In the NOT Midwinter…

WINTER CLOTHES

by Karla Kushkin

Under my hood I have a hat
And under that
My hair is flat.
     Under my coat
My sweater’s blue,
My sweater’s red.
I’m wearing two.
     My muffler muffles to my chin
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And then tucks in.
     My gloves were knitted
By my aunts.
I’ve mittens too
And pants
And pants
And boots
And shoes
With socks inside.
     The boots are rubber, red and wide.
And when I walk
I must not fall
Because I can’t get up at all.

And every word of this poem is true. Except the part about the aunts. Neither of us have knitting aunts.

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Glasgow is still bound up in a misery of ice and rain. We have new spikes for our boots, since D. managed to actually stomp the ones on his heels flat, which tells us a few things about the way he walks(!). While we wait for the plumber people to take apart the bathroom (and listen to the truly horrific waterfall running in our neighbor’s house – the firemen only turned off ONE valve; the flat is ruined), we are running the heat and doing laundry in hopes that things will actually DRY at some point – the rugs so far have not.

It’s hard to believe that already we’re deep into it messy winter, and officially, it only started on Solstice, which was a little over a week ago! But, no matter. We still have nice memories from our time away to think on, which will keep us going.


Unlike in the U.S., where Christmas Eve affords many a half-day off, and workers are often back to the office the day following, in Iceland, that’s not the case. Every year, Iceland has jólabókaflóðið, or “the Christmas book flood,” which is the frantic flooding of the market with book releases just before the holiday. Books are the Numero Uno gift to give and receive on Christmas, as Iceland sells the greatest number of books per capita of any nation in the world. (Yeah. T. was struck speechless by the awesomeness of that for several long seconds.) Books are talked about on the news, and the awards buzz — and the “this book is going to flop” buzz — is huge. Thus, while Christmas Eve is the time to open those books, Christmas Day and the day following? Are for reading those books, preferably in bed, while eating filled chocolates. At all the parties in the days following, books are the primary topic of conversation – what everyone got, if they’re any good, etc. etc. etc.

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This is no guidebook exaggeration. Many people mentioned to us what they’d be doing on Christmas. Aside from attending a church service, most of the weekend was for reading. (Awesome, huh?)

So, the city was empty and quiet, with a light rain misting down. We had a lovely time window-shopping, walking from the old city to the downtown area, and winding through the streets. Reykjavik is a strangely artsy city, so there was a lot to look at.

On Christmas Day we attended a church service at Hallgrímskirkja, which was amusing – since it was an Anglican service given in a Lutheran Church in English by an Icelandic reverend. Contradictions abounded! As did tourists – it never ceases to amaze us how people visiting churches feel they can simply stride into a church mid-service, stand in a pew, take pictures of themselves and their surroundings, and walk out again. We were worried that the people were Americans. Fortunately, they were German, and we could hold our fellow countrymen innocent of that particular obnoxiousness, at least.

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It’s easy to dissect the name – it’s Hallgrím’s kirkja — Hallgrím’s church. It’s named after Hallgrímur Pétursson, who is apparently a really famous Icelandic poet. He wrote a series of fifty Easter poems, one of which is read aloud per day on Icelandic public radio, beginning ten days before Lent. They’re very well-loved, our tour guide told us, but it’s a rare person outside of Iceland who has ever heard of him. (Rejoice: you have now ascended the ranks of rare persons!)

We were two of about eighteen people at church on Christmas. While we felt a little silly at such a sparsely attended service (the person who led the carols beamed and nodded at us after the service – apparently we were the only ones singing, and she could hear us allll the way in the front. Yikes.), we were glad to finally make a visit to Hallgrímskirkja – the inside of the church is just gorgeous. We’d heard from various tour guides about the state architect of the last thirty-some years, Guðjón Samúelsson, and how it took them about thirty-eight years to actually finish the structure (1945-1986). He did an amazing job of making the church interior look like … an ice cave. No, really, that’s what it’s supposed to look like.

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What was more intriguing to us was the organ. It looked innocuous enough, just sitting on the floor in the back of the sanctuary, but it has a whopping 5,275 pipes. (And 72 stops, but we don’t know if that’s particularly impressive, since we don’t play.) It has a massive, blow-out-the-ceiling sound, but they don’t play it all the time, because it can be heard from outside the church, across the road, and inside of hotel rooms. Yes. We heard it play all Christmas Eve, just lightly on the air, through a single opened window, but it was audible. Thus, they play an electric organ for carols, so they don’t drown out the singers.

We prefer to be drowned out.

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After Christmas, T. was delighted to find evidence of the Yule Lads! Still no Yule Cat — apparently people are afraid of photographing the beast — but we did find all the elderly looking “lads” at their nasty little tasks in a shop window. The funniest was the ogress Grýla – with a bag of children on her back. Did we mention that in 1746 it became against Icelandic law to terrify children with these tales? Apparently Icelanders started being concerned with their children’s sanity long before it became fashionable to even think they were anything other than small adults.

The Yule lad/ogress mythology discussion brings us to the whole elf thing — or the huldufólk, as the Icelanders call their “hidden folk.” It’s astounding that so many people, when they think of Iceland — even when the talk in the news was about their bank going bankrupt — they must talk about elves. In Vanity Fair there was a huge piece about it, all serious and newsworthy and discussing the economy and mistakes and the downturn of the whole nation, and then, Hahaa, those Icelanders! 80% of them, when polled, said they believed in elves! Hahahaha!

Yeah, well. Whatever. People believe all kinds of things, and probably one of the better American strengths (at least on the West Coast) is that while we might believe all kinds of things, most people are left alone with their beliefs. Everyone we met was perfectly nice and friendly and we were happy not to ask them a thing about elves. Beliefs are personal, no matter how weird they might seem to others.

It was a good trip to a clean, well-organized city with lights everywhere to combat the late-rising (11 a.m.!) sun, and the most wonderful lava springs, hot tubs, steam baths, and swimming pools. That’s reason enough to go right there. Better reasons include nice people and interesting artwork and lots of places to walk and think and explore — read.

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Behold, the Yule Cat Cometh…

Jólakötturinn. Loathsome, mangy, evil-eyed feline, she claws to death and eats anyone who doesn’t have a new outfit for Christmas Eve.

(You knew that, right?)

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Hello, and welcome to another edition of My, Christmas Is Very Different In Other Countries.

Here, instead of the mythos of Santa, we have Grýla the hag, owner of said vicious cat, and mother of thirteen indolent and annoying boys known as the Yule Lads who may or may not put a gift in the shoe you leave on the windowsill. One of them may or may not arrive in your home from the 12th of December, in an amusing addition to the Advent calendar, and leave you something. This probably makes kids around here QUITE giddy by the time Christmas actually arrives.

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Because these lads have names like Pot-licker, Bowl-licker and the like, no one normally sees them outside of dark kitchen corners — and of course they’re only there to do mischief anyway. Grýla is there to eat bad children, her cat eats the badly dressed, and the lads pester everyone and leave potatoes in the shoes of bad children (or gifts for the good) every night for twelve nights.

And a nervous Christmas to all.

At least the bad kids still get fed. There’s a lot one can do with a potato.

(Grýla’s husband is unemployed in this scenario, apparently. Maybe he works at Easter.)


We are eating tons of rye bread, and lovely rye crackers for breakfast. Bliss.

…..
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We have discovered that all of the hot water here smells faintly of the rotten egg stench of sulfur. Our hair is …charmingly tousled, shall we say, from the minerals in the shower water. Fortunately, the cold water is stream-filtered and quite tasty. And unscented.

…..

We couldn’t quite figure out the beds at first. T. was pretty sure we were meant to sleep in the uniquely folded flat sheet which enclosed the mattress; D. was sure we were not. Each side of the bed has its own narrow stuffed duvet, which means one can burrow or kick it away at will, without inconveniencing anyone else. A marvelous idea.

…..

In this country, Christmas starts promptly at 6:00 P.M. on the evening of the 24th, when all the bells in the whole country start to ring.

We hate to see what they’ll do for the midnight service…

And to all, a good night.

Church of Christ, NASA

It was actually three degrees COLDER in Glasgow when we left, for those of you who have accused us of being gluttons for punishment. Typically, here isn’t as cold as there, as it gets the temperature off the Atlantic, and Scotland right now is getting it from the Baltic.

The Atlantic has shared a Nor’easter with us, though so we’ve learned the meaning of the word WINDCHILL. It’s not a nice word, but it’s emphatic. It means, “get the heck inside.”

Merry on.

Dispatches…

…from an undisclosed location.

Yeah, okay, so you figured it out. Just wanted to let those deeply concerned know that we are safely here, and to thank you for your good trip wishes. It was indeed jolly, except for the wind, which made for a bumpy, nausea-inducing ride, but all’s well that ends.

…’til the next message from the underworld…

Flash-Mobs … a good thing?

This past weekend we went to a “flash-mob” performance of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” at Kelvingrove Museum (although people weren’t quite surprised). You can find the performance here, as a streaming video. It appears that the Sacramento Choral Society had the same idea, and organized a flash-mob of their own … but there were too many people, which resulted in damage to the Roseville Galleria. Oops. Perhaps one shouldn’t invite 5,000 people to a party?

Off to a cold country tomorrow, leaving this one for a different one. Pictures shall ensue (internet-connections allowing), and more description as well. It’ll be interesting to see whether we make it out … and then whether we can make it back!

-D

How Cold Is It?

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It’s cold, folks. VERY cold (OK, you folk, in the Yukon, yeah, yeah, we know). Shown here is our friend A. holding a hunk of ice. He and D. worked very hard to break a piece free from the layer atop the fountain in Kelvingrove Park: they took a fence-post (somebody else had the same idea, and helpfully left one) and bashed upon the ice until it broke free. This looks to be about 8 inches thick (we must allow for A’s thick fingers – and, yes, the boy is a computer programmer with those sausages). After fishing this piece out of the frozen fountain, A. was wingeing and whimpering about wanting to let it drop, it was so cold. After the photos were taken, he threw it up as high as he could, and … it shattered upon the surface of the ice in the fountain. No cracks in the ice, no damage whatsoever. The edges were probably less frozen than the middle of the ice, so who knows how thick the stuff was?

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It was thick enough for D. to stand upon the surface, though (A. says that it was more than twice as thick as it needed to be to support D., but … well, D. was still cautious).

It’s cold. And it’s forecast to get colder. We’ve both had our ice-cleats strapped to our boots for weeks, now, and don’t foresee taking them off any time soon. Even when we’re on our Christmas Holiday. Where will we be going? To an undisclosed location. Have a guess, won’t you? Some hints: their native language isn’t English, the travel guides say that you shouldn’t go there if you’re looking for culinary delights, their land-mass is roughly equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom. Any ideas? Do keep on guessing – we’re away from next Wednesday through to the following Monday. We expect to eat quite a bit of flat-bread, and to spend lots of time in hot-tubs.

-D & T

On the 8th day of Hanukkah, it was rather quiet…

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Except for occasional crunches of plastic sleds being dragged over snow, and the occasional car creeping up the road. Despite the light overnight snowfall, people have all but given up, and are staying home. They are leaving their cars where they sit, parked haphazardly all around the crescent. The light rail is back, the trains are running – with delays, but moving slowly. The buses out of town are running, but we haven’t seen any inner city buses pass our stop since Monday. And cabs –hah.

D. put on his ice crampons and hiked to the University yesterday, and later we mapped out a strategy to get up the steep hills to Strathclyde Uni where we rehearse — only to be overjoyed that chorus rehearsal has been rescheduled. The 7°-9°F/-12° and -14°C temps we’re having are supposed to break by Thursday, but if they don’t, we will have zero rehearsal time, and we have a performance this weekend! We hope the orchestra and soloists are at least able to rehearse, since they’re the main draw.

When we moved here, we were told a.) that it rarely snowed and b.) that it could get quite cold, but mostly didn’t. Because we are wimpy Californian nutcases, we bought silk long underwear, take-no-prisoners heavy boots, wool socks, balaclavas to wear over our heads and faces, knitting needles and lots and lots of yarn. Guess who is happy to have been a wimpy nutcase. The Canadians are laughing at us — and well they should, because this little snow and ice should not shut down a whole city — but we are, at least, mostly warm. …And thinking we should maybe start knitting some more indoor-woolens, as we have frost on the INSIDE of the bathroom windows and the candles and heater aren’t exactly keeping up with this. Oh, well. This is why we have blankets. And hats. Which we’re wearing indoors…

According to The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner, people living in cold countries are… happier. Weiner attributes this to the “get along or die” school of thought – that interdependence is a necessity to get through something like cold. It’s the idea that we all have to hang together, or we’ll all hang separately.

Maybe after a LOT of snow and cold, we could understand that. But as of now, most people can fall down on the road, and have others perhaps gasp, but not offer a hand up. Smiles are exchanged, with endless eye-rolling facial commentary about the ice, snow, the frozen puddles, etc. — but not much else. Head down, we hurry forward, scarves wrapped around our mouths, just hoping to draw breath without coughing, just wanting to get home.

We shudder to think what would happen if we did have to rely on each other. Hopefully this time we won’t find out…

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The River Kelvin, Freezing. (The park fountain is frozen solid. Should go get a picture. Eventually.)

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Looking up at the University

Stay healthy. Make soup. Keep baking! And stay warm!

On the 2nd day of Christmas Hannukah, the snow-days gave to me…

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An utterly useless post box… since Royal Mail has sent out an email advisory that they’re taking back their overnight service and special delivery guarantees… Obviously, “neither rain nor sleet, nor heat nor gloom of night,” is not really part of any postal service’s charter, and hasn’t been since 500 B.C., when that little phrase was written in reference to mounted Persian postal carriers. Apparently, THEY were told to deliver or die. That probably would make a difference to the attitude of the Royal Mail Postal Union…

Well, day six of Snow in the City, and the city is still just eerily quiet. School was canceled at the last minute on Wednesday — the districts put out the word at EIGHT-THIRTY A.M., inconveniencing parents everywhere. There was not a cab to be had for two solid hours Wednesday morning as parents who were already dropping off their kids or halfway to work received frantic phone calls. Many had to make calls from the road and organize caretakers for their kids, while others had to turn their cabs around and go BACK. (And you can bet those people hung onto the cabs they had.) D. walked to work — and was scolded. Apparently the office has an executive service he could have been using all along. We’re not that far, though, but it IS tricky getting down the rather steep hill which separates our end of the West End from Finneston. Fortunately there are cobblestones to give a little bit of traction, and if one stays on the snow and avoids the “cleared” bits (badly salted), it’s not bad.

Met Office claims that this weather will last for two weeks solidly. We’re getting to the point where we’ve calmed down about it, and we are enjoying the beauty, even as we brace ourselves to go out in it. Fortunately, the ice we feared for the most part hasn’t really happened city-wide — the snow remains as fluffy and powdery, and kicks up nicely as people cut across playgrounds and vacant lots, as we do on the way to the gym. On the other hand, D. has a.) had to retire a pair of shoes already and b.) has fallen once, which lessens our overall enjoyment of the whole thing. (Although he has a gnarly awesome bruise on his hip.) What’s worrying is seeing people struggling along with strollers. You’d think the City could at least issue shovels if THEY don’t want to take care of the sidewalks. Last night we watched a neighbor attack the stairs in front of his flat with a dust pan.

…this is truly not a city ready for snow. And yet, it looks like this every-winter thing (in a city we were told never had snow) …is the new normal.


The Soup We’re Sipping during this cold snap (of which we forgot to take a picture) is sweet potato! Sautée 1 onion in a broad saucepan. Add 3 small sweet potatoes, chopped into chunks, and four cups of veggie or whatever broth. Boil the potatoes down until they’re soft. Then, add 1 brick of silken tofu, 1/2 a can of coconut milk, 1 Tbsp red curry paste, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1 Tbsp double-concentrated tomato paste, and 1 tsp garlic paste. We used the stick blender, garnished with a few shakes of curry powder, and voila. Obviously, you can choose not to add the tofu — sweet potatoes match well with curry, and will remind you of Thai food!