Back in Iceland
In about four hours I will have been in Iceland for a week and a day. The weather has been great, seeing friends and family has been fantastic and I’ve managed to get fairly comfortably settled in while enjoying myself as well.
Last weekend was the reason why I left the rolling hills of Tuscany for the storm-beaten cliffs of Iceland. A good friend of mine, Jón Örn (or Johnny Eagle … yes, seriously — though I’m not sure how many call him that apart from me), and his fiancé, Margrét Dís (or Magga), had chosen that weekend to get married before moving to Umeå in Sweden (directions from Iceland: Four blocks South and 2029 kilometers East). A break in the fair weather Icelanders had been enjoying, the weather forecast predicted heavy rain on the wedding day, but the few drops that fell hardly bothered hardy Icelandic wedding guests and it so happened that the part of the celebration that took place outside (at Þingvellir, a beautiful — and geologically intersting — spot about three quarters of an hour east of Reykjavík) was not only spared, but the sun even had a peak at the party, lending us a few rays to take nice photographs.
Having set my return date for the beginning of July, wondering what I’d do all my free time (not that I was particularly worried I’d run out of things to do) I got an email from Árni, one of the heroes that run Siglunes, the sailing school I worked at some years ago (the best job in the world, by the way). Apparently one of the staff works for ÍTR (Íþrótta- og tómstuda-ráð Reykjavíkur — it is left up to the reader as an excercise in Icelandic figure out what that means. Hints: a) the English acronym would be RSLC, and b) Iclelandic, like German, compunds words so I’ve left a helpful hyphen) all year ’round and they need someone to replace him while he takes his summer vacation.
And that’s where I have to rush off to now, to help them with the afternoon lessons.
Pictures from Italy and Iceland coming soon…
