Sheaves from Sagaland
4 June 2005 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerSome of the more stories. Following ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nineweaving's example recycling, my Iceland vacation notes, as written up the two days after our return. There's some overlap with the verse letter to Mom. For a sense of the scenery, check out the location shots for the new Beowulf movie.
-=-
Iceland gives the impression of a country that has finally achieved a moderate prosperity and is using it to slowly fix the damage of centuries of privation.
*
Icelanders may not buy from Ikea, but their sense of interior decor taps the same sensibility. The exterior of the main church in Akureyri looked like an Ikea design. (It was one of the few that didn't try to look like a piece of geology -- odd fashion, that.)
*
Iceland has always imported goods and culture -- it doesn't have the natural resources for material independence. But they are independent-minded and resent being told what to do. Thus their reputation among Danes of being lazy. They are, in fact, hard working -- you have to be, to survive that far north.
*
Children in Iceland have much more independence than in America. I saw girls as young as seven taking the city bus alone (with some trepidation), and nine-year-olds taking all-day bus rides. The latter are usually sent off and greeted warmly by adults. (The one exception was a 10-11 y.o. boy, wearing soggy sneakers and carrying new cleats, whose friend helped him flag the bus at one farm, and got off at the lane for another farm two fjords over.)
Eight-year-olds in towns get summer jobs, cleaning up parks and the like -- pay goes half into pocket change and half into their education fund.
*
Skyr is delicious. Icelandic dairy products in general are numerous (confusingly so) and fresh, but skyr in particular was a surprise. It's made by curdling skim milk with a sourdough bug, and has the texture of creamy yogurt. With a little sweetener or flavor, or just with cream on top -- mmm.
*
The island doesn't bother hiding its volcanic nature. Little grass grows at altitudes above a few hundred meters, so everywhere you look, there's layers of glacially sculpted basalt. Plus spiky lava flows and the odd steaming hillside.
*
Icelandic cooking uses paprika, but little spicing otherwise. Heavy on fish, lamb, and creamy sauces, plus ubiquitous peeled & baked potatoes. It is, generally, good, solid, not-greasy stuff.
And then there was Laugarhóll, a hotel the workshop stayed at the end of the week. It's run by a French emigre, who does the cooking. (He'd been the chef for the French embassy before taking this job.) French interpretations of traditional Icelandic cooking. Oh my.
I'll let Janni talk about puffin meat (I didn't get to try it).
*
Always check your watch, unless you are used to boreal summers. The continuing light (the sun did sometimes go down, but it never got darker than early evening) will seduce you into forgetting to sleep and eat regularly. Always check your watch.
*
Roadside porn in gas stations/bus stops along the Ring Road (route 1) ran about 2:1 American/British over Scandinavian origin. Off the Ring, my data was sketchy, but it seemed to be closer to 1:1.
*
We ran into only a handful of other Americans (most of them from Tucson). Part of that is we stayed off the Golden Circle whirlwind tour (Geyser, Gullfoss, Selfoss), and part of it is few Americans use hostels. But still.
*
The sagas and folk tales have seeped into the land, and history in general. Everywhere I turned, there was another site associated with one or the other. (Laugarhóll, to take one example, has a hot spring that was blessed by Bishop Gudmundur Arason, the subject of many folk tales, and is next door to the farm of the sorcerer hired by Hallgerd to kill her first husband in Njal's Saga.)
Many places claim to have "hidden folk," which may or may not be the elves. Trolls are less common these days. According to a folklorist we talked to, a majority of Icelanders today won't answer if asked if they believe in ghosts -- they haven't seen any, but then again, they haven't proof they don't exist. She related that a nearby farmer involved in a dispute over some ancient graves found on his land, complained to her the day before -- they don't want to be blessed by a Christian priest and have been making their displeasure known by walking around at night. He wanted her to stop talking about them so the dispute would die down and he could get some sleep.
*
The understated black humor of the sagas continues today. Of Grettir the Strong, someone said, "He had started killing people for fun. They didn't like him much." Of a chill, blustery, rainy day: "Hot enough for you?"
*
I should have realized that the Icelandic soft G is not dz but, like J, y. Egil is EH-yil or AY-yil. EY and EI are, btw, pronounced ay -- the capital is RAY-kya-veek.
There's no word for a train-station, as they don't have any. But they do have one for raccoon: thvottabjorn, which means washing-bear. (This courtesy a first reader, translated from English, I worked my way through.)
*
The enchantment of Iceland is low-key -- understated and phlegmatic. But it seeps deep into the bones.
*
Icelanders take their coffee seriously. It was, even from roadside gas station grills, uniformly at least good, if not excellent.
*
Most construction is reinforced concrete, usually painted brightly. In parts of post-war Reykjavík, where material is decaying, this was somewhat depressing, but in newer and older buildings it came off quite well. Some of the developments going up in Akureyri (seen when we took the local bus the wrong direction and toured just about everywhere before finally ending up downtown) were fairly attractive, with their use of glass as architectural element.
*
Every town worth the name has a public swimming pool, geothermally heated. Every town over 200 or so inhabitants also has a public campground, usually near the tourist information office.
*
Larger cities (i.e., over 10,000 people) have graffiti: tagging, slogans, some art. A lot of the text is in English. Most amusing: "SHEEPWOLF" over a crude cartoon of a fluff sheep with a canine head, seen in Reykjavík.
*
There's a lava field near Myvatn ("midge lake") filled with strange dark-rock pillars and ridges, often with shelves of rock. It was formed when molten rock formed a large pool and crusted over before draining. Aside from the Myvatn area, this formation, called klasar, are known only from a place underwater off Mexico.
I found out after visiting that the name of the field, Dimmuborgir, means "dark fortress." I wished I'd known that beforehand.
*
There's one land mammal native to Iceland: the arctic fox. There are dozens and dozens of birds, especially water birds. Ducks, geese, swans, pipers, plovers, waders, oyster catchers, snipe, puffins, terns, gulls, and more I don't know how to name.
I can safely say I've seen enough eider for a lifetime.
*
We saw a rainbow over Reykjavík one day. Which I mention only because I like the phrase "rainbow over Reykjavík."
*
We saw reindeer once. From the bus. They were grazing by the shore of an eastern fjord, and we saw them. They were reindeer.
---L.
nineweaving's example recycling, my Iceland vacation notes, as written up the two days after our return. There's some overlap with the verse letter to Mom. For a sense of the scenery, check out the location shots for the new Beowulf movie.-=-
Iceland gives the impression of a country that has finally achieved a moderate prosperity and is using it to slowly fix the damage of centuries of privation.
*
Icelanders may not buy from Ikea, but their sense of interior decor taps the same sensibility. The exterior of the main church in Akureyri looked like an Ikea design. (It was one of the few that didn't try to look like a piece of geology -- odd fashion, that.)
*
Iceland has always imported goods and culture -- it doesn't have the natural resources for material independence. But they are independent-minded and resent being told what to do. Thus their reputation among Danes of being lazy. They are, in fact, hard working -- you have to be, to survive that far north.
*
Children in Iceland have much more independence than in America. I saw girls as young as seven taking the city bus alone (with some trepidation), and nine-year-olds taking all-day bus rides. The latter are usually sent off and greeted warmly by adults. (The one exception was a 10-11 y.o. boy, wearing soggy sneakers and carrying new cleats, whose friend helped him flag the bus at one farm, and got off at the lane for another farm two fjords over.)
Eight-year-olds in towns get summer jobs, cleaning up parks and the like -- pay goes half into pocket change and half into their education fund.
*
Skyr is delicious. Icelandic dairy products in general are numerous (confusingly so) and fresh, but skyr in particular was a surprise. It's made by curdling skim milk with a sourdough bug, and has the texture of creamy yogurt. With a little sweetener or flavor, or just with cream on top -- mmm.
*
The island doesn't bother hiding its volcanic nature. Little grass grows at altitudes above a few hundred meters, so everywhere you look, there's layers of glacially sculpted basalt. Plus spiky lava flows and the odd steaming hillside.
*
Icelandic cooking uses paprika, but little spicing otherwise. Heavy on fish, lamb, and creamy sauces, plus ubiquitous peeled & baked potatoes. It is, generally, good, solid, not-greasy stuff.
And then there was Laugarhóll, a hotel the workshop stayed at the end of the week. It's run by a French emigre, who does the cooking. (He'd been the chef for the French embassy before taking this job.) French interpretations of traditional Icelandic cooking. Oh my.
I'll let Janni talk about puffin meat (I didn't get to try it).
*
Always check your watch, unless you are used to boreal summers. The continuing light (the sun did sometimes go down, but it never got darker than early evening) will seduce you into forgetting to sleep and eat regularly. Always check your watch.
*
Roadside porn in gas stations/bus stops along the Ring Road (route 1) ran about 2:1 American/British over Scandinavian origin. Off the Ring, my data was sketchy, but it seemed to be closer to 1:1.
*
We ran into only a handful of other Americans (most of them from Tucson). Part of that is we stayed off the Golden Circle whirlwind tour (Geyser, Gullfoss, Selfoss), and part of it is few Americans use hostels. But still.
*
The sagas and folk tales have seeped into the land, and history in general. Everywhere I turned, there was another site associated with one or the other. (Laugarhóll, to take one example, has a hot spring that was blessed by Bishop Gudmundur Arason, the subject of many folk tales, and is next door to the farm of the sorcerer hired by Hallgerd to kill her first husband in Njal's Saga.)
Many places claim to have "hidden folk," which may or may not be the elves. Trolls are less common these days. According to a folklorist we talked to, a majority of Icelanders today won't answer if asked if they believe in ghosts -- they haven't seen any, but then again, they haven't proof they don't exist. She related that a nearby farmer involved in a dispute over some ancient graves found on his land, complained to her the day before -- they don't want to be blessed by a Christian priest and have been making their displeasure known by walking around at night. He wanted her to stop talking about them so the dispute would die down and he could get some sleep.
*
The understated black humor of the sagas continues today. Of Grettir the Strong, someone said, "He had started killing people for fun. They didn't like him much." Of a chill, blustery, rainy day: "Hot enough for you?"
*
I should have realized that the Icelandic soft G is not dz but, like J, y. Egil is EH-yil or AY-yil. EY and EI are, btw, pronounced ay -- the capital is RAY-kya-veek.
There's no word for a train-station, as they don't have any. But they do have one for raccoon: thvottabjorn, which means washing-bear. (This courtesy a first reader, translated from English, I worked my way through.)
*
The enchantment of Iceland is low-key -- understated and phlegmatic. But it seeps deep into the bones.
*
Icelanders take their coffee seriously. It was, even from roadside gas station grills, uniformly at least good, if not excellent.
*
Most construction is reinforced concrete, usually painted brightly. In parts of post-war Reykjavík, where material is decaying, this was somewhat depressing, but in newer and older buildings it came off quite well. Some of the developments going up in Akureyri (seen when we took the local bus the wrong direction and toured just about everywhere before finally ending up downtown) were fairly attractive, with their use of glass as architectural element.
*
Every town worth the name has a public swimming pool, geothermally heated. Every town over 200 or so inhabitants also has a public campground, usually near the tourist information office.
*
Larger cities (i.e., over 10,000 people) have graffiti: tagging, slogans, some art. A lot of the text is in English. Most amusing: "SHEEPWOLF" over a crude cartoon of a fluff sheep with a canine head, seen in Reykjavík.
*
There's a lava field near Myvatn ("midge lake") filled with strange dark-rock pillars and ridges, often with shelves of rock. It was formed when molten rock formed a large pool and crusted over before draining. Aside from the Myvatn area, this formation, called klasar, are known only from a place underwater off Mexico.
I found out after visiting that the name of the field, Dimmuborgir, means "dark fortress." I wished I'd known that beforehand.
*
There's one land mammal native to Iceland: the arctic fox. There are dozens and dozens of birds, especially water birds. Ducks, geese, swans, pipers, plovers, waders, oyster catchers, snipe, puffins, terns, gulls, and more I don't know how to name.
I can safely say I've seen enough eider for a lifetime.
*
We saw a rainbow over Reykjavík one day. Which I mention only because I like the phrase "rainbow over Reykjavík."
*
We saw reindeer once. From the bus. They were grazing by the shore of an eastern fjord, and we saw them. They were reindeer.
---L.