Iceland Eyes

Heart

2009-07-14T21:10:00.004Z

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

2009-07-12T23:52:00.001Z

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

2009-06-28T00:26:00.002Z

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

2009-06-27T23:23:00.001Z

Steam, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

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

Classic

2009-06-24T19:50:00.001Z

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

2009-06-20T18:23:00.001Z

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

2009-06-17T21:38:00.001Z

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

2009-06-16T20:48:00.003Z

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

2009-06-15T13:27:00.001Z

Árbæjarsafn, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

Turf housing rocks.

Diorama

2009-06-11T22:50:00.004Z

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

2009-06-07T20:13:00.002Z

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

2009-06-06T11:25:00.002Z

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

2009-06-03T09:23:00.001Z

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

2009-06-01T11:59:00.002Z

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

2009-05-26T15:53:00.001Z

Signal, originally uploaded by blue eyes.

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

View

2009-05-16T16:02:00.002Z

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

2009-05-13T20:47:00.003Z

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

2009-05-11T19:48:00.001Z

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

2009-05-03T01:10:00.003Z

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

2009-04-25T19:36:00.001Z

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

2009-04-19T11:59:00.001Z

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

2009-04-15T15:18:00.001Z

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

2009-04-14T18:40:00.001Z

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

2009-04-01T22:11:00.001Z

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

2009-03-16T11:05:00.001Z

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.