Update from Iceland

For some really strange reason I can't seem to be able to blog in Icelandic today, perhaps it has something to do with the fact of me writing my final thesis in Icelandic and sort of not really enjoying it at the moment. So when I wanted to write something for me, here, nothing came until I started to do it in English. I tricked my blog-block by changing languages. Maybe it is a trick that would work for the thesis as well, and then I'd just translate it later.

Today's daylight only kicked in around 10 a.m. and I am sort of paralyzed in the pitch black outside. Inside is warm and I am really focusing on warm and cozy things at the moment: candle-lights, blankets, good books, tea-pots, the lot! Unbearable otherwise, it is as simple as that. Even though I am doing all I can to make the wintertime cozy, as well as going to the sauna-bath almost every other day of the week, I have already started thinking about warmer places with more sunshine. It sort of happens without me noticing it. It might start as a dream in the night. I wake up from it and remember only something about me walking around in t-shirt and skirt, barelegged, and being warm, and everything really bright with the sunshine. I then think about this dream, and it becomes a day-dream as well. Then I automatically start reading a small column in the daily paper called "veður víða um heim" (weather around the world). I read up on the temperature in Alicante, and in Rome, and in Miami, or wherever it is warm that day. Then I compare it to here.

At the moment my condition is not too bad, but there is also the big Christmas-thingie coming up, and even better, our friend Rob coming over by the end of the year, which is a huge thing to look forward to. But right about the beginning of January I start counting days until I get enough daylight and enough warmth again. Usually I have to wait for April until I am sure the winter is over. THAT is more than 100 days. February is my least favorite month, January the second least favorite, even with my birthday in there and everything. I am not fit to be in this country during January, February, and March. I really have to find a way to survive here, sort of find the trick around those 100 days, instead of just waiting. Or, second best, start working out a way to spend all winters in warm climate. Leave Iceland for the 3 coldest months every year. I mean, the birds do it, right? Isn't there a job somewhere warm that I could do next year?

~ Heiða Eiríksdóttir, in her blog skemmtilegt að vera til ef maður vill ("fun to be if you want")

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