Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Copenhagen Days 1-2: Tivoli & Experimentarium

2022-04-11Denmark, Us Standard

[Photos taken 11 – 12 April 2022, posted online 27 July 2022. It’s pouring with rain outside, the plants are happy.]

We hadn’t really planned what to do in Copenhagen before arrival, but thankfully a friend had told us about the Copenhagen Card, which gives you unlimited access to public transportation, and entrance to most of the main attractions in town.

With Copenhagen cards active in our phones, we spent the first day in the Tivoli Gardens. Day two was spent at the Experimentarium. (75-ish images total)

Monday 11 April 2022

Copenhagen was two hours ahead of us in time, so we we had a relatively late start. We began by eating brunch at the Emmery’s right next door.

Comedy, Spring, Birthday #2 & Denmark!

2022-04-01Birthday, Denmark, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 10 April 2022, posted online 25 July 2022. The weather is calm.]

We took the big kids to see a year-end-themed comedy show that had been scheduled for late December. It was interesting that the audience-appetite for covid jokes was low, it seems like we kind of just want to be done with the whole thing.

Then spring began to really spring forward, and it was time for some gardening. Just before departing for Denmark, we managed to host the 2nd birthday party for Emma for my side of the family. Then we departed for Denmark as the Easter holiday was up on us! (50-ish images total)

Friday 01 April 2022

The coat-clan, heading towards the food-hall at Hlemmur for an early dinner.

Bowling, Hiking, Concert & Sewing Club

2022-03-21Us Standard

[Photos taken 26 – 31 March 2022, posted online 21 July 2022. Anna and I replaced our old oven last night, feeling very adult!]

Emma managed to squeeze another trip to the bowling alley out of me, I went on an organized hike around Meðalfellsvatn, saw Stína in concert with friends, hosted a sewing club, shuttled kids, remembered that I have a big camera, and told the kids we were going to Denmark over the Easter break! (45-ish images total)

Saturday 26 March 2022

Somehow bowling has morphed into bowling & shakes/snacks…!

Bjarki Plays @Nótan, Ion Hotel & Visits

2022-03-19Guitar, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 19 – 25 March 2022, posted online 20 July 2022. The two living room walls are now painted, but I’m thinking the new white border around the little windows needs to go… Waiting for Finnur to opine. Have moved my focus to painting parts of the kitchen, and touched off by a broken dimmer knob, am replacing all the black electrical fronts with white ones.]

Every spring the music schools in the country host a series of concerts, dubbed Nótan (The Note), and each school sends an act to perform at one concert. This year, Bjarki’s school asked him and his play-together group (that had met like 5-6 times) to play. He was super nervous, but got through it in one piece.

Straight afterwards, Finnur and I drove out to the country to stay at a hotel out in the boondoggles, to make use of a gift-card I’d given Finnur for Christmas. It looked like 75% of the other guest were also there redeeming the same gift-card, hehe.

We managed to visit grandma on her birthday (very rare occurrence), there was some exercising, Emma got her classroom laser-tag birthday wish, Anna got started on summer plants, and people came for dinner, in our house!! (50-ish images total)

Saturday 19 March 2022

Bjarki outside the music hall, called Salurinn.

Concert, Gym-Meet, Hike, Dress-Up & Snow

2022-03-11gymnastics, Us Standard

[Photos taken 11 – 18 March 2022, posted online 19 July 2022. Still working on the living room, the white wall has now got five coats of paint, six if you count the wrong white. This was not supposed to take four days!! Meanwhile, Finnur & Emma are in Laugarvatn, he’s helping his dad build a new deck.]

Slowly but surely, the covid-postponed events started actually happening, and life in general got busier!

First up was a Damon Albarn concert in Harpa. I’d bought two tickets in January 2020 for a June 2020 concert with a gift card I got from work on my 5th work anniversary, but hadn’t really decided on who to take with me (Finnur is not a concert-enthusiast). Not surprisingly, the concert got postponed to March 2021, and then 2022.

Happily, my cousin Ríkey was up for a cultural outing, and we even tried the new restaurant Hnoss, on the first floor of Harpa, which is run by people that were/are in charge of the cafeteria at work (Marel)!

Then it was time for a non-masked team-gym meet, there was a bit of shopping and gymming, Bjarki’s hair got cut, I went for a hike by the sea, Anna got dressed up for an outing with friends, snow kept falling, but at least the days were getting noticeably longer. (50-ish images total)

Friday 11 March 2022

Celebrations, Ice-Removal & Recovery

2022-03-01Birthday, Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 09 March 2022, posted online 18 July 2022. Summer vacation has begun, and I’ve spent the first days painting the living room. Got the wrong white and ugh, lots of wasted work!]

We slowly but surely shook off Covid as the big domestic wave of infections began receding, and all restrictions were lifted. The vaccination campaign was a huge success, as very few people landed in hospital. However, the jury is still out on how Iceland’ll do with regards to long-covid.

We birthdays and our wedding anniversary, cleared away a lot of ice, went to house #2 in adventurous conditions, and I tracked my post-covid progress on the rowing machine at the gym. (30-ish images)

Tuesday 01 March 2022

The number of covid-19 cases in Iceland from 13 February until 14 July 2022 from covid.is. In late February the testing analytics system basically caved under the sheer number of tests that needed analyzing, and official PCR tests were replaced with official antigen tests. By March the wave began receding

Winter Break, Snow & Covid-19’s Second Coming

2022-02-17Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 17 – 28 February 2022, posted online 16 July 2022. I’m finally on vacation and celebrated by staying up until 4 am binge-speed-watching a whole season of a show on Netflix.]

With Covid-19 exploding around us, we didn’t make any grand plans for the two day winter-holiday, as I fully expected us to be sick in bed. Instead, we tried to do a few things locally with the kids: I was in charge of Thursday, and Finnur took Friday.

That weekend, three of us went to house #2 to hang out with friends (who’s children are also getting too old to want to tag along), but then Covid-19 caught up with Emma according to a home test, so I drove her to town for a formal test. She was all better the next day.

Two and three days later, both Finnur and I got Covid-19. Finnur was basically panting and horizontal for 3 days, while I experienced a slow decline, bottoming out at day 3 or 4 before starting to get better. All in all, every one of us had a different covid-course, go figure.

At this point in time the official PCR testing apparatus had gotten completely overwhelmed by the number of people needing tests, even as the authorities stopped asking people to test out of quarantine. Therefore it now took 3-4 days to get the result, instead of same-day.

This confused the whole health-system, because there had been a dedicated covid-center which had done telemonitoring and advice, but you only got into their system via the official test. Now it was taking so long to get results that the local health centers had to start taking on covid cases with what felt like very little preparation, and mid-week the covid-center essentially got disbanded. We muddled through somehow.

In addition, it. Just. Kept. Snowing. (75-ish images total)

Thursday 17 February 2022

It just kept snowing! On school-winter-break day #1, Emma went outside to play for a bit.

Emma’s 9th Birthday, Skis & Bagels

2022-02-12Birthday, Finnur's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 12 – 14 February 2022, posted online 10 July 2022. Sitting in rainy Borgarnes, on my way home after some house #2 time. Trying to get over feeling like a parental failure.]

Emma’s last single-digit birthday was super-legit, with a party and everything. Mindful of covid, we first had a party with just Finnur’s family, and then had some health-hiccups before we could get to mine.

The day after I went and bought cross-country skis for myself. It’s a thing middle-aged women do apparently. I even went out for a bit!

Snow kept falling in copious amounts, and Anna made bagels while on a school-break. (30-ish images total)

Saturday 12 February 2022

Anna made a cake for Emma, decorations and all!

Snowy Calm Between Covids

2022-02-01Friends, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 11 February 2022, posted online 09 July 2022. Five working days left until summer holiday starts… to survive I’ve taken to re-reading trashy novels…]

I kept not getting Covid, while Bjarki and Anna recovered. Dad said hi from the parking lot for five minutes before dashing to the airport, and at long last, after I got the final negative PCR result releasing me from the ‘be-careful/quarantine-lite’, Finnur and Emma moved back home.

I went on walks in the cold while waiting on music school lessons to be over, we went to restaurants, but the biggest drama was my car not handling the copious amounts of snow that kept getting dumped on us. In the end I caved in and bought actual winter tires (not all-years), which transformed the car from useless to useable. Phew!

The hiking group resumed operations after the December-January hiatus, and I went on a nice walk in the dark. (75-ish images total)

Tuesday 01 February 2022

February dumped a lot of snow on the capital area. I needed new library books, so I drove to the library in Breiðholt. Was shocked by all the bird-noises, while snow was falling in droves.

Covid-19’s First Visit

2022-01-24Us Standard

[Photos taken 24 – 31 January 2022, posted online 02 Jule 2022. Two weeks until summer vacation begins. I can hardly wait.]

It had to happen eventually: covid-19 gave us a personal visit. At the time, anybody who spent extended time with Bjarki the Friday before the onset of his symptoms on Saturday, was required to quarantine for 5 days, and then exit quarantine via a negative PCR test. To make life a little easier, authorities did allow adults that were fully vaccinated and boosted to be infection-“cautious” instead of fully quarantining, which meant that I was allowed to go to the grocery store etc, but not into the office. Masks were still in general use and required in stores.

As it happened, Bjarki spent almost no time with Emma or Finnur on the Friday (they’d gone to house #2 early), so keeping in mind that Emma was only a week away from her second covid vaccination shot, we decided to split up: I would stay at home with Bjarki and Anna, while Finnur and Emma would move in with Finnur’s parents – yes, into the apartment on their first floor where we’d lived for five years a lifetime ago! They had their bags from house #2, and I packed an additional bag and Emma’s school stuff and left it outside for them to pick up.

On the Sunday evening following Bjarki’s positive test result, I had to navigate a flood of official emails and questionnaires, from the tracing team, and the health monitoring service, as well as a call from the school principal. She asked Bjarki which kids he’d mostly hung out with on Friday, and so 2-3 of his buddies got sent into quarantine.

But, as omicron was turning out to be relatively ‘mild’ in our highly vaccinated population (read: not a lot of people ended up in hospital), the rules began relaxing quickly in late January. This led to an explosion in case numbers, and by the end of the week, schools were ordered stop tracking exposures.

Bjarki’s brush with covid wasn’t too terrible, he was knocked out for about 24 hours, and then spent the rest of the week slowly getting his energy back. I somehow convinced him to attend a remote music theory class on Wednesday, but when I went to check in on how it was going, I felt a little guilty as he was clearly still low on energy.

Anna was the one who was physically closest when Bjarki’s symptoms were blooming, so it wasn’t very surprising when she too got covid a few days later. She got quite winded, but didn’t quite get knocked out. I tried to control my exposure to both of them, as I kind of wanted to get mildly infected, but not overwhelmed by viruses. Thus I ventured into their rooms occasionally, and we sometimes all ate dinner together.

On the Thursday I was certain I was falling ill, got really tired, napped for a couple of hours midday, but no: According to the PCR tests I took Thursday and Friday and Sunday (!) covid didn’t get a foothold. Outside of those tired hours, I ran on adrenaline, not sure how things would turn out. This I channeled into finishing a list of odd jobs, some of which I’d tried to pawn off on Finnur for months, but he hadn’t taken the bait. Sensible man.

Be warned, there will be dust! (50-ish images total)