2019 Begins, Yule Ends & People (Un)Socialize

2019-01-01Finnur's family, Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01-13 January 2019, posted online 18 July 2019. Lovely weather today, warm by Icelandic standards. Happily there’s been enough rain lately that the plants have mostly recovered from the 6-week drought earlier this summer.]

January began with lots of people gatherings, but I was also pretty good about ungathering. We went back to work, the kids back to school, sport practices restarted, and the gingerbread house was demolished and devoured as Yule came to a close. (35-ish images total)

Tuesday 01 January 2019

I needed some alone-time after all the people-mingling so I went looking for a cafe that was open. The only one I found was right by this church: Hallgrímskirkja.
The cafe in question. It was absolutely packed, and the poor waitstaff was sweating as they hadn’t expected the constant crush of people.
The second floor, jammed with people (tourists). The server told me that they’d never been open on 1 January before (it’s a public holiday) so they hadn’t known what they were getting themselves into!
I got SUPER lucky though, in that a large group was getting up just as I arrived, so I got a seat. I ended up sharing a table with another solo traveler because I felt guilty hogging an entire table with my laptop.
First selfie of the year.

Wednesday 02 January 2019

The next day was the first day of work after the holidays. I dragged myself to the gym before work, and much to my surprise it was almost empty!! Turns out all the classes were due to start the following Monday, and that’s when it would get super busy.
The UK-dwellers came over for Christmas, and we managed to invite them for dinner before they took off again.
Cousins playing a video game.

Thursday 03 January 2019

Mom gave me this fun cup for Christmas that looks just like a fancy Canon lens! I got a lot of double takes at work walking around with it. 🙂

Friday 04 January 2019

The lunch line at work @11:45. With a lot of trial and error my group has found that eating at 11:00 guarantees no waiting in line.
Cosy sibling time.

Saturday 05 January 2019

This was a busy social day. We attended a birthday party in Finnur’s family. The kid in the picture was having a hard time resisting the candies on the cake. 🙂
Post-singing clapping-time.
That night was the annual sewing club winter-gathering, with significant others.
Proof that I put on a dress, and makeup!
The hosts put on a marvelous party!
The hostess managed to recruit an actual chef to cook for us! The food was most excellent!
Soooooo gooooood!
Post-dinner chatting in progress. It was a great evening! 🙂

Sunday 06 January 2019

We visited grandma Ásdís, who dutifully showed Emma and Bjarki that the very old clock still chimes on the hour.
Our next stop was the Arna cafe/ice-cream shop, where everything is lactose-free. The kids were melting due to hunger.
Thankfully, they have a kiddie corner.
This one’s too old for the kiddie corner though 😉
Bjarki evidently passing judgement on the ice cream he got. I think he liked it.
Emma eating ice cream under a blanket, because she was cold. Logic and foresight are her superpowers.
As this was the 13th and last day of Yule, the gingerbread-house demolish-permit was issued, on condition that a photo or two could be taken first.
Awwww!
Goodbye house!

Friday 11 January 2019

The week passed without much fanfare, but at the end of the week Emma came home from daycare with this fun drawing. This winter was her Winter of Rainbows.
That evening I met up with fellow Electrical Engineers, from way back in undergrad. It’s actually people from two different years that meet socially about 1-2 times per year, as many of us graduated at the same time because the university was in the middle of switching from a four year “CS” degree program to a three year BS degree program. We had a great turnout!
Doing my best impersonation of a scary cocktail container!
Selfie-time with some help from a friend!

Saturday 12 January 2019

Gymnastics practice about to end. Learning to stand still in line is an important life skill.
Next stop: Cafe to have lunch. It started snowing!
We got super lucky and got invited to dinner for some home-made pizza! (Although, seeing the hosts, we may have invited ourselves, because we’re naughty like that.)

Sunday 13 January 2019

I tried to submit this as a place of interest to the Ingress/Pokemon/Harry Potter GPS game world, as this high-rise literally changes color (from cyan to purple) depending on how this light hits it, but it was denied. Boohoo!
This year’s Season’s Greetings haul. This tradition is quickly falling out of favor in Iceland, replaced by Facebook image-sharing. Postage has also gotten very expensive.