Snow, Thaw, Snow, More Snow, Even More Snow, Snow, Yet More Snow, Guess What, Snow, etc…

2 January 2012: Anna, her friend and Bjarki headed out with shovels to start digging into the big snow-mountain that the heavy snow-clearing machinery had kindly left opposite our house.

2 January 2012: They then invited a few friends to come over for a party later that day. One or two invited friends showed up, but so did a group of boys from the street who could smell 'fun' happening! There was juice and snacks, and then some unhappiness about the gate-crashers. Anna ended up digging until 9 pm that night though!

3 January 2012: On Day Two of Tunneling the diggers split into two groups: a girl and a boy group. The girls got the tiny hill on the left, while the boys kept digging into the big mound on the right. I think it's fair to say that they need to work on their inter-sex communication and cooperation skills!

9 January 2012: The pile of snow getting snowed over.

17 January 2012: After a few days of thawing, a lot of the snow had melted away, leaving this thick layer of ice everywhere. It's a lot of fun to bike on this stuff, as long as one has studded tires! 🙂 (Sidenote: It's really hard to kick-off on a bike on slippery ice!) Also, we live at the bottom of a bowl so to speak, so we've had to be vigilant about keeping the drains open and operational!

18 January 2012: Oh look, it's snowed again!

18 January 2012: Our backyard being pretty. 🙂

19 January 2012: We've started leaving a piece of bread out on the patio for the birds. We ended up putting it under balcony so it wouldn't get instantly snowed over. It's become pretty popular with a few birds, as well as a small house-mouse which spent a good chunk of time gnawing at it that day.

23 January 2012: I've managed to bike to work a few times this January. For biking to be feasible the bike-paths need to be well paved, and the snow preferably frozen solid or just ice-ified. The studded tires work really nice where they get traction, but as soon as they hit a loose layer of snow on top of solid ice, life becomes very wobbly. Anyway, I took this picture as I was passing the Kópavogur duck-pond. After I'd taken the picture the geese began approaching me, hoping for food, but I sadly had none. That was a bit heartbreaking.

24 January 2012: The newest deluge of snow hit during the night of the 24th. You can see Finnur sweeping snow off of our car below. Note the tire-tracks on the road.

24th January 2012: Thankfully the snow was neither too deep nor too thick for us to break out of the parking lot that morning. Who needs a jeep?! 🙂

24 January 2012: The kids at Bjarki's daycare have been sledding for two months straight now. Yes, kids in Iceland go out and play in the snow, unlike California kids who learn early on that one stays indoors if there is any kind of precipitation coming or likely to come from the skies.

24 January 2012: Looking from Bjarki's daycare to Anna's school where recess was in full swing and the kids already crawling on the snow-mounds.

24 January 2012: Sooo much pretty snow on the trees. 🙂

24 January 2012: Once I arrived at work it had started snowing AGAIN!

24 January 2012: Pretty trees on the usually drab-looking parking lot.

24 January 2012: Hótel Saga off in the distance. Visibility rapidly diminishing, and therefore time to go inside.

24 January 2012: The view out of my office window. Not too shabby! 🙂

24 January 2012: Once we got back home, we cleared our driveway just in time before the heavy machinery arrived to clear the street itself.

24 January 2012: Much to our surprise, an oil-tanker arrived to fill up the tractor. We were impressed!

24 January 2012: We joke that we have rookie-home-owner-itis, i.e. that we're still such enthusiastic homeowners that we actually thoroughly clear our driveway!

25 January 2012 (TODAY!): Even more snow had fallen, and I found myself walking in Epic Winter Wonderland! 🙂 The city area has rarely been prettier.

25 January 2012: Downtown this afternoon. That's the 'cathedral' and a TV crew shooting something or other.

25 January 2012: To the left of the cathedral is Hotel Borg (City Hotel).

25 January 2012: Third try is a charm? 🙂 I could literally have spent two hours there just taking pictures and kicked myself for not having my proper camera. Tsk, tsk!

25 January 2012: Coast Guard ship, an EU Fishery Inspection ship, and a rescue ship by the Harpa building. You can see the dim snow cloud on the right that's not on the left. Yes, yet more snow was falling!

25 January 2012: Driving around these days is either a wild adventure (uncleared road) or like being in a giant luge (high snow walls on both sides due to clearing). Good times!! 🙂