Friends

Pictures:
Zelia in her Peruvian hat from Aunt Mary and Uncle Benji
Astrid and Traian at "UN" dinner
Getting ready to go home
Tanja
Roany (Cuba), Kingsley (Malawi), and Mahadev (India)
Kheng (Cambodia)
Isafjordur "traffic" after concert let out
Christmas tree in town center
Zelia making a funny face
Student Holiday dinner party
food


The week has been a good one, but the pull of coming home is taking over along with the holiday feeling of things winding down...

The week began with a very lovely dinner on Sunday night with the UN students who had us over to their house. They had been taken out on a fisheries research boat for 2 days and came home with A LOT of fish. So, for dinner we had a delicious fish soup and 2 fish dishes and rice. It had been snowing quite a bit so it was a pretty evening to walk across town to their house. Here are several pictures of the evening.

On Tuesday I met Jacob in town after swimming where one of the clothing stores was having a great sale. Earlier I had been chatting with Katri and she had mentioned that people REALLY dress up here for the holidays, even when just going to people's houses. We have 3 holiday dinners this week and I thought maybe we should look for a few things. Anyway, we got some new tops which was fun and for great deal!!!!

On Wednesday morning when I went out to the mommy morning the energy in the town was totally different and I realized there was no wind at all. It was totally still - it was almost weird. But by the evening all was back to normal and the wind was gusty!:)

Yesterday I gave another free pilates class and had 6 students which was nice, but the promised advertising did not happen, ahhh. Annoying but done. It is hard to say if any will become regular students I'll just have to wait and see.

Last night was the student holiday dinner which was also very nice. We all got together at the old house in the center of town (I had written about it previously), where the professors are staying when they are here. The university provided some traditional Icelandic dishes and then we all brought something traditional from our countries. Jacob and I made potato latkes with homemade apple sauce and sour cream and Danielle made very good zucchini latkes. there are several biology masters students who live in the next town over, Bolungarvik, and they all happen to be Greek, one from the Greek half of Cyprus. Anyway, they brought a dish whose name I forget but which reminded me of mousaka except it was made with pasta and not eggplant. Henry made a mulled hot wine, Tanja a Chinese cucumber salad, Gisli made a traditional Icelandic bread which is flat and round and a little sweet (he says to eat it with butter and Hangikjot - smoked lamb traditional for Christmas day), Traian made deviled eggs, Gabriella, the professor made really yummy stuffed cabbage and then there were homemade piparkokur (gingerbread cookies, but not the kind from here, the woman who made them is Swedish). There were also 2 kinds of herring, one called Christmas herring and one sherry herring. The school provided lots of hangikjot, beets, peas, potatoes cooked in cream, and a Danish collection of open faced sandwiches with ham and pees, etc. The evening was great and although Zelia has been grumpy for about 2 weeks she did quite well:)

Today we went swimming with Sunna, Stephan, Haiti, and Alexander and then went to Haiti's house for some coffee and I brought banana bread. The swimming was great and soon I will have some pictures from it. Zelia has gotten so comfortable in the water and when she sees something that she wants, like the yellow rubber ducky, she leans forward and reaches with her hands and I swim her in the water to the ducky. Great! Zelia slept outside the entire visit and it was just really nice to be in someone's home. Both the grandparents were there (it's their house too) and we all just sat and chatted. they said i should come by at anytime to visit. I love that.

Gisli and Gerdur's daughter has been in the hospital for 3 days now and they have not been able to determine what is wrong with her and it is increasingly concerning. Jacob made a big pot of soup and took it over there with some bread, so they would have dinner and not have to worry about it. Of course after he dropped it off they called here to invite us to dinner, so off we went:) Zelia was a total grouch!!!! But loved eating the clementines and looking at their fish.

Tomorrow Jacob is going out sampling the farm raised cod instead of class. Of course we found out tonight they are picking him up at 5:30AM and so I will have to wake Zelia and take her to pilates in the morning, ugh...At least she will sleep through the beginning of rehearsal.