First day and second night in Reykjavik.

(I'm going to backdate all of these posts in order to create the illusion that I actually kept up with posting during my three weeks of travelling and playing with visitors.)

On our first full day in Reykjavik, we took it easy in the city, exploring in the sunshine, and then went for a midnight sun whale-watching cruise, on which we only glimpsed two minke whales but did get stellar views of spirited dolphins and vast quantities of puffins--as well as a sunset at midnight.

First night in Reykjavik.

At about 9:45 p.m., I strolled out to see what there was to see. (By the sea, no less.)

Graffiti is somehow a surprise to me here.

(10:10 p.m.)

(10:40 p.m.)

(Note that it's okay to drive your tractor on the highway, just not at  rush hour.)

(Harpa [the new opera house], 10:52 p.m.)

(Hallgrimskirkja and Skolavordustigur, 11:05 p.m.)

(My apartment window, 12:06 a.m.)

Northward bound.

I have been wanting to go to Iceland since way back in the day, when I was 18 and reading Njal's Saga for the first time.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going. "Put some pictures on your blog!" my mother has exhorted me. (I know that I have been beyond absent of late.) Here's a start: London St. Pancras, last Sunday, one of the more beautiful days we've had this year.

Iceland. ICELAND.

Forward and back.

It seems that I spend a good deal of my time, these days, schlepping smaller and larger piles of books from room to room in the house. It's a small-scale version of a long-time symptom: I always know that something or another is coming down the pike, trying to get itself created, when I start moving stacks of books from place to place. This time, I'm not quite sure what it is.

In April, when we climbed a mountain on the Burren, I found these stones and thought, that's odd. Later in the climb, we learned that it's fossilized coral, from when the Burren was the bed of an equatorial sea.

Springing along.

It's been two busy spring weeks--busy with being sick (for the longest continuous period in recent memory), travelling with a visiting wonder woman, holing up in a library and reading for hours on end, and now grading final exams. The cows have come back to the pasture I can see from my house, and at dusk last night, they ran and played like giant dogs.