I will try to write a little about the wintertime here in Iceland (with a little bit of geography included!):
With the island of Iceland being situated in the midst of the Atlantic ocean, half way between North-America and Europe, winter here is not as harsh as people might expect from how far north on the globe we are. We have the benefit of
The Gulf Stream bringing warm sea from the Gulf of Mexico up to our shores, bringing the warmth with it that makes life bearable here. If it was to change or stop flowing, this island would become inhabitable. So thats one more reason we have to be worried about global warming along with spillage being dropped into the oceans, changing the way things are supposed to be.
Right now the temperature here in the south of Iceland swings around the 0°C degrees, just mild weather, sun sometimes shining but for ever shorter periods every day, the way that our globe, the
Earth, changes the position of it´s axis in relation to it´s revolving round the sun, until 21st December, when that relation starts changing back again. Sometimes it rains heavily, sometimes it´s has snowed a bit during the night, but that snow will soon melt during the day. You have to be careful driving to work as the roads might be slippery in the early morning, later in the day that is a problem no more. The north is getting a bit more snow, as it stayes colder there, even so the weather is relatively mild.
It´s the increasing darkness that mostly gets people down. And without much snow it´s even darker, that´s why some people will welcome a snowy spell, not to mention the skiers! We try to find ways not to be too much affected and find little things to cheer us up. We light
candles, watch television and read lots and lots of books at this time of year. And we start looking forward and preparing for
Christmas, the celebration of the light of Christ coming into the world, which for nations living this far north, having to endure darkness during these weeks and months, gives an added meaning to this event.
It´s not until January that we will be getting real snow, and then very often here in the south it will not stay very long, but melt into a dirty wet heaps, only to be frosen again during the next spell of frost, making the roads very slippery and pavements hard to walk on, with frosty ridges of frozen dirty snow to climb for those who venture to go for a walk on them. Which of course is everybody that doesn´t own a car. That´s maybe why Icelanders rank so high on the lists of carowners per capita in the world.
This kind of weather will continue until April, - ach, I´m being overly optimistic here, like always in spring, thinking it´s here a month too early. To tell the truth, it will not really be here until May. That´s when this woman will be very happy to see all the leaves budding on trees and bushes once again and the first flowers sticking their heads out of the soil!
New Year´s Eve in Reykjavík - The photo is borrowed from the site of Stelpa
Líf fyrir listina eina
As I have already given links to blogs with stuff about the Icelandic yulelads, I now want to give a link to the Danish Christmas NISSE, from Denmark, the country of my grandmother on my father´s side. And here is some information about Danish yuletide traditions, some of whom have been adopted by the Icelanders, with Iceland being a former Danish colony, or until 1918, and a part of the Danish Kingdom, having selfrule in certain matters but with a shared monarch, until 1944.
Just crowned in China: Miss Iceland - Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir
1985 Hólmfríður Karlsdóttir
1988 Linda Pétursdóttir
In 1963 Guðrún Bjarnadóttir (second from the left in photo) was chosen Miss Universe International on Long Beach, USA. After winning her title she had a successful career working internatianally as a much sought after model and has lived in France for many years.
And in 1970 Henný Hermannsdóttir, a young dance teacher from Iceland, won the title Miss Young International in Japan. She taught at her father´s dance school for many years.
I just found this list of sites about the way we celebrate Christmas in Iceland:
The Romantic Princess
I will try to write a little about the wintertime here in Iceland (with a little bit of geography included!):
With the island of Iceland being situated in the midst of the Atlantic ocean, half way between North-America and Europe, winter here is not as harsh as people might expect from how far north on the globe we are. We have the benefit of The Gulf Stream bringing warm sea from the Gulf of Mexico up to our shores, bringing the warmth with it that makes life bearable here. If it was to change or stop flowing, this island would become inhabitable. So thats one more reason we have to be worried about global warming along with spillage being dropped into the oceans, changing the way things are supposed to be.
It´s the increasing darkness that mostly gets people down. And without much snow it´s even darker, that´s why some people will welcome a snowy spell, not to mention the skiers! We try to find ways not to be too much affected and find little things to cheer us up. We light candles, watch television and read lots and lots of books at this time of year. And we start looking forward and preparing for Christmas, the celebration of the light of Christ coming into the world, which for nations living this far north, having to endure darkness during these weeks and months, gives an added meaning to this event.
This kind of weather will continue until April, - ach, I´m being overly optimistic here, like always in spring, thinking it´s here a month too early. To tell the truth, it will not really be here until May. That´s when this woman will be very happy to see all the leaves budding on trees and bushes once again and the first flowers sticking their heads out of the soil!
I´ve been a bit depressed about blogging lately. The reason is that I got a rather harsh e-mail from sombody Icelandic, living abroad, that I know a little bit, whose blog I had come across on the net. I quite enjoyed reading it, so I had made a link on it and made comments a few times. I want to stress that I had nothing but positive feelings about this person and all my comments were on a happy note. Then I got this e-mail from that person, telling me that the person in question did not want to be linked on my blog, or me making comments, that it was out of line and that the blog was written for a close(d) circle of friends and I must understand that. That I of course could not be forbidden to read but should refrain from commenting and linking. When I had a look at the blog I discovered that all my comments had been deleted. I was very sad about all this matter and wrote and apologized for intruding my person on that other person, telling that I would take out the link immediately and stop reading that blog. I guess this is something that can always happen to you in this jungle of the blogosphere. But all this matter is the cause that I don´t feel very much like blogging these days, along with the fact that Iceland is becoming a dark and cold place these days and will become so more and more until January, when days start getting longer again. Just fortunate that we have the festivities of Christmas to look forward to during this darkest time of the year.
Top Fashion from Iceland:
