Mt. Spákonufell? It’s a rather easy hike even though the path is steep in some parts. It takes about one and a half hours to walk it up though not in the end of the summer when the berries mellow and one stops every few minutes to eat them … ;) It’s fun to walk on the flat mossy plateau and the view is wonderful. Highly recommended!

Me on the plateau.

Ísland er svo lítið ... (Iceland is so small): Friends in the South

Gauti and I spent two days „in the South“ (it is called „travelling South“ when you drive towards Reykjavík or go to the Golden Circle area and the little town Selfoss). We had brought the car with the punctured tire to a work shop which did not have the ideal tire size for it and now the little car drives on four tires of three different sizes ... But it seems to work well. We went to Laugarvatn in the South West where my parents did rent a summer cottage. We also managed to pick up my Italian friends on the way and dropped them off on a camp site in Laugarvatn. Laugarvatn is a small village characterized by a lake with hot water springs in it and an old school building. The school was built here because of the easy access to hot water to heat up the class rooms. It is beautiful there on the Golden Circle, in the South lies a big open valley which is very green due to its rich soil. In the North are grey mountain slopes and creeks have cut interesting patterns into the soft rocks. Forests are crawling up the mountain slopes, and there are some summer house areas in the forests. The summer cottage my parents did rent is at the margin of one of those beautiful hills and its terrasse points towards the wide green valley and allows a beautiful view on volcano Hekla („the gate to hell“).

View on volcano Hekla (I stole it from my mom, and she said it might be possible to tell people they had went to Africa and this is a picture of Mt. Kilimanjaro).

 

Our days in the South were unusally warm and calm and my dad decided to go fishing in the nearest lakes and streams. We had found a little stream on the map with a fishing symbol and went to a farm close-by to ask for fishing permittance. It turned out that we had ended up on the farm where Gauti‘s dad had been working for a couple of summers many years ago and they recognized Gauti‘s face immediately. Iceland is so small, meaning that you meet people you know everywhere and everyone knows everyone. We got a very warm welcome from Gauti's friends in the South, and a warm welcome in Iceland means that you are invited for coffee and spend hours in the kitchen exchanging news and gossip. My dad was immediately seen as „a part of the family who doesn‘t have to pay for fishing“ and he went happy to the stream and caught a beautiful Arctic char. It‘s interesting how easy it is to get talking to Icelandic foreigners, how common it is just to get invited to the farms and how stunning it is that almost every farm has beautiful paintings of the nature around them on the walls which „I, my husband or farmer x/y was painting one winter evening he was bored“ and it just turned out to be a master piece. But it seems to be normal on this island to use some winter evenings to go and create some master painting, a beautiful song or a great book. I love this kind of „normal“.