When you retired were you thinking of
Yrsa Sigurdard
Icelandic Hollywood film producer Sigurj
Gimli Halloween
There was a lot of excitement at Halloween. It started with our mother asking us what sort of costume we wanted and then she improvised one for each of us. I remember nothing of the many costumes I wore except for the year I went Halloweening as a pirate.
Hunger
When you travel and spend time with the local people where you visit, you
Pet Cemetery
(From my diary)
I
Ida Pfeiffer’s Iceland
In 1845, Ida Pfeiffer made a trip to Iceland by herself.
There was outrage in some places at the idea of a woman traveling alone in such an isolated, difficult place. Some of that outrage was simply at the idea of a woman traveling alone. Since early childhood she had wanted to travel and with her children grown, she decided to travel, to keep a diary and, if possible, to have her diary published. She accomplished all her goals.
Her books, written in German, were widely translated. She sugar coats nothing in her travels. She talks about both kindness and meanness, both honesty and dishonesty, cleanliness and dirtiness. She describes the rigors of sea-sickness and long days in the saddle without excusing herself in any way.
Her book, now reprinted in a modern version, A Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North, can be ordered over the internet and, although her portrait of Iceland and Icelanders thirty years before the emigration to North America began isn
Paradise Reclaimed
We should all read Laxness because his books answer many questions.
For example, I knew that a man needed to be worth the equivalent of four hundreds to marry but what are four hundreds? I would have asked Haraldur Bessason but he isn
Independent People for Christmas
Halldor Laxness was a problem for Iceland. First, he was a genius and geniuses are always a problem. They don
The plumber from hell
(from my diary)
My friend VT called. She said her basement was flooding. From the panic in her voice, I was sure the house was going to sink, its roof disappearing like the deck of ship under the ocean waves.
When I got there she was wading around in six inches of water, trying to salvage boxes packed with her belongings. I wrestled everything moveable onto tables and shelves but there was a lot of
Autumn leaves
I wonder every fall
