Posted 1:54 PM by Steini
I haven´t written for months, not since last summer! My icelandic net-diary has recently been reactivated and is now a bustling forum for my thoughts, interests and news. I plan to make an English summary every month on this particular English page. I might add some more messages to it, though, for friends abroad, so it might be a monthly summary + something extra.

Now, to summarize a whole year in a few lines, I´ve been living in the West-End (for lack of a better word) of Reykjavik, near the football Stadium of KR (the main football team of Reykjavik). This is close to the shore too. We receive some breeze from the sea, but not as much as the houses flanking the shore. This is a very quiet neighborhood. We don´t sense the noisy centre yet we only have to walk for twenty mintues or so to reach it. Just perfect.

I´m living with Vigdis, my girlfriend, and we´ve known each other approximately for two years now, living together in this house since last October.

I´m working in a protected home for handicapped people. Sometimes I work during the day but usually during the evening, as well as being there every second weekend. This takes a lot of my time. Last winter I also studied in KHI (teachers´ University) and got a license as a teacher last June. This summer I´m trying to find a job as a teacher. It is not easy for there are more teachers now than ever with very few posts on offer. I´ll just have to cross my fingers.

Until later,
cheers,
Steini

Posted 11:14 AM by Steini
Now I am back from Skaftafell after six weeks in between glaciers, black sands, forest etc. I feel reenergized because the job required me to shift my focus to natural things. Usually all I think about is philosophy and art, which usually gets me nowhere, but this new realm made me connect to real things again.

For the next few weeks I need to prepare for school. Lots of minor projects await me too, like scanning my photo album and put it on the internet as well as modifying my home-page. Some time in September, after establishing the winter routine, I may move again, this time with Vigdis. We take our time, patiently, for the time to be ripe.

Steini

Posted 12:18 AM by Steini
In a week from now I will travel from downtown Reykjavik to Skaftafell National Park where I will work as a land warden for a month and a half. That is about seven hours´ drive away so I will not visit Reykjavik often during that time (perhaps briefly, for a day or two, every second week). I still haven´t quite figured out what to do with the flat I am renting while I´m spending my time so far away. I could continue paying the rent and just keep my stuff in there in order to return and enjoy life downtown again in late August before I eventually move somewhere else in late September with my girlfriend (which is the big plan because this flat of mine is tiny). I could also put my stuff in a locked-up room, pay only one-third of what I would otherwise do and not have a place to stay when I return in Agust other than my parents´ house, until (again) I would eventually move (this time earlier in September due to the homelessness pressure). The third solution just reared its fantastic head when I realized I could allow someone I know and trust to stay there for only half of what I´m paying. Many young people would take this as a great opportunity because living in the town-centre is rather expensive.

The final solution to this puzzle will crop up solid and firm in a few days´ time.

Steini

Posted 11:03 AM by Steini
Two days ago I came home from almost a two weeks´ travel with car around Iceland with my girlfriend Vigdis. After two days of driving through the south of Iceland and passing the sheer cliffs of the fjords in the East we entered Seydisfjordur. It is the "oppositemost" point in the country to Reykjavik and is the harbour which hatches a weekly bunch of tourists every Thursday with the arrival of the ferry Norrona. We drove into this huge brand-new eight floor mansion of a ferry and for a week we sailed to the Faroe Islands (related to Denmark) and the Shetlands (which are Scottish islands). We spent three days in the rugged Faroese and one day in pastoral Shetlands. It takes about twelve to fifteen hours to sail between any of these three points (Iceland, Faroe Islands and the Shetlands) so most of the rest of the time that week was spent on board the ferry, which caused our sense of balance to roll for a day after we came home to Iceland. A strange feeling indeed. Mild and sunny weather greeted us as we made our way back south to finish that grand tour of our own country. With no haste we leisurely crawled our way, spending three days tracing all kinds of loops to various curious places. All in all it was a very successful trip away from the bustle of the city with every single day standing out in some way as memorable.

more later,
Steini