laugardagur, október 30, 2004
30.okt.2004
The last time I blogged, I actually started another one dated the 20th, all about the continuing weather conditions(it’s always interesting how bad weather can totally “distract” one from real life!). I’m going to paste it in here just so that you can see I really did want to keep up at least every other day!:
20.okt.2004, Wed.evening
So while watching tv last night, we suddenly realized that it was actually quiet outside.....s.s. no wailing wind, nor thrashing trees, nor rattling front door. In fact it was truly still. Wierd after 48 hours of hurricane weather, and yesterday was definitely worse than the day before when I last wrote. Yesterday the wind speed got up to gusts of 62meters per second. That’s well beyond the 12 on Beaufort and translates into something like 135miles per hour? Most damage was done out in the country (more open spaces?), such as a 100 meters of road surface peeled away up in the north, the surface of one of those big bridges over Skeiðarársand also started to peel off, roofs flew away(but not many), a bus on the way to Norðurál near Akranes flipped onto it’s roof when a 62m/sec gust got it in Kjalarnes (a place Mundi drives through every Wed. on his way to Akranes)....of the 40 people in it, only 2 were in seat belts and amazingly few were seriously hurt(3 with broken bones). It’s the south of the country that had most of the damage in the way of erosion of fields. Not good for the farmers. We felt totally buffeted here in town, and the sea was pretty amazing!(and the birds “flying” in place were pretty funny!) Everything is coated with a greasy layer of salt and dirt. But nothing stopped here. Even planes continued to land at Keflavík.
After those few days we went from spring-like stillness, to subzero bitter days, to some snow and some rain, basically your typical southwest-corner-of-Iceland winter weather. The rest of the country was ófærð during all this time. And we had serious accidents, yes with foreigners in rental cars not meant for winter roads. In fact, this is becoming a major problem in Iceland, that people visit, rent cars and then think that it’s ok to cross rivers and drive into the mountains on impassable roads, and inevitably get stuck, and then try to walk out of the situation rather than wait for rescue!! Somewhere along the line, they’re not being told that it’s dangerous even in the summertime.....Wonder who pays for all these rescues?
And now to get down to what you all want to hear....our house adventures:
OK. Everyone who knows us knows that we own far too many books and cds, that I am a packrat (everything I see that is considered “trash”, looks like it could become something else!), admittedly an efficiant one, that we do like to invite people over for dinner (until recently when “all of a sudden” everyone has gotten so big!!), and that our house on three floors has become just too narrow, rather than too small. So, for 3 years we’ve been looking around and talking about it, and this last year we’ve been actually looking at places. By the time we hit # 39, we’d already seriously considered 3 different houses, had one inspected by a professional company(but decided not to bid in a “bidding-war”), put a bid on one that got refused (and that house is a whole special story of it’s own!), and when that last thing happened, we had already advertised our house, gotten 10 visitors, and 3 bidders and the last bid was what we actually asked for(!), so we HAD to find a house, or just back out again totally. Well, we lined up two visits last Tuesday evening, both in the same neighborhood, both actually more than we wanted to spend, but then prices have gotten so bizzare that it was worth taking a look. That first house was empty, and had recently been all fixed up outside. It was part of a dánarbú(estate) and obviously the kids wanted a lot of money. Boy oh boy, what a horrible house!! And weird layout too. The old man had lived there, done nothing for years, and rented out the ground floor to “teenagers”......in short, disgusting, and not even worth half what they were asking. From there we went to the other house, and that was like coming out of a hellhole into an amazingly well-kept and tastefully put-together home, built by the owner and his wife(when they were both starting their second marriage), the husband being a builder by profession so that everything was carefully chosen. So, 10 minutes spent in that other awful house, and over an hour in this one, as they wanted to tell us all about their home and both had lots of stories, plus the wife was doing all kinds of art work and wanted to show me that, and so forth. We really enjoyed ourselves, and in fact the high price they had on it was one of the few places that deserved it, so to speak. Ok, the next day we made another visit to the house to see it in daylight, again having long conversations with the older couple. Then we decided to go ahead and try a much lower bid, telling the sales representative how far up we could actually go. When they took a look at it and shook their heads, that salesman explained to them our situation, so the owner made a counterbid just a bit higher than we offered and still almost 10% lower than he wanted, and we accepted. And why did he do that? Because he/they liked us, had a good feeling about us(smile). And we really like the house, saw the value of all they’d done which wouldn’t have to be “fixed up” as it was in good shape, even after 25 years!! And there you have it!(very Icelandic to do this) Sometime in Feb. we’ll be moving into Rauðagerði 46 and we really look forward to it.
Now, back to our house on Otrateigur!! One of the couples that came to look at it turned out to be my(our) cousin, Inga (Ólafur Örn’s and Soffía’s daughter) and her husband Einar who is also a doctor. In fact Inga had no idea that it was us, so when she walks in, she says surprised “Gerður”, and it took me a split second to realize who she was, as I hadn’t seen her for years.(This is the kid Ólafur and Soffía had when he was 16 and she 15.) Anyway, they were very interested and I told her I’d let her know if other bids come in, which I did the next couple of days. And when we were about to accept a bid from another couple, they came in at the last moment with a higher one. And so, they will be moving in here. We think it’s great. She will undoubtedly use the bílskúr as a studio as she did study design in Denmark, though she’s now working as a nurse. And her 20 year-old daughter(she was 17 when she had her, which made her parents grandparents at the age of 32 and 33, and Dúdda a great-grandmother at the age of 59), who is at this moment in Spain for 2 months studying Spanish, and will be coming home to go to Háskóli soon, is also very excited, as now there will be space for her (they’re moving out of 75 sq.meters into our 215.....and we move into 304 total with all measurements). And yes we will now have space for visitors.
Then it occured to me, here we are “Los Otros” on our blog, that very funny (to us) joke on being “the others” and also from Otró.......should we change the name to “Los Rojos”? tee...heee....(in Icelandic, we call our addresses the first syllable plus “ó”, so, Otró, Gréttó, Básó, Njáló, .....and I guess Rauðagerði would become: Rauðó.
So, comments galore!! blæblæ, (this is way toooooo long!)
The last time I blogged, I actually started another one dated the 20th, all about the continuing weather conditions(it’s always interesting how bad weather can totally “distract” one from real life!). I’m going to paste it in here just so that you can see I really did want to keep up at least every other day!:
20.okt.2004, Wed.evening
So while watching tv last night, we suddenly realized that it was actually quiet outside.....s.s. no wailing wind, nor thrashing trees, nor rattling front door. In fact it was truly still. Wierd after 48 hours of hurricane weather, and yesterday was definitely worse than the day before when I last wrote. Yesterday the wind speed got up to gusts of 62meters per second. That’s well beyond the 12 on Beaufort and translates into something like 135miles per hour? Most damage was done out in the country (more open spaces?), such as a 100 meters of road surface peeled away up in the north, the surface of one of those big bridges over Skeiðarársand also started to peel off, roofs flew away(but not many), a bus on the way to Norðurál near Akranes flipped onto it’s roof when a 62m/sec gust got it in Kjalarnes (a place Mundi drives through every Wed. on his way to Akranes)....of the 40 people in it, only 2 were in seat belts and amazingly few were seriously hurt(3 with broken bones). It’s the south of the country that had most of the damage in the way of erosion of fields. Not good for the farmers. We felt totally buffeted here in town, and the sea was pretty amazing!(and the birds “flying” in place were pretty funny!) Everything is coated with a greasy layer of salt and dirt. But nothing stopped here. Even planes continued to land at Keflavík.
After those few days we went from spring-like stillness, to subzero bitter days, to some snow and some rain, basically your typical southwest-corner-of-Iceland winter weather. The rest of the country was ófærð during all this time. And we had serious accidents, yes with foreigners in rental cars not meant for winter roads. In fact, this is becoming a major problem in Iceland, that people visit, rent cars and then think that it’s ok to cross rivers and drive into the mountains on impassable roads, and inevitably get stuck, and then try to walk out of the situation rather than wait for rescue!! Somewhere along the line, they’re not being told that it’s dangerous even in the summertime.....Wonder who pays for all these rescues?
And now to get down to what you all want to hear....our house adventures:
OK. Everyone who knows us knows that we own far too many books and cds, that I am a packrat (everything I see that is considered “trash”, looks like it could become something else!), admittedly an efficiant one, that we do like to invite people over for dinner (until recently when “all of a sudden” everyone has gotten so big!!), and that our house on three floors has become just too narrow, rather than too small. So, for 3 years we’ve been looking around and talking about it, and this last year we’ve been actually looking at places. By the time we hit # 39, we’d already seriously considered 3 different houses, had one inspected by a professional company(but decided not to bid in a “bidding-war”), put a bid on one that got refused (and that house is a whole special story of it’s own!), and when that last thing happened, we had already advertised our house, gotten 10 visitors, and 3 bidders and the last bid was what we actually asked for(!), so we HAD to find a house, or just back out again totally. Well, we lined up two visits last Tuesday evening, both in the same neighborhood, both actually more than we wanted to spend, but then prices have gotten so bizzare that it was worth taking a look. That first house was empty, and had recently been all fixed up outside. It was part of a dánarbú(estate) and obviously the kids wanted a lot of money. Boy oh boy, what a horrible house!! And weird layout too. The old man had lived there, done nothing for years, and rented out the ground floor to “teenagers”......in short, disgusting, and not even worth half what they were asking. From there we went to the other house, and that was like coming out of a hellhole into an amazingly well-kept and tastefully put-together home, built by the owner and his wife(when they were both starting their second marriage), the husband being a builder by profession so that everything was carefully chosen. So, 10 minutes spent in that other awful house, and over an hour in this one, as they wanted to tell us all about their home and both had lots of stories, plus the wife was doing all kinds of art work and wanted to show me that, and so forth. We really enjoyed ourselves, and in fact the high price they had on it was one of the few places that deserved it, so to speak. Ok, the next day we made another visit to the house to see it in daylight, again having long conversations with the older couple. Then we decided to go ahead and try a much lower bid, telling the sales representative how far up we could actually go. When they took a look at it and shook their heads, that salesman explained to them our situation, so the owner made a counterbid just a bit higher than we offered and still almost 10% lower than he wanted, and we accepted. And why did he do that? Because he/they liked us, had a good feeling about us(smile). And we really like the house, saw the value of all they’d done which wouldn’t have to be “fixed up” as it was in good shape, even after 25 years!! And there you have it!(very Icelandic to do this) Sometime in Feb. we’ll be moving into Rauðagerði 46 and we really look forward to it.
Now, back to our house on Otrateigur!! One of the couples that came to look at it turned out to be my(our) cousin, Inga (Ólafur Örn’s and Soffía’s daughter) and her husband Einar who is also a doctor. In fact Inga had no idea that it was us, so when she walks in, she says surprised “Gerður”, and it took me a split second to realize who she was, as I hadn’t seen her for years.(This is the kid Ólafur and Soffía had when he was 16 and she 15.) Anyway, they were very interested and I told her I’d let her know if other bids come in, which I did the next couple of days. And when we were about to accept a bid from another couple, they came in at the last moment with a higher one. And so, they will be moving in here. We think it’s great. She will undoubtedly use the bílskúr as a studio as she did study design in Denmark, though she’s now working as a nurse. And her 20 year-old daughter(she was 17 when she had her, which made her parents grandparents at the age of 32 and 33, and Dúdda a great-grandmother at the age of 59), who is at this moment in Spain for 2 months studying Spanish, and will be coming home to go to Háskóli soon, is also very excited, as now there will be space for her (they’re moving out of 75 sq.meters into our 215.....and we move into 304 total with all measurements). And yes we will now have space for visitors.
Then it occured to me, here we are “Los Otros” on our blog, that very funny (to us) joke on being “the others” and also from Otró.......should we change the name to “Los Rojos”? tee...heee....(in Icelandic, we call our addresses the first syllable plus “ó”, so, Otró, Gréttó, Básó, Njáló, .....and I guess Rauðagerði would become: Rauðó.
So, comments galore!! blæblæ, (this is way toooooo long!)
mánudagur, október 18, 2004
18.okt.2004, Monday afternoon,
Winter hit us with a vengence today; cold, biting wind with gusting snow “flurries”. Oj bara. The only thing I wanted to do this morning was að leggjast í dvala (i.e., hibernate). And it’s getting darker. Yes one does have to put up with that in order to get those magnificent nights in May and June.....(I would be very happy to never see a dark night again....) Yet the weather is magnificent, because the gusts of snow are alternated with sun and blue sky and dramatic clouds, and Esja looks like a milk chocolate cake (not very well made!) thickly dusted with powdered sugar, every crevice emphasized. This is what is called “gluggaveður” here...great to look at, but not to be in, rather have a closed window in between. A good day to stay indoors and.......what else!? – READ! (however, I did go to my aerobic class first!)
Yes, I probably spend most of my brain energy each day thinking about reading, actually reading, checking out more things to read, making lists, checking the net (to see if the libraries here have it in stock so I don’t have to buy it), making more lists, rearranging my books into various “have read/will read” piles, crossing stuff off my lists(love to do that!)....and in between all that, I run errands, help Darri, drive Darri, worry about my kids (if necessary), make to-do/shopping lists, drive Darri some more, clean the kitchen (no, not the floor), put laundry on, pick up Darri, and maybe do other micro-cleaning jobs. Recently added to this is our serach for a house and place we really want to live in.......a not very succesful, and now tedious job. (I’ll get back to that whole process in a later blog,...hey maybe even tomorrow! Wouldn’t THAT surprise everyone if I started blogging everyday!)
......and now it’s much later at night.....I’ve already driven Darri on 4 separate trips today, and the wind at Tónmenntaskóli was so strong that not only did it take all my strength to keep the car door open for him to take out his stuff, but I literally “lost my breath” when I turned my face into the wind!.....and then I had to prevent the door from closing on my leg as I got back into the car.....So what if there are hurricane winds here and there.....daily life goes on, at least in Reykjavík. (Everything out east did close down, as there was far more snow and more dangerous conditions. The local volunteer rescue squads were “in seventh heaven” with plenty to do.) So, it’s late (for me) and I am going to continue this tomorrow where I can tell you about the latest books read, and library adventures, and yes househunting ordeals and that odd combo called a-person-and-his/her-home. It’s amazing how many nice people we’ve met, for you see here in Iceland you get the owner’s phone number and then he shows you the house directly. So, blessibili, to you all (I am really touched that anyone is really interested in this blog?!), y buenos noches mis amigos.
ps: Has anyone read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler?
Winter hit us with a vengence today; cold, biting wind with gusting snow “flurries”. Oj bara. The only thing I wanted to do this morning was að leggjast í dvala (i.e., hibernate). And it’s getting darker. Yes one does have to put up with that in order to get those magnificent nights in May and June.....(I would be very happy to never see a dark night again....) Yet the weather is magnificent, because the gusts of snow are alternated with sun and blue sky and dramatic clouds, and Esja looks like a milk chocolate cake (not very well made!) thickly dusted with powdered sugar, every crevice emphasized. This is what is called “gluggaveður” here...great to look at, but not to be in, rather have a closed window in between. A good day to stay indoors and.......what else!? – READ! (however, I did go to my aerobic class first!)
Yes, I probably spend most of my brain energy each day thinking about reading, actually reading, checking out more things to read, making lists, checking the net (to see if the libraries here have it in stock so I don’t have to buy it), making more lists, rearranging my books into various “have read/will read” piles, crossing stuff off my lists(love to do that!)....and in between all that, I run errands, help Darri, drive Darri, worry about my kids (if necessary), make to-do/shopping lists, drive Darri some more, clean the kitchen (no, not the floor), put laundry on, pick up Darri, and maybe do other micro-cleaning jobs. Recently added to this is our serach for a house and place we really want to live in.......a not very succesful, and now tedious job. (I’ll get back to that whole process in a later blog,...hey maybe even tomorrow! Wouldn’t THAT surprise everyone if I started blogging everyday!)
......and now it’s much later at night.....I’ve already driven Darri on 4 separate trips today, and the wind at Tónmenntaskóli was so strong that not only did it take all my strength to keep the car door open for him to take out his stuff, but I literally “lost my breath” when I turned my face into the wind!.....and then I had to prevent the door from closing on my leg as I got back into the car.....So what if there are hurricane winds here and there.....daily life goes on, at least in Reykjavík. (Everything out east did close down, as there was far more snow and more dangerous conditions. The local volunteer rescue squads were “in seventh heaven” with plenty to do.) So, it’s late (for me) and I am going to continue this tomorrow where I can tell you about the latest books read, and library adventures, and yes househunting ordeals and that odd combo called a-person-and-his/her-home. It’s amazing how many nice people we’ve met, for you see here in Iceland you get the owner’s phone number and then he shows you the house directly. So, blessibili, to you all (I am really touched that anyone is really interested in this blog?!), y buenos noches mis amigos.
ps: Has anyone read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler?
