Elliott with no Mom

I am going through all the photos, movies, and emails about Elliott while I was in Europe with Candice. They are all so cute I wanted to share some...

My mom wrote, "Elliott ended up snuggling with me and falling asleep. He would wake up slightly to feel for my hair, play with it and fall back asleep. We didn't get up until 8:15!

Now we are dancing, eating breakfast, riding the tricycle, etc. After the morning nap we are going out in the stroller. It is sunny and warm - really beautiful! We might go to the farm. You never know what the weather will be like tomorrow."

"After video chatting with you, Elliott and I video chatted with Thomas! Then I put E in the stroller and walked to Trader Joe's. Their sample was white grits with sausage. I ate the sausage and Elliott at the grits. We got a second one and Elliott at the grits, and the paper cup! Then kept the spoon hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette. You never know when you might need your own spoon!"

"At dinner, E ate like a farmer! Polenta, a banana, pineapple, cooked carrots, some chicken, dates...and then he maxed out."

Thank you so much, Mom, for watching Elliott and for taking pictures and video of him, too!

Midnight Sun

(10:30 pm)
Candice and I are living it up in the land of the midnight sun. We had heard it would be light all night, but we were not prepared for daylight conditions 24/7. As a traveler, cramming as much as possible into 3 1/2 days, I have only slept 17 hours over 4 nights :)

We have been sight-seeing around the clock; we actually left for a small car tour at 11 pm and returned at 4 am...no big deal.

(12:27am)

(12:42 am)

(1:01 am)

Tomorrow

Packing for tomorrow!

Elliott loves climbing on or walking next to his new trike.

1912 Guesthouse

I booked 3 nights for me and Candice at the "1912 Guesthouse" in downtown Reykjavik!

It is right next to the Parliament building (Alþingishúsið), and in a great location for all the restaurants and sights in Reykjavik.

Iceland's Geography

Iceland is a relatively new land mass, created by volcanic activity at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

where the North American and European tectonic plates are separating (here is an actual crack of separation).

The effects of this volcanic activity is one of the reasons Iceland is so oddly beautiful and incredibly picturesque.

The entire island is made of recent lava so nearly all rock is black (some are red from mineral deposits).

This means (almost) all the beaches have black sand, the country side is vast stretches of broken up black lava chunks, and even the urban sidewalks are black (well, grey) because they were made from ground up black lava. Many coastal areas are cliffs of hexagonal basalt columns formed by fissures when lava was rapidly cooled as it hit ocean water.

Here are some pictures near Snaefellsjökull peninsula (W. Iceland)

Me standing on a bridge created by water eroding some of the basalt columns.

Basalt fissures on the beach in a curved pattern.

As lava floes cooled over rivers and air vents, horizontal caves were formed

and subsequently Iceland has many spelunking tours.

Not much grows right off lava.

Primary organisms like lichens and moss must first grow, decompose, collect in the cracks and crevices, break up the rock and eventually make soil for larger plants to grow in. There is a lot of green in Iceland, and it's mainly from moss and lichen.

The time is takes for soil to build and trees to grow is part of the reason (combined with grazing sheep, wind and weather patterns) there are few forested areas.

One old forested area called Thórsmörk (Þórsmörk) in S. Iceland is situated in a warm, protected canyon and has small conifer and birch trees, ferns, and hundreds of mushrooms (at least on the day I was there). It has somehow avoided being covered in lava at different times and was thought to be a sacred place (deserving to be named after Þór/Thór).

(house/garage on Vestmannaeyjar/The Westman Islands off SW coast of Iceland destroyed by lava)

There is still considerable volcanic activity causing numerous (small) earthquakes on a daily basis not to mention the smoke plumes and threats of eruption by various volcanoes - remember Eyjafjallajökull (sounds like "A-yah-fyat-la-yuh-kult") last year whose smoke plumes closed European travel for a few weeks?

The geologic activity of the North American and European plates manifests itself in many ways beside volcanoes; thermal pools and geysers dot the island. The first geyser recorded is the one pictured below: Geysir or The Great Geysir, named after Geysir, a prominent Goði in early Iceland.

In Iceland, hot water from thermal water vents is collected and pumped into towns for domestic use. From the smallest villages to the largest city, Reykjavik, all hot water coming from the tap is untreated, straight out of the ground and smells like sulfur (something you get used and come to love to when taking a shower). All cold water coming from the tap is also straight out of the ground, but from a non-heated, non-sulfury source. If you want to make tea, for example, you let the cold water run for minute then fill the kettle to boil the cold water - if you use warm or hot water it will taste bad.

(Hot water pumping plant. The pipeline on the right goes directly to Reykjavik)

All the houses and building in Iceland are heated with hot water radiators powered by the naturally boiling-hot water pumped from the ground. I loved this (no hot, dry air blowing through your house) and it also makes heating a house nearly year-round quite inexpensive since all you pay is the cost of transporting the water.

Another use for the abundant hot water is as public pools; every town has a public bath, and large towns have several. Here, the natural, untreated hot springs water is cycled through tile or cement pools so the water never cools too much or becomes dirty because there is a constant flow of fresh water in and used water out. What is so awesome about this is you never have to think of wasting water - not to mention wasting hot water - because there is an endless source down the street

.

(The Blue Lagoon, not a typical bath house, but a fancy touristy one near the airport)

Laugardagur is the Icelandic word for Saturday, but it comes from "laugar" meaning to wash. Laugavegur is a street in downtown Reykjavik that used to be the women's trail to laugardalur (washing dale/valley) where they took their laundry to wash in the local hot springs.

As I mentioned above, there is also an abundance of cold fresh water for drinking and some of it is naturally carbonated, such as this Perrier/club soda spring:

This is my favorite picture of the Icelandic landscape because it captures all the aspects that were unique to me (coming from S California) and the "essence" of Iceland in my mind: dark sky from northern latitude, flat lava floes, small hills/mountains, green moss and lichen, and light dusting of snow.

Icelandic Literature

(A great compilation of translated Icelandic Sagas)
Iceland has an incredible literary history.

The consensus is that most of the history of events, genealogy, stories (sagas), and legends from about 900 -1000 AD were orally recorded and passed down before they were physically written in the 13th Century.

Record keeping and genealogy was an important aspect of the Norse - and consequentially Icelandic - society as evidenced by it's strong presence in the manuscripts available today. Early Icelandic writings are a variety of both poem and prose.

Songs/poems/chants were composed for celebrations or to commemorate events and those who were skillful at recording events in beautiful verse were highly respected. The collection of poems we have called The Eddas are the main source for our knowledge of Norse Mythology (since paganism was driven from mainland Scandinavia by force and the manuscripts there were destroyed. There will be more about this in the "Religion" post coming soon).

Sagas are prose stories interspersed with poetic verse typically about the family affairs of farmers and their occasional family feuds.

The Icelandic Sagas, or Íslendinga sögur, are acclaimed for their realistic portrayal of human frailties and their glimpses into Icelandic life of the time period. They are about 3rd and 4th generation Icelandic settlers living in goðorð. Usually, the sagas are about the goði or someone in their household. Often someone is insulted and a domino effect of honor retaliation brings clans into feuds. Women have a large presence in Icelandic Sagas; they have strong, confident characteristics and run the domestic affairs of the household. They play political roles by convincing the men into pursuing retaliation or offering forgiveness for insults depending on the character of the woman - or by starting feuds outright themselves.

Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've read through some sagas - and my book is out on loan - so I can't remember any to summarize here. Dramatic events like someone stealing cheese and then giving it out as gifts to visitors who happen to mention to each other that they all got the same kind of cheese that was reported missing and they realized their host is the thief. OR, someone being strung up by their Achilles tendons after instigating a feud and they survive the ordeal. Njall's Saga is one of the most famous sagas; it is pretty long, about the length of a medium sized novel. One of the main characters, Njall, is a good, honest man but is insulted for his inability to grow facial hair. A family feud ensues and he is eventually burned in his house.

On another note, Icelandic Sagas are full of kennings - short, descriptive phrases for objects used to add detail to stories. I'm sure you've heard of these...things like "man-slayer" (for a sword) or "sea-steed" (for a ship), etc. These were used not for lack of vocabulary, but for love of descriptive language.

Due to the nature of Old Norse (and modern Icelandic) word order is less important in sentences because each word is conjugated and declined (more to come in a post on the Icelandic language) giving contextual information to each word and more freedom for rhyme and artistic expression.

Fast forward to the modern era and Iceland is one of the most literate countries with the highest number of authors per capita. The most well known Icelandic author is Halldor Laxness; he won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1955). One of his books I have read is Paradísarheimt, or Paradise Reclaimed; it's about a family in Iceland in the mid-1800's who converts to Mormonism and moves to Utah to live with Brigham Young. I'm serious. (More in a future post on Religion in Iceland).

Icelandic Settlement

In brief:

Iceland was settled by rough, independent personalities primarily from Norway/Sweden, but there are records of people from other parts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, Faroe Islands, and Russia. They left their home country to settle Iceland from 874 AD - 930 AD for a variety of reasons:

1. Arable land was becoming scarce. Traditionally, the oldest son inherited part of the parents' farm and the other sons had to move away and buy their own land or become a professional blacksmith, cobbler, clergyman, etc. If that didn't suit them, I guess some moved to Iceland. After a few generations, the farm portions weren't large enough to sustain the oldest son's family and some of them moved to Iceland.

2. Outlaw types and people who were banished from their hometowns as punishment went to Iceland to escape ridicule and find a fresh start.

3. Escape the current king, Harald Fair-hair.

These Norsemen were excellent boat builders and sea farers. Families moving to Iceland forged across raging oceans in small, shallow boats with their tools, provisions, and domestic animals.

(a replica of a very nice, large, Norse ship)

If they made it, they then set about exploring, claiming land, building homes, sowing seed and raising livestock. There were no large native land animals to hunt, but there was an abundance of fish and migrating fowl to catch and preserve for the winter. Though the northern side of the island is within the arctic circle, the southern side of the island has areas of fertile farm land and is relatively warm and mild due to the Gulf current bringing warm air and water north from the Caribbean area.

(an example of some early settlers)

An amazing aspect about the new colony on Iceland was that despite the inhabitants' varied backgrounds, they created their own democratic parliament and maintained an orderly, non-centralized society. Within about 50 years from the first record of voyages to Iceland, the Icelandic Parliament (Alþingi, or Althingi) was established (in year 930 AD). It is claimed to be the longest standing democratic parliament - from 930 AD to present day - because even after Iceland accepted Norwegian rule in 1262 and Danish rule from 1814-1944, their geographic distance allowed the Althingi to more or less continue.

The island was divided into 4 regional quarters (eventually a 5th was added to make 5 "quarters") made of clans called goðorð (sounds like"go-thorth"). The clan leaders were called goði (sounds like "go-thee") and they provided protection and appointed judges to settle disputes within the goðorð.

There was a single, elected lawspeaker, or lögsögumaður, who memorized the lawbook and would recite it orally once a year to the gathered goði at the Alþingi. Occasionally, a conflict would arise crossing regional borders, and the representatives would seek the lawspeaker's advice. The current lawspeaker is Ásta Ragnheiður Jóhannesdóttir.

The Alþingi/Althing met near present day Reykjavik at Þingvellir, or the Parliamentary plains (sounds like "thing-vet-leer"), an area large and flat enough (see photo above) to make camping and tending animals convenient for the attending goði and their household for the duration of the Alþingi session (up to a few weeks).

The lawspeaker stood on a large rocky area called the Lögberg, or Law Rock, in front of a natural amphitheater created by the separating North American and European tectonic plates.

The Alþingi moved from Þingvellir to Reykjavik in 1844.

(below photo from Wikipedia)

Here are some poor quality photos I took of the building:

Denmark officially owned Iceland from 1814-1944. However, in 1940, when Denmark was occupied by Germany, Iceland became unofficially an independent state. In 1944, the Republic of Iceland was officially formed. The President of Iceland is the head of state and appoints the Prime Minister of Iceland, who is the head of government. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the 4th President of Iceland (from 1980-1996) was the World's first democratically elected female head of state. The current president is Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (photo below in Springville, UT, 2005)

and the current Prime Minister is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

Iceland Revival

I got my suitcase filled with Iceland memorabilia down from the attic and I'm having an Iceland revival. Since I didn't have this blog when I went to Iceland in 2005, I think I'll share a few posts now on it's history and things to see, do and learn about in Iceland.
This revival was initiated by an announcement in church that our Kirkland Stake would be having a Family Heritage night in 2 weeks. Anyone with genealogical ties to another country was invited to host a booth displaying photographs, cultural and historical artifacts, the flag, traditional music, food samples, etc. to teach others about their family heritage.
I signed up right away for a booth on Iceland because even though my family moved from there 4 generations back and no one speaks Icelandic anymore, I've had the unique opportunity to study the language, travel to Iceland, research and visit areas where my ancestors lived, and immerse myself in Icelandic culture and history - especially with regards to traditional handicrafts.

Here are some topics I'm going to share:
Settlement
Literature/the Sagas
Geography
Religion
Language
Genealogy
Folklore
Food
Architecture
Handicraft

Haust

I knit an autumn hat! Just in time for the wonderful fall colors that have hit Seattle.

I named it haust, the Icelandic word for autumn.

I used scraps from my yarn shopping spree in Iceland October 2005 - I can't believe it was 5 years ago!
I still have quite a stash of Lopi (Icelandic yarn from Icelandic sheep), but unfortunately not enough of any single color to make a sweater :(
Sad face. A multicolored sweater would be wonderful, but those can be tricky to make just right and the colors I have are not varied enough to make a good multicolor print.

Basic specs:
CO 100 sts
8 rows of 1X1 rib
25 rows main body of hat, then decreasing to shape.
leaf pattern of 10 repeating stitches from Selbu Strikke

Adam hoped it would be for him - and I would gladly give it to him!- but it's my size. I think for Adam, I would use 110 stitches instead of 100. The poor man still doesn't have a proper hat. The one I made for him earlier this year is too itchy for his head and needs to be lined so I frequently sneak wear it.

Cardamom

I can't get over how delicious cardamom smells.
It's one of my favorite spices.
I love cardamom in spicy-hot equatorial cuisine like Indian curries and African stews as well as in sweet northern baked goods like those from Scandinavia.

A good friend served a mission for the LDS Church in Finland and taught me and my sisters to make Finnish Pulla, a sweet, egg bread spiced with cardamom.
I've been making it at Christmas for the past 4 years and couldn't resist making it again over the weekend.
It's simple, but takes about 6 hours with the multiple rising steps.
Here is the recipe so you can make it and sniff cardamom all day and night:
2 cups milk
1 packet (1 tsp.) yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 T. ground cardamom
4 eggs beaten
9 cups white flour
1/2 cup melted butter
1 egg, beaten
2 T. large chunky sugar for decoration.

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water; heat milk without boiling, then cool to room temp.
2. Combine yeast liquid, milk, sugar, salt, cardamom, 4 eggs, and 2 cups flour. Beat until smooth and elastic. Add 3 more cups flour (5 cups total), beat well; dough should be smooth and glossy. Add melted butter, beat until glossy. Stir in remaining (4 cups) flour until the dough is stiff.
3. Turn dough out of bowl onto a floured surface. Cover with inverted bowl to rest 15 minutes. Knead dowugh until smooth and satiny. Place in lightly greased mixing bowl, turn dough to grease the top. Cover with clean dishcloth, let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk (about 1 hour). Punch down and let rise again until almost doubled.
4. Turn out onto a floured surface, and divide into 3 parts. Divide those further into 3 parts. Roll each piece into 12-16 inch strips. Braid 3 strips into a loaf. Lift 3 braided loaves onto greased baking sheets (or sheets lined with parchment paper). Rise for 20 min.
5. Brush each loaf with beaten egg and sprinkle with crunchy sugar.
Bake at 375* for 25-30 min. Check to see if top is burning, cover with foil if necessary.

Serve sliced with tea/coffee.
As it gets old and dries out, toast it. Or break into pieces and pour milk over.
Makes great french toast.
(Also great to use dough as cinnamon bun dough, or orange rolls, or poppy seed buns, etc.)