[Written 13 March 2014]
The kids dressed up for Ash Wednesday (known here as Öskudagur, or just Ashday) and went to school for a “fun day”. (8 images and 2 videos total)
The Vampire, The Witch, and The Gulper.
Emma has started to climb up on the sofa, meaning all the carefully hidden and elevated electronics are now in danger. Yay?Read more
Another short-notice FFF outing, due to a last-minute schedule change, but Elsa chimed in anyway and let me know she’d be joining me for lunch!
Not a lot of places are open at 11 am on Sundays, so I decided to use that ‘Culture Card‘ I got way back in the beginning, and visit the Reykjavik Art Museum at Hafnarhúsið (the Harbor House) “for free”. (34 images and 1 video total)
The Art Museum is right next to the Museum of Photography/Main Library (see FFF #5).
The meeting of February and March brings with it a torrent of birthdays. Among them: my 37th birthday (eeeeek!!) and Steinunn’s 30th birthday. (26 images total)
Finnur got me flowers! Awwww! 🙂
I’ve been filled with unusual amounts of can-do these past couple of days, knocking (small but pesky) things off the to-do list left and right. Among stuff done was: outside yuletide lights turned off and stowed away inside in honor of the ever increasing daylight, garage tidied (mostly just actually shelved the yuletide stuff), blackoutRead more
[Written 27 February 2014] Emma’ still not walking but she’s standing up more and staying up for longer bits of time. And it’s adooorable! 🙂Read more
This is just a quick placeholder to note that today we returned back from our first winter break skip trip north to Akureyri. We had a great time, and look forward to more skiing in the future! 🙂Read more
[Written 19 February 2014]
FFF #6 almost didn’t happen because it was such a busy weekend with the double birthday celebration etc. etc.
But, I’d been meaning to check out the gallery showing of The Visitors (YouTube, NYTimes) by Ragnar Kjartansson (and friends), having heard good things about it, and the kids were whining, so I decided to make a break for it.
I’m very glad that I did because this was so fun, lovely, technically impressive, and charming. Oh, Ragnar, why must you be so darn charming?! 🙂
Now, because this is Icleand, and Iceland has a tiny population, it should surprise nobody that Ragnar (anno 1976) and I attended the same high school/junior college. Now, I didn’t know him per se, but I certainly knew of him, and knew people that knew him.
It’s funny how some people are just incredibly noticeable right from an early age.
I haven’t really followed his work closely, but from what I’ve glimpsed over the years, one recurring theme in his works (which straddle the range from music to painting to installations to performance art) is repetition. (See painting the same guy in the same room in the same outfit once per day for six months, getting opera singers to repeat a famous operatic moment again and again for 12 hours – YouTube link).
This work had a lot of inbuilt repetition too, but not so that it felt gimmicky.
Basically, you walk into a large very dark room, where there are 9 large illuminated screens, set up such that some obscure others from view. On each screen is a musician/singer with headphones and they’re all performing/singing the same song, but each of them is in a separate room, so they’re united, but apart. (28 images total, 1 video)
A large dark room, with a surprising amount of people! (No, they’re not dancing, it’s just an animated gif!)
Due to the smallness of our abode (in particular the dining/living room combo), we decided to split Emma’s already small birthday celebration into two parts.
On Saturday afternoon we had Finnur’s family over, and mine came over for lunch on Sunday. (30 images total)
Finnur’s Family – Saturday 15 February 2014
Emma with her new walker, and a present ripe for opening.
Just took Emma to her well-child visit and, uh, she’s growing like a weed height-wise, but has hardly gained any weight since two months ago…
This is what she looks like on the WHO anthro program: (4 images total)
She’s 81 cm tall (just shy of 32 inches), which is equivalent to an average 18 month old child.