Cain Manor

On Monday, July 2nd, we awoke in Djupivogur (population 386) to a semi-foggy morning, but at least we could see the harbor. Greg mentioned hearing birds all night. They run once a day cruises in the summer from here to Papey Island which is just offshore and was most likely, due to its name, once an hermitage for the Irish monks who inhabited Iceland before the arrival of the Norse. It’s thought that they fled in the face of Nordic settlement. The island was once a farm and now is inhabited only by seals and nesting sea birds. It has an old lighthouse dating back to 1922 and Iceland’s oldest wooden church. If we had the time we would have maybe done the day trip over there, but it only runs once a day so would hold us up here another 24 hours.
Continue reading ‘Djupivogur - East Iceland’ »

Sunday, July 1, 2007 - We awoke in Akureyri (Iceland’s second biggest town) to thick fog. The hotel has lots of tourists (German I think) staying here, but I didn’t hear them at all. We had breakfast which was included in the room. I really appreciate how the Europeans think of breakfast as more than toast and cereal. The buffet included waffles you make yourself, cereal, yogurt, fruit, ryveta crackers, hard boiled eggs, cheese slices, tomatoes, meats, breads, nutella, peanut butter, yogurt, and of course, smoked fish and pickled herring.
Continue reading ‘Ahh, the bliss of waking up after a decent amount of sleep’ »

We (or I) awoke early, 5:30am after only 3 hours of sleep. Tried to go back to sleep and did for a bit but the sun was already high in the sky. There were people rolling into campsites until the early hours and kids playing outside into the early morning hours.
Continue reading ‘Saturday, June 30th’ »

The Museum from Wednesday was (name??) was great. It had quite a bit of really cool and unexpected art, and I think the best art is the art of the unexpected. I don’t think necessarily that four slabs of steel in a large X is necessarily art, but I do think looking at a light switch in a new way can be as intriguing as Mona Lisa’s smile.
Continue reading ‘Notes from the last couple of days’ »

Most Icelanders still follow the ancient tradition of deriving their last name from the first name of their father. If a man is called Leifur Eriksson (his name is Leifur and he is Eriksson, the son of a man named Erikur). A woman called Johanna Heraldsdottir has the personal name Johanna and is Heraldsdottir (daughter of Herald). If these two have a son, he would have Leifsson as a last name and their daughter would have Leifsdottir as her last name. These aren’t names as such, but patronymics, which refer to their fathers. Hard to track, but very important to call people by their given (first names) and not just their surnames. Many people have two or more given names and there are just a limited number of Icelanders who do have family names.

Today we woke up early…. Our last day in Reykjavik. I was up most of the night. I pretty much figure that I’m not going to get any real sleep on this trip. It’s partly the jet lag, but mostly the fact that it’s sunny round the clock. I think the body can go for a lot longer when it’s sunny. I’m constantly tired, but happy to be here so it really doesn’t matter. The fact that they have coffee and it’s pretty good helps. So, we got up and packed up our stuff. We have too much, but there wasn’t any way to tell what the weather would do. Warm down jackets and rain parkas haven’t been needed yet.
Continue reading ‘Friday, June 29th’ »

We awoke to a beautiful morning in Reykjavik. The clouds and wind had moved on and it was lovely and sunny. We stayed up too late which is easy to do when it’s continually bright outside. I think I’m still adjusting to the time change from Seattle/East Coast and the long days.
Continue reading ‘Thursday June 28, 2007’ »