Bon anniversaire Papa!!!

Aujourd'hui c'est l'anniversaire de mon papa, ca mérite bien un post!!

It's my dad's birthday today, the perfect moment to throw in a few photos illustrating his visit last week..What with the political uproar in the country, we had good and epic times, participating actively in what was later described as the "saucepan revolution" by taking part in the daily (and nightly actually) demonstrations in front of the Parliament, with the Icelandic people calling for the destitution of their government. (for those who didn't follow the recent news, because of the economic crisis, which was in fact induced by political gambling, pretty much)

Here is a link to a few videos dad made of the demos in front of the Alþingi.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=POIceland2009&aq=f

They reflect the atmosphere pretty well, though it was often a little more intense. Seeing as it was my dad who filmed them, there's a chance you might glimpse a blur of bright orange at some point, and somewhere underneath it, me. The blur is my favourite bright orange scarf, which I was all the happier to be sporting, as orange ("appelsínugull") was declared the colour of non-violence, on the occasion.. hence most people wearing the colour.. Actually, I have no clue whether orange is always the colour of non-violence (or not), but I was lucky in that case, as it makes me look (for once) fashionable, and also sophisticated with a tinge of revolutionary. Wunderbar. :o)

Being French, I'm rather used to very regular demonstrations (she said, very "blasé") and I have to say it was a surprise to seee how pacific people were, and also how confident they were that things would change without having to revert to violence to make themselves heard. (although I also heard that this WAS or had been a violent act, for Iceland)

There was me, sneering, thinking they wouldn't get anywhere without burning the Parliament, like we do in Brittany when we want to prove a point, or without throwing rocks and generally vandalizing.

Well I'm really impressed and happy to see how wrong I was, and also in awe.

Well done, People of Iceland!!

Incidentally though, I have to add that SOME violence emerged occasionnally, and not necessarily on the people's part. Tear gas was used for the first time since 1949, and all that to disperse pacific demonstrators.

Who, fair enough, were lobbing skyr (the local joghourt) at the police, haha!! :o)

The saucepan and joghourt revolution!!

To cut a long story short, the Prime Minister resigned 3 days ago after announcing that he had a throat cancer and therefore would not represent himself for the next elections. (NB, I find it really funny how effecient these demonstartions are in Iceland.. suddenly everyone is catching cancer. Icelandic demonstrators must have a special thing... ) , so yeah, the government fell and we now have someone potentially ready to assume the role of Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir (see here at Icelandic review online :

http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_life/?cat_id=16567&ew_0_a_id=319127

and here for further details

http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16567&ew_0_a_id=319005 )

She is universally (in Iceland ;o) ) loved and respected, has been on the political scene for aaaaaaaaaaages and her time has now come, to paraphrase her..

"Tímin minn er kominn", she said eons ago, and oooooooooooh yesss, she was right, looks like her time HAS come.

But the road may be long and windy...Icelandic style...

Papa a un geyser dans le dos..

L’aube d’une nouvelle année..

Beautiful medieval houses in my home town

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!

First post this year, my my..

2009 is only 2 weeks and a half old and it seems like it’s been here for ever. And around me people seem to feel the same eerie feeling.
Every time I’ve said happy new year so far, people have eyed me with a semi-comatose look, or with a look of utter bewilderment like I’m a spaceship just landed in their bowl of cornflakes, and go”huh? Ah yeah, right” like they forgot that only 2 weeks ago they were partying like crazy. But well yeah, that would probably be why, then.

Me also has this total unfeeling of a New Year, but that’s maybe because I am trying to forget the fact that I’m aging. Maybe everyone is. Just trying to persuade themselves that the New Year never happened and they are still young.

Hvaðeina.

Xmas in France was very nice. If I may be allowed to use a rather corny image, it was like taking an infusion of love, seeing a bunch of old friends and my family, whom I spent Xmas with. It gave me a great energy boost, always useful to come back to a dark Island.
My family!! :o)My friends..

THISdemon woman (hello mum, I love you! :D) threatened to disinherit me and curse me and my descendants over the next 12 generations if I left the house without knowing how to knit. Unable to resist under such convincing argumentation, I gave in.. As a result of which, I can knit!! :o)And here's de quoi to prove it..Ma vie, mon oeuvreLa demi première paire, et c'est Lucas qui l'a eue entière!!

My beautiful brother (on the left) :Ð

Speaking of darkness, when i got back on the rock I was slightly “à côté de la plaque”. My body clock had gone back to daytshift and sunshine (kinda), so the first morning I woke up at 11 and it was still dark I was slightly confused.
As I was on my first day back in France when I woke up; not only was it daylight, but I got woken up by Margot’s radio alarm blaring. A grand moment of anthology when I sprang up in semi-sleep and erupted (in English) “but..but, I don’t understand? Why is the radio not in Icelandic?” to which my friend Lucas, very classy as usual, replied, also in English (he is French): “That would be because you’re in France, baby..”
Ah. Yes. It would.
:o)

France was a bit of a shock when I got back.
For a start it wasn’t sunny (WTF, why do I bother?!!) but also, ALL the train station and metro and post office employees I asked directions and questions to were actually very civil and smiley.. What happened, it’s so confusing..? Luckily, people in the metro and the streets were as discurtious and unhappy as ever; I was lucky, it might actually have made me want to stay..

Sunny France. You can just about make out Notre Dame in the romantic fuzziness of the smog

Ok, what came more as a shock was the intensity with which “The Crisis” seems to have struck the continent (no, I don’t mean France, or I would have said “world”). Of course the RER was on strike and half the trains were cancelled, but apparently it happens so often nowadays that the newspapers don’t even bother mentioning the subject anymore. Hardly mentioning the cost of living and food, which has gone through the roof, there are visibly a lot more people begging and living on the streets.

But as far as I’m concerned everything’s ok. Rennes
Sacrés Coeurs in Paris, just above Montmartre, where the famous French film Amélie takes place

The other really ironical little adventure was the fact that my plane back to Iceland was 2 hours late because of the snow... in Paris!!! I’d never heard of aeroplanes having to go through the defreezer, but that’s the way it is apparently. (and that’s where I would like someone to tell me why they have to do that on the ground when it’s 0 degrees Celsius, when planes fly up to altitudes where it goes down to -64 degrees? Who is wacky enough to come up with an explanation please?)

Back in Iceland, life resumes as normal.

Swimming,

These were our GMs pets. Because of the kreppa they don't feed us much at the hotel so we have to improvise meals. Here is Fish n' Chips Icelandic way.

All right... of course I am joking and no living or dead animal was harmed in the process. I promise. (btw, the fish are called Obama and Mc Cain, yes like the chips, and they now belong to Mike)

Icelandic lessons, hotpots, work,

swimming some more, friends, beer, coffee and no cigarettes... I went climbing last week and screwed my knee (ow!!!) but hopefully I’ll be able to bounce about soon again, yipee!!

It also seems like I have AT LAST found a place to live, and should be moving within about 2 weeks, hooray!!

This is not the house I am moving into, but it looked very pretty this morning at 10.30. Ok, it's not really THAT dark, the flash does it, but still..

But more about that on the next post. My dad’s coming to visit on Monday, and I’m pretty excited, yay!!!