Our good friends, Kata and Jói, swung into town this week (they live up north by Akureyri) with their girls, and we invited them all over for a Sunday Brunch. Being the lazy sods we are, brunch consisted of stuff from the bakery and various toppings, but it all seemed to go down well enough.Read more
Ash Wednesday is kinda like Halloween in the US these days (it didn’t use to be). The kids dress up in costumes, and then visit shops during the day and sing for the staff to get candy. Knocking on people’s doors is uncommon though, and we certainly didn’t buy any candy. The day used toRead more
I don’t follow a whole lot of tv shows, but the ones I do, I obsess over. A lot. But now, all of my favorite tv shows are either on hiatus, or just entering production for the next season, meaning I’ll have no new episodes to devour until sometime in the fall. Which is aRead more
I’m not too familiar with this whole ‘leading up to lent’-thing, but I do know that there are three ‘special’ days that precede it: 1) Cream-Puff Monday (aka Bolludagur), 2) Boom-Day (aka Sprengidagur), and 3) Ash Wednesday (aka Öskudagur). On Boom-Day (‘Explosion-Day’?, ‘Eat-Until-You-Burst-Day’?…) it is customary to eat salted meat in a bean-soup with veggiesRead more
I was working from home on Cream-Puff Day and decided to venture out into the backyard with my camera for a little while.
A redwing (thrush/þröstur) by our patio-bread.
A stone nestled in snow.
Somewhere in the past we Icelanders picked up the tradition of the Cream-Puff Day (Bolludagur), aka eating yummy ‘buns’ with cream and jam on the Monday before the start of lent (the Monday before Ash Wednesday). I’ve never made any buns myself, but this year I decided to give it a go, using a recipeRead more
Every February the local universities open up their doors for a Saturday afternoon to entice the current crop of junior-college seniors to apply this summer introduce all the different departments and ‘educational opportunities’. I was mildly involved in organizing the EE department’s involvement, as in I attended a meeting or two, and then asked the student organization to handle the rest – which they did with aplomb.
On the day itself I hiked on over with Anna, who’d just emerged from her weekly English school session. Here be pictures.
My office is in the white-ish building behind the wooden house on the left (that's for sale).
I am happy to report that December 2011 has been officially dealt with, blog-wise anyway. To make up for the lack of recent photos, here are a few from today, where Bjarki and I took turns using the camera.
This here is my side-ways smirk.
A cheerful Bjarki.
Way back when, Holla and Óli invited us and some other good friends over to make confectionery (fancy chocolate bits) on 23 December, aka the Day Before Christmas, where tradition dictates that one should eat really really stinky fish for dinner. This past Christmas, we were all set to return the favor, when a stomach bug stopped our plans. Thankfully, the ingredients were all fairly non-perishable, so we waited until things had started to quiet down after the holidays, and summoned Holla & Óli and Adda & Halli over for some chocolate-fiddling in the beginning of February instead.
Melting white chocolate.