SMALL WONDERS OF THE CITY

Hot dogs - one with everything.

The 'toy-town' look of the city from above.

Swans in the city pond at sunset.

Fashion: blue hair, black stockings, space buns, long coats.

Art on houses, on street corners, on walls and buildings, in windows, on boats and bikes and fences.

The clashing colours of a pastel pink house sitting-pretty alongside its lime green neighbour.

Crochet curtains.

Cats!

Vegetarian cafes.

Red tin clad houses.

Gigs - those tiny concerts you find out about from some friend of a friend.

The boats by Harpa. The gulls in the harbour.

Sitting on the rocks, late at night, by the waterside, just chatting about life.

Happenin' vibes.

Bikers.

Bakeries.

The many coffee houses, where one can sit for hours with a good brew (or two) and a book, or even a puzzle.

Hidden gardens, graveyards, sculptures and random pockets of art.

Rising at 6am for an early morning croissant, still warm from the oven. (Is this just something I would do anywhere?).

Odd looking doors.

Old ladies knitting in waiting rooms.

Wanderings.

Stykkisholmur Iceland colourful boats in the harbour

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today.
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do...”

— DAVID BOWIE - SPACE ODDITY

Our shadows cast a perfect image with the low noonday sun: two aliens lost in a moonscape of black craters and steaming vents.

I had anticipated and waited and hoped and dreamed about Iceland - the first leg of our one year journey - but I might just as well have thrown all of my preconceived notions out the airplane window, because Iceland was a world away from my ideas. Lovely and lonely. Desolate and teeming with life. Absolutely ravaged by harsh winds. Sideways rain and rainbows.

We were pushed to our outer bodily limits while we made our living in a tiny crappy car during the cold and darkening month of October. I thought often of David Bowie's song Major Tom. Here I was, floating around the island in a tin can with no real plans, nothing to do, cast off from the life we left behind. That song speaks to me of courage, as it takes courage to leap out into the void of the unknown, to decide to break free from the familiar.

. . .
We were floating among the stars on the clear nights.
. . .

Swirling green northern lights and starry sky Iceland

.. THE SMALL WONDERS OF ICELAND ..

The smell of the ocean.

Grainy black sands that stick to shoes, cars, minds.

Tumbled lava fields overgrown with a dense layer of 200 year old moss

Tiny churches, purposing only four or five houses.

Moonscapes on mountain passes with red grasses and no fences, waterfalls and no people, and in the middle of it all: two swans.

Brightly coloured boats.

Fisherman waking us at 5am by whistling on their way to work.

Jutting headlands of basalt columns, their full stops tumbling into the sea.

Steam arising from the earth, caught in the early morning sun, sheep sitting over the hot spots.

An island forming and reforming in front of our eyes.

A girl riding a horse on a lonely gravel path says hello.

Fog so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.

Ribbon-like paths leading to nowhere through grasslands, making you think the elves had made them.

A gang of young boys who know all the English swear words.

Old ladies at the local hot tubs, who gather to gossip. Old guys at the local hot tubs, who spend half their time in the ice bath.

The mist and spray of a waterfall on my cheek.

Small-legged horses with thick wooly coats, who are so friendly they might stand in the road and lick your windscreen if you'd let them. Which we did.