Guilt admitted...I´m a lazy blogger these days (and nights)!!!

Jaramusic

TV Person of The Year in Iceland :

S i l v í a N i g h t Silvia Nótt - The TV Show
Silvía Nótt Tv star - the blog Silvía Nótt - fan site1 fan site2
Silvía Nótt - Star sign: Lion
Silvía Nótt - TV news interview: RÚV Kastljós 10/20/2005


Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir, aka Silvía Nótt, received The Edda Award last
Sunday night for her part in creating the super star!

Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir is a "real" actress. Here she can be seen (on the right) in a scene from "A Midsommer Night´s Dream", in an open-air performance in Elliðaárdalur, Reykjavík, in the summer of 2003. She participated in a popular remake of the musical "Hair" last year. And she is also a "real" singer (TV Contest 04/28/05 tune 13; winner was nr. 12 with two ex-Eurovision contestants, oops, 3 counting back vocal, performing).
A talented young woman (unlike Silvía Night!).

Iceland´s answer to Sarah Silverman?

The Romantic Princess
You are absolutely in love with love! Charming,romantic, and feminine are all words that describe you. You are a huge flirt and know how to use your feminine wiles to get your way. You are always on the lookout for the guy who will sweep you off your feet. Role Models: Isolde, Juliet You are most likely to: Free a cursed prince from a terrible spell with a single kiss.

What Kind of Princess are You? - Beautiful Artwork (Original Music is BACK!!!)
brought to you by Quizilla

Shorter Days

Everything is now moving more and more slowly in this part of the world, at least where I´m concerned.
I cuddle up indoors and z-z-z a lot!
Then again sometimes I stay up a bit during the small hours of the night (as I´m not working these days), because honestly, what´s the difference? ;)

Photo nr.1:
More photos
Photo nr. 2: ?

On RÚV television tonight

Himalaya - L´enfance d´un chef
Himalaya - A Chief´s Childhood,
a very special French-Nepalese film.
A monk´s milieu
The Film
Review

The wedding dress that suits me:

Out of the Ordinary. The dress which
describes you, describes your inner self as
well. White simply bores you, so you tend to go
with more out-of-the-ordinary colours. The
styles you find comfort in may turn others
away, however, it bothers you not. You know
what you love, and this is it.

Which Wedding Dress Suits Your Personality? {Pictures!}
brought to you by Quizilla

I think this dress is beautiful, especially the colour,
yeah, I think I would wear it!

Just saw this film on RÚV television tonight...

The Ernest Green Story
...good...!!!
[...] As one of the “Little Rock Nine,” Green and his eight classmates risked their lives to become the first black students to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education, declaring segregation illegal. The integration of Central High School became one of the crowning victories of the Civil Rights Movement and a triumph over legal segregation. The first African-American to graduate from Central High, Green was the subject of a movie, “The Ernie Green Story,” produced and distributed by the Walt Disney Corporation...[Inside ASU ]
Ernest Green - Biography
Interview: Mr. Green looks back on 1957
1997 President Clinton honours The Little Rock Nine
More about Little Rock September 1957
...and more!

Winter in Reykjavík

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!

I have not felt like posting -

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.

Just to remind you...

...for a laugh...
Have fun! :
The "I´m Icelandic!" song

Good news for "us knitters"...

Top Fashion from Iceland:
The good old "LOPAPEYSA"
made from lopi, the unique Icelandic wool.
More information in these links:
The Lopi Sweater
Ístex



The word "peysa" for jumper or sweater actually has a funny story behind it:
When French-speaking sailors/fishermen came to Icelandic shores centuries ago they used to do some merchandising with the inhabitants. As they were often freezing in the cold climate, they liked to buy some warm garments from the farmers, made from the warm wool from sturdy Icelandic sheep. From there derived a misunderstanding on the part of the farmers; when the foreigners pointed at them saying the word "paysan", which means farmer in French, the Icelanders thought they meant the thick woollen jumpers they were wearing, wanting to buy them. Gradually they started calling the garment by the French word, and today it´s not a slangword from French, but a proper Icelandic word!
This is a good example of how language developes.
(Hmm, actually the same was the case with "mademoiselle", the word the sailors used for the pretty Icelandic girls, "young ladies" they met here. The jealous Icelandic males were quick to twist and abbreviate that to "mella" , which has quite another and negative meaning, that´s to say "whore". What a typical negative male reaction!)

Soumyadip...

...had me wondering, so I Googled and found this:

Diwali, Lighting The Lamps
Wikipedia Diwali

Happy Diwali!

Maybe I should have remembered something about these festivities from my time in Tanzania, where there exists quite a large Indian community, but obviously I didn´t; certainly that was just 20 years ago!

*Bréf frá Tanzaníu/Letters from Tanzania-Icelandic