Night Swim

Night Swim, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Fall and winter night swimming is one of the luxuries of living in Iceland. This shot is taken at the Laugardalur pool.

Moment

Moment, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Sometimes its all the indescribable moments surrounding a photo, in all dimensions and temporal directions, that make it beautiful.

Sunday

Fire, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

I'll let Professor Batty do the honors of relating his play-by-play of Iceland Airwaves as only he could: his photos are amazing and his writing makes you feel like you've known him for years. Salutations, Professor, and glad you're enjoying your trip!

Another abandoned house burned today, the same one I posted about recently when it was officially squatted and made a Schengen-Free zone. Arson? One could speculate...

Moon

Moon, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

This full harvest moon was accompanied last night by an "unusually bright" shooting star that lit up the midnight skies over southwestern Iceland last night. Here you can see it for yourselves.

Full

Full, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Our first fall full moon glows in tonight's sky golden and low. Some things, like a moonrise, are sure in this life and that is a good thing to know.

Concert

Concert, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

gusgus played an outdoor live set for us last night and we fell in love with them all over again.

Balance

Balance, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Image by Óðinn, three years old.

Today is 20.09.2009 and I've little to say but that fall is here, and dark nights still warm enough to stroll around in without mittens or muffs or such. We walk a thin line these days between hope and dolor, and I think it's safe to say that, honestly, at this point, the waiting is the hardest part. Our collapse lingers, a slow motion graceless tumble, as infighting and fracturous party bickering keep us clinging to old structures and ideals when letting go, fully falling into true humility, admitting fault, releasing blame and dissolving useless, demeaning obligations might be the only way to save our national soul. But what do I know. I've always found politics, finance and the ways of the worldly truly confounding.

And then there's all this, the true measure of our life force: our art. Visit these links and know that our hearts are still beating and our blood runs as hot and cool as ever, and that we'll never, never give up:

Add This Song by gusgus, directed by Heimir Sverrisson and Jón Atli Helgasson

gusgus web site

Hljóðaklettar Icelandic Music Label, feat. Rúnar Magnússon, DJ Musician and Thor Magnússon

Anonymous feat. Tanya and Marlon Pollock, video by Berglind

Reykjavik Roundup

gogoyoko Fair Play in Music

E-label Designs by Ásgrímur Már Friðriksson

Thormuzik

Reykjavik International Film Festival

Nikita Design

Eve Online

Olvis

Ólafur Eliasson at TED.com

Ragnar Kjartansson at the 2009 Venice Biennial

Snorri Ásmundsson

Steinunn Designs

11th annual Iceland Airwaves music festival

Sequences Art Festival


And so many more...Do yourself a favor and check them all out *.*

Beach

Beach, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

I've dug deep into classic Iceland Eyes and pulled out this photo of a little Valentína on the black pebble beach at Djúpalónssandur, a most beautiful Icelandic landscape.

Íslendingur

Íslendingur, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Ok, people, time to vote!

Go to this link, Blog Tournaments, and check out my competition, then leave a comment on the Blog Tournaments site to cast your vote for Iceland Eyes.

Let's take this to the next level, my friends!

Squat

Squat, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Squatters recently took over an abandoned house on Skólavörðurstígur, with the (approval) of the owner, who's looking the other way, ahem. For last Saturday's Culture Night they spiffied up the yard and announced a Schengen-Free Zone with a free-stuff bazar in the house's basement. Very cool.


p.s. Iceland eyes has been invited to take part in a joust! Really just a blog tournament, but cool anyway. Go here for more info and get yourselves ready to vote!

Carrots

Carrots, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

The thing is, Icelandic carrots like these are absolutely delicious and while munching away one is hopefully not mulling over their price per pound. Local produce is, in general, super good, especially the greenhouse stuff like tomatoes, cucumber, paprika (bell peppers,) zucchini and various lettuces. I buy local, despite the cost, almost without exception.

Oh, of course, you nod understandingly, Iceland has all that geothermal power to heat greenhouses for cheap, just the reason why Alcoa and Alcan have set up aluminum smeltering shop there. And you'd be right about the smeltering part. But please know that greenhouse farmers are not subsidized in any way or offered reduced energy rates at all, though Big Aluminum is. Though I usually don't take political sides, this is a very dear issue to me. Read this article from Saving Iceland for more info. It's two years old, but totally on topic*. Here's a more recent one by a possibly even more controversial source, but it raises some interesting topics.

Here's the deal: Iceland is on the very verge of self sustainability, of creating a green eco-culture that will provide an international model of development. This book excerpt helps to define in more scientific terms our capacity to provide nutrient-rich foods for our local population. And this article from the Guardian adds a hopeful note to the argument. And here's a post of mine with links to great articles re: this issue of our future.

Out of chaos comes order, every time, without fail. It's the nature of systems at all levels, ultra-micro to macro and beyond. We have the opportunity, we have the technology, we have the attitude to make something brilliant, innovative and of lasting global impact out of the rubble of our economy. The Heart Park is a good start: a little patch of green in the heart of the city where obsolete structures once stood. A small gesture like that gives hope in an unmeasurable way. That's our future. We tried the other way and it failed us. Now its time to return to the land that made us.

We live here, we are forged and bound together by ancestors, survivors of tremors and blasts and lingering ash clouds that suffocated the less hardy, smothered the flora and culled our numbers to the quick. We were parasites then, half-dug into the raw skin of the island, barely covered by sod roofs and what we could weave off the backs of sheep. We were destroyers, desperately hacking away at the gnarled and primitive birch forests til the fragile soils ran loosely into glacial rivers, leaving nothing behind but the stripped volcanic muscle of our mother. We fought each other and killed, bore children too weak to live another day in the hostile depleted world into which they came.

Hundreds of years ago the island split and raged, taking back her own life through destruction. Dank black clouds lay thick in the skies for months, starving so much of what fed on her, breaking down the tenuous cycle of life until a numb stillness overwhelmed the last people, until the starved cattle and sheep could no longer raise their heads in protest. The oldest groves, home to Baldur and to sacred things, were finally felled, burned, lost. The island had sundered herself, had shaken and seared and smothered the desperate, uglied population that burrowed itself like lice into her fragile moss derma.

Yet some survived, and we are the children of those people. We are cousins, we are rare, and born of destruction. We are inheritors of a memory of overwhelming sorrow dusted with hope, and the progeny of the precious moments of lust between members of a dying race. We owe great debt to those who made us in the wake of devastation, and to the land that ultimately spared out lives.**

*I do not necessarily support the overall political views of the sources I link.
**excerpt, MAR 2004

Mural

Mural, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

I was tempted to post about the price of carrots but thought better about it and decided to display this artsy beauty shot instead. Who really cares out there in the world that locally grown carrots are up to 900 kr/kg ($7/kg., or ~$3.50/lb.) though organic? Not you. It may not even seem like that much when you do the currency conversion. It's more a local issue. Like the cost of milk almost doubling over the course of the summer. It's a relative thing. And we are on a remote island. And it's expensive in Hawaii as well, I've heard. And H1N1 didn't really even get a toehold here. AND we've had the Most Excellent weather EVER here this summer. So what's to worry about?

Everything's fine.

Leap

Leap, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Óðinn leaps over the stream flowing from a boiling hot spring located about fifteen minutes from the city's edge. He getting some serious air there.

Borg

Borg, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Pabbi (Dad) told me that the wife of the owner of Hotel Borg* lived in this corner tower of the gorgeous Art Deco hotel back in the days. He worked there as a bellhop when he was a young teen and says that no on ever saw the reclusive wife...she was an utter mystery. Not so mysterious were the goings on of the adult staff in linen closets and corners, so I hear. And the dances and balls and parties that were held there! I've heard stories from the the older generations that would make today's youth blush. Somehow every generation imagines it invented the concept of drinking and dancing and kissing til dawn, doesn't it?

This is post number 492, everyone. Damn! Wow! Five years of Iceland Eyes, almost to the day. I'd have given up long ago if the international support hadn't shown itself in so many ways. I'm starting to consider what I should do to celebrate half a decade of this persistent hobby, and just exactly what my five hundredth post's photo should be. Ideas, anyone?

*Borg = city. Raise your hand if you immediately thought of the hive-mind collective. Live long and prosper...

Locals

Locals, originally uploaded by Iceland Eyes.

Here we see other forms of local wildlife, Gay-daying it with style.

Bee

Bee, originally uploaded by Iceland Eyes.

True beauty is found in subtle and wondrous places if we stop long enough to allow its emergence into our reality.

Thank You to all who made this holiday weekend an Amazing Experience and Thank the Gods for our heavenly weather! And remember to thank the humble and lovely Bee on whom our lives may actually, literally, depend.

Fishing

Fishing, originally uploaded by Iceland Eyes.

This young man and his buddy were setting up to angle a few fishies when I drove by Elliðavatn last weekend. Our (spooky) good weather spell continues, with only one real day/night of rain in the past two months here in the southwest region, though last weekend a night frost ruined nearly all of potato-paradise Þykkvabær's new spuds. Bummer. Forever at the mercy of Nature, we are.

Naming

Naming, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Little Ísadóra was presented to family and friends at her naming ceremony this past Sunday. Her mother, Rósa Birgitta Ísfeld (lead singer of Sometime) and musician father Finnur Hákonarson invited Jónína, a goði from the Ásatrú religion to perform the ceremony in the Hljómskálagarður public park by the town lake.

We welcome her with love and joy into the world and thank her parents for a wonderful, memorable event!

Bum

Bum, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Yeah, ok, we've got some bums here.

This one was just sleeping it off in the summertime sunshine. We're hoping his ankles didn't burn too much...

Heart

Heart, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Where there wasn't one only months ago, a park appeared between Laugavegur and Hverfisgata, replete with a sweet heart at its center.

In this world of fleeting things it seems right to remind, in brick even, and in a very public way, of the power of that overwhelming, eternal and sometimes subtle constant we call love.

Sun

Sun, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Hello beautiful World!

We've got a heatwave going on here in Iceland, so we're all in various states of undress (!) roaming around in the sunshine like pleasure seeking zombies. Or something like that.

It is lovely here when the days glow so warm (25°C-ish today) and as usual I feel so happy for the tourists who get to see our little land all dolled up in leaf-greens and rainbow flower hues, warm in the shade and with a big kissable blue sky...

It's Magical *+*

Kraft

Kraft, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Just a half hour's drive from our front door Óðinn and I found this crazy high-pressure steam release site. We drove right up to and under these massive plumes (the photo doesn't do justice to their true size) that droned and hissed and thundered at an unbearably loud level. It was amazing and a bit scary: I had to keep pushing away images of sudden earthquakes cracking the pipes and drums causing boiling spouts of water to explode around us. Not everyone's happy with this latest geothermal energy plant (Hellisheiðarvirkjun) but I have to admit it was very impressive to see how the human mind engages a fantastic force of nature like this.

Steam

Steam, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

For now, just take in the image. More on this bizarre location later...

Classic

Árbæjarsafn III, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

This is how we spend our evenings when we dream we're living in the 19th century...

Belly

Belly, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

I don't know who these dancers are but they put on an amazing show at the Start Art Gallery on Laugavegur today just as I was strolling by.

Happy

Happy, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Here's pretty people, joyful and shiny, celebrating June 17th in the 65th year of our Republic. The earlier day's festivities belong to families and strollers and fanciful foil balloons, but by evening downtown Reykjavik is teeming with teens and all they're made of, and all they stand for. This group represented their generation beautifully.

Cow

Cow, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

This fowl and a dozen others followed me around this interesting plot of land on Álftanes, just south of Reykjavík, even after they (I'm pretty sure) realized I had no feed for them. Maybe they were lonely.

The house in the background is the Alsæla spa which is actually up for grabs. Anyone looking for a cool business opportunity in Iceland? Go Here for more info...

Árbæjarsafn

Árbæjarsafn, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Turf housing rocks.

Diorama

Diorama, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

This isn't a summertime version of the flaming protests of January (though some perpetually pumped-up and eternally dissatisfied ranters have gleefully engaged in a new round of struts and pot-banging down in front of the Parliament building) but a dramatic interactive diorama we found at Árbæjarsafn this evening. Push a button and the thing, about four feet square, lights up and crackles to reenact the Great Reykjavik Fire of 1915. We loved it. It was cheesy and cool.

Post Script: As you can see in this video there's more going on down at Austurvöllur than I realized, and I would be hard pressed to judge the elderly white-haired woman banging her pot in protest as a hot-blooded rabble rouser, or the woman wearing the national costume, or the nice-looking guy who's going to camp there as a stance against the ever-increasing cost of living. (Read more about the current situation Here.) These people obviously do not fall into the same category as those bores (admit it, you know one) who somehow get off on blame and injustice and (sigh) chronic, very public self-pity. Hurrah to the campers and may they enjoy their weekend tenting in the riot zone that is drunken 3 am downtown Reykjavik (no irony intended)!

Green

Green, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

No words, I think, are needed...

(Just found this review of my book, though, after (yeps) Googling myself, as well as this interview from 2007 if you're, you know, interested.)

Dapple

Dapple, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Just pretty.

This is the little grove on the southwest side of the town lake where my father says he used to go with his childhood buddies for summertime picnic adventures. The trees, probably not much taller than he was fifty (ahem!) -odd years ago, have matured beautifully.

If you love old things and measures of our ever changing world like I do, you'll enjoy visiting the Reykjavík Museum of Photography website. The photo that I've linked shows an overview of the town lake, and from the very barren patch in the lower left hand corner of that 1919 image the lush little forest shown above has tenaciously emerged.

Hay

Hay, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Thanks, all, for your support and visits to Iceland Eyes! We've got a steady average of 5000 views per month, about half of those new and a quarter regulars who drop by often during the month for new posts. Not too shabby for a little online hobby!

Read about His Holiness, the Dalai Lama's visit to our humble(d) island here. (Today's Fréttablaðið newspaper reports that China, which formally protested the visit last week, has now recalled its ambassador to Iceland. Go here to read China's latest bullying threat on the issue of Tibet.)

Yet while grownups threaten, war, abuse and defend in the world arena our children play at simpler games, hopefully, ideally, kept safe from the tensions and dramas of their fathers' lives.

Lunch

Lunch, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

A preschool trip with Oðinn to a Mossfellsdalur farm on Friday included a hot dog bonanza in the big barn with cookies for dessert.

Signal

Signal, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

This one's for Valentina. She likes this shot a lot.

View

Yard, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Ahh, life is simple, sweet and lovely. Of course it all depends on your point of view...

Silence is golden, smiles are free, the sun shines and not so far from where I sit a bell tolls the hour. All is good.

Park

Park, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Here's where the washing was done up until the late 1920's when the Reykjavik finally piped steaming hot ground water into the city center. Women lugged their dirty loads the 3 kilometer distance from downtown to Laugardalur, Hot Springs Valley, walking Laugarvegur, or Hot Springs Road. Going out there and reading the info plaques about what laundering was like and how it was all done less than a hundred years ago helps to put things into perspective . We've come a long way...(Here's a good link if you want to read more about Iceland's more innocent version of dirty laundry)

When we pulled up to the entrance to the Laugardalur botanical gardens this past weekend, just by the little zoo and skating rink, I saw some skinny young badass hanging about at the edge of the parking lot looking all jittery and expectant in his cool sunglasses and swanky sneakers. Two cars pulled up for whatever he was peddling in the time it took me to park and guess his game. By the time the third car was pulling away, the kids had run ahead of me into the gardens and the skittery, embarrassed-looking dealer knew that he'd made by a suburban mom. So just to bug him I called out in English Dude, you are So obvious and smirked. I know, he replied as he sheepishly jogged away, I know.

Times change.

Play

Play, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Our beautiful Eva Guðrún Gunnbjörnsdóttir presented her graduation production for the Theatre: Theory and Practice department at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts on Saturday.

The play, Pósteria, was written, designed and directed by Eva, who also acted the role of a sweetly ignorant, hopeful, frustrated, underpaid and disturbingly gullible post office worker (seen here at the beginning/end of the play reading a Cosmo quiz for her coworkers.) It was a painfully truthful, quirky and very funny look at the modern day feminist dilemma, full of awkward and loaded silences interspersed with roars of energized rebellion against the roles women adapt to and, often all too willingly, adopt. Cyclical, contained, explosive, sentimental, ironic and shyly childish, the play is like growing up, coming of age, becoming an adult in a world we don't quite understand, even if any number of subtle (and not so subtle) clues are left here and there to form and guide us. It asks What if I don't get it? What if I don't want to take part? How does this secret happiness thing work? What do you want me to do!? and leaves us with enough thoughtful detail to help us form our own, very personal answers.

Congratulations, Eva. Wonderful stuff!

Blooms

Flowers, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Springtime in Reykjavik, with pretty blooms and hints of blue skies, is finally here after our long winter of discontent.

New life is pulsing, quickening, in the warming earth and in our hearts. Elections have brought hope to many that our little island nation will survive our recent disgrace and grow again, if ever so humbly. We can't escape our pasts but are forced instead to review missteps, misdeeds, selfish living and a collective disconnect from the land we live on. But Nature, in her wisdom, always grants a new spring, a new chance to plant and nurture, sow and reap. The lessons never go away. They are revisited on us until we get them right, until we learn to cherish, selflessly, all that truly matters in our lives. What we run from comes back to us in ways we never imagined, offering new chances to bloom, and to grow.

Tower

Tower, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

You've all read this Vanity Fair article about Iceland's crash, yes? Here's the tower Michael Lewis refers to. It's glorious, shiny and very very empty...

By the way, Mr. Lewis nails us in many ways, but yes, we do have more than ten or twenty names in circulation here, and no, not too many SUVs have been blown up and sorry, but even the women here can be stubborn and bumbling and inexcusably, unapologetically aggressive when in public. It's a space thing: Dr. Seuss' Zax anyone? (and the Zax's even agreed to disagree, and not barge into each other sans eye contact, a disturbing local phenomenon for those from more cultured cultures.)

Atlantis

Atlantis, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," as Keats put it and to be boldly truthful, the resort casino down the beach from the ashram was a daily draw. Great pools and aquariums abounding with local sea life, the overly-manicured landscaping and the immense hotel structures towering over the gentle Paradise Island beaches testified to the human will to tame nature and erect monuments to the gods of engineering and ingenuity.

It was very worthwhile to saunter over for immersion in American family-vacation reality, a big reminder that while daily silence, yoga and meditation are a way of life, humanity in all it's baseness and glory doesn't disappear in the meantime, and that we're all in this life thing together. In other words, those little trips (along with forays into urban, decaying Nassau) proved that Oneness, Service and Compassion are always the order of the day.

All that, and a daily double latte to boot.

Palms

Palms, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Paths wind through the ashram foliage, yours to choose.

Here you are not an accumulation of all you've been, but an unfolding of pure potential at every moment. Doves flow through this compact jungle, cooing the name of Sumer's goddess, Hu. If you step softly you may even hear the soft rustle of a swami's orange robes on a path nearby, or the gentle chanting of students in their morning meditations.

And, of course, there's always the sea.

Paradise

Paradise, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

The dock at another little island in the Atlantic, called Paradise.

Keflavik to New York to Miami to Nassau and onto a small boat and suddenly you're there, at the ashram for a week of sun, kirtan, asanas and silence. Your mind stills, and all the pains of yesterday are washed away in the warm and salty sea.

Kaffi

Kaffi, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Kaffismiðja Íslands' owner Sonja is refilling her grinders with fresh toasty beans, roasted on location in a fantasy-pink coffee roaster at the most cozy café in town. The location is sweet, the coffee amazing and barista Hjörtur makes the perfect drink every time.

Be their guest: stop by, order something warm and inspiring, flip through the selection of classic vinyl, put something on the turntable, have a seat, sigh happily, smile, and enjoy.

Sushi

Sushi, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

On Laugavegur, just above the intersection with Skólavörðurstígur, is Sushibar, a tiny jewel of the Orient tucked unobtrusively in between a café and the walled off carcass of a house slated for demolition/renovation. It's easy to miss, and looks from the outside as if it would be ridiculously impossible for more than one or two people to sit inside at a time, but appearances deceive. Inside it somehow expands to accommodate, and provides a small bubble of meditative respite from the hustle outside. And the sushi is excellent too.

March

March, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Sunny, snappy, at turns gusty and calm. We're living and loving here, facing our transformation, unsure of our direction but fully aware of our need to change. Old patterns and habits no longer suffice.

Kiddie steps into our future are called for: constant, without hesitation, at times wobbly, but always looking forward with joyous expectancy, adventure, anticipation.

Bridge

Bridge, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Our version of the Golden Gate, spanning the Ölfusá river at Selfoss. Not so majestic, but a bit pretty on a winter's evening.

Sunset

sunset, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Oh, poor little island...so many things are exposing in this, the twilight, of our millennial glory. It's all we can do to keep the love lights shining in the face of so much freshly raked muck. If it's more disaster/recession/meltdown content you're looking for, search other sites. Iceland Eyes stays neutral and seeks, as always, to find the shine of beauty in our world, made all too common, all too often, by the squabbles and pettiness of men.

Find something beautiful today and give it your love.

Lopi

Lopi, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

This photo is an homage to the person who created the very nifty kids pink wool one-piece that we saw hanging in the Red Cross charity shop on Laugavegur.

It's one of a kind, or at least I've never seen this particular design before. Someone knit this with dedication and a loving hand for a child who outgrew it and has moved on. Maybe it even passed through a family, a klatch of sisters and cousins who inherited it for a winter or two, snuggled or itched in it, loved it or suffered it, until their arms poked too far out the sleeves and their ankles got too exposed, and then it was conveyed on. Decidedly unfashionable, it was finally relegated to the second-hand heap, stuffed into a plastic bag, donated to a good cause, and delivered to the storefront for a chance at a new life where it has maybe already found itself a small winter body to warm.

Calm

Lake, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Today a new Prime Minister takes over, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (definitely check out the link about her...very cool stuff!)

The Pots and Pans revolution (protestors banged on kitchenware incessantly for days outside the House of Parliament) that took place over the past two weeks was a resounding success in that the sitting two party coalition collapsed under its own weight, making room for a politcal shuffling. Not everyone is happy with the new government (hi Dad!) but the fact that the old *regime* folded so easily must say something about how tenuous the parties' collaboration had become.

Iceland is still in a muddle, and it seems that every day some news of corruption or of ethically unsound business practice is floating to the surface like so much pond scum. The Guardian revealed this week that Iceland may be fast-tracked into the EU which is cool, but a fairly humbling kind of continental triage.

The good news is, though, that Iceland is really inexpensive now, as this LA Times article nicely describes. Pack your bags and we'll see you all soon!

Day Two

, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

For more about the current tensions here in Reykjavik, please go to IcelandReview Online. I, frankly, don't know what to say...

Damage

Damage, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Police in riot gear block the entrance to the Parliament while protestors toss what they can, including paint, milk, yogurt, eggs and cans at the house. Iceland is in full on protest against the sitting government, demanding they step down, or at least admit some measure of culpability in Iceland's recent economic meltdown.

Glow

Glow, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

We've been dusted again with a light snow though the threatened super-cold snap has yet to show. These grasses in front of the Government House on Lækjargata have got it made, gathered as they are around the heat of a flood lamp. Even in the coldest dark, they seem to suggest, a warming glow can be found.

Thanks to all who took part in the voting. We doubled my tally in just under forty eight hours, and now the polls are about closed. We didn't win, but we showed strength and hope. That's democracy in action!

Iceland!

Iceland !, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Iceland Eyes is a finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards in the Best European Blog category! I just found out today and voting ends tomorrow, so cast your vote HERE for your favorite Icelandic Photo blog, Iceland Eyes!!

And thanks to whoever nominated me...what an amazing compliment! Of course, it's all about you, faithful readers...big thanks for all the support you've given me over the past four years!!

On a more important note, my prayers are with those suffering in the Gaza region. This blog has stayed intentionally politically neutral over the years, but in this case I think it's important to keep in perspective that there are innumerable events and situations the world over that need to have the light of global awareness shined upon them. A blog contest may seem frivolous in comparison, but the fact of blogs is that they have given voice to millions, and have helped to engage the shift of consciousness that we are all, as world citizens, now experiencing.

We are all in this together...there is no separation.

Light

Light, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

All the emails, all the love from around the world, readers who wonder if we're still alive, surviving and I'll answer here a resounding Yes. The lights are still on in Iceland, we've eaten well over the holidays and as I write hundreds of thousands of króna worth of fireworks are going off in celebration of the 13th day of Jól. Christmas is over, the last santa goes back to the hills, the decorations come down, but the glowing soul of our nation shines on.

New

Bonfire, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Happy New Year to All!

May you blaze forth into a Prosperous Future in 2009.

(photo of the Ægisíður New Year's Eve brenna, or huge annual bonfire, courtesy of Dan and Addy)

Jólaball

Jólaball!, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Tis the season for a holiday photo. This is from our little one's first playschool Christmas Party. Santa brought mandarins for all, and we sang and danced around the pretty tree. Classic stuff. Ho ho ho!

Still

Still, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

At the edge of the huge parking lot of the largest power strip mall in Iceland, out in the Grafarvogur neighborhood, ground water pouring out of the newly dynamited terrain freezes into pretty little ice sculptures. The stores, Toys 'R' Us, ILVA, Rúmfatalagerinn and The Pier, are essentially empty, though, after a year's worth of hype surrounding, among other things, their massive square footage. A woman working at ILVA, an IKEA-style furniture store recently gone bankrupt in Great Britain, told me that industrious Faroe Islanders had bought the franchise, as well as the entire strip mall, without leveraging any other capital. A clean purchase, she said, not based on stocks or futures or ridiculously lofty loans. Good on them!

The Faroe Islands are the new black.

Fire

Fire, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

At the same time as the most recent Saturday afternoon protest rally, 8,000 souls strong, a fire burst out in an abandoned house on my street.

I won't, just don't have the energy, to go into the whole bureaucratic shenanigans surrounding this house in the recent years, like the owner being granted a permit to tear down which the neighborhood cottage society challenged even though the house is infested with little cement beetles because they didn't like the owner's plans to raise the height of the new structure he had approved by the city to the same height as the building next to it so instead it's been an eyesore, all beaten up and tagged, and has been used as a flop and a squat that all the local kids knew about and now its even uglier just when its very likely that the owner will no longer be able to finance teardown and reconstruction and all because some people think anything built pre-WWII has automatic cultural value.

But whatever, I'm not going to go into it.

Boot

Boot, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Someone told me about an interview held with an elderly Icelander where the topic turned to the subject of the most important innovation to come to the island in the 20th century. The interviewee, in her eighties, pondered the question for a while then announced that the thing that most changed the lives of Icelanders in the past one hundred years were rubber boots. For the first time in a millenia Icelanders had dry feet all year round.

In these complicated times it's sometimes good to remember the simple things in life.

Please take a look at Iceland Eyes' sister site, Iceland Says, with new posts by Reykjavik college students every day for the next few weeks. Comments are always welcome!

p.s. this photo was taken by Valentina Jóhannsdóttir, my daughter.

Hanged

Bike, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

As reluctant as I am to break up the comment flow from the previous post, it is time to add a new image.

Today a group of my college students are sitting in class writing short essays on the state of the nation, in English, that will eventually be posted on Iceland Eye's sister site, Iceland Says. They are writing, as one student put it, letters to the world. I'll try to get them up as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I'd just like to say that we are not huddled around the last remnants of a dying fire here on the island. Though imports have slowed to a near stop from Great Britain, we still have food and other necessities to keep us going. I played this NPR story in class and it made me a little uncomfortable if only because the Icelander being interviewed slips into the classic national habit of using superlatives, of exaggerating for what seems like simple effect. We have gone from being one of the wealthiest nations on earth, she says, to being mere beggars. Are we beggars? Do we feel like beggars, deep in the national soul? Does she see herself as a downtrodden, homeless, luckless panhandler when alone, or is she simply describing her country as such on an international media source for the imagery, the pure conceit? We are not beaten, we are not indigent, but we did gamble with the big boys in the great global economic casino and we lost our shirts.

The interviewee also states that we cannot grow anything here but potatoes and sheep [sic] while I beg to differ. We have hothouses, friends, hothouses that are heated by means of the steam that rises from our earth, and in those hothouses we grow tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, lettuce and bananas. Rhubarb grows wild here and rutabagas and angelica and thyme and blueberries and there are more sheep here than people and we have pure fresh water running from mountain streams that we can dip our hands into and sip on site. We have horses, a beautiful and strong breed conditioned, created by this terrain and climate, as we Icelanders are ultimately, as well.

Some say wisdom is gained through sacrifice. But do we sacrifice our worldly aspirations or our cultural integrity?

We are survivors, adventurers, raiders. We are lusty, passionate, creative. We are molded by this landscape and are both strengthened and humbled by it. Now we have to excuse ourselves from gaming table with no shame for having played and lost (along with many others), assess the damages, and regroup for the next great effort.

To everyone who's asked, we are not broken. As things stand our lives go on almost as usual, as if we always knew the ride would end. It dawned on me last night that the past six years of unlimited economic potential felt just the same as all the hope we hold for the performers we send to Eurovision, or our athletes who make it to the Olympics. Anything can happen, we think. This might be our year! Maybe we've finally found the golden key to ultimate success! And then when our representatives flop or fail, are voted out or just don't make the cut, we pout and say to each other, but there's only so few of us, and we made it so far, and we should be proud, and we're all family, and, of course, there's always next year...