Blackest of Nights

 Our sponsor for the evening, the Franciscan of Bloody-handed god-on-a-stick.

Blood for the Blood God and skulls for the Skull Throne!

 James the Canadian doing his

"Look at me I'm Santa Claus and I'm ALWAYS JOLLY" thing.

It's a rad bromance.

 Kristi, our lovely Estonian waitress, glaring at me

for my hubristic decision to run out and get my

camera.

 I don't think anyone was very fond of the camera here.

 Ahh, the smell of not-piss beer. None for you skully.

 Aw, alright, I'll share. It was the only light thing we were

drinking that night, anyway. If it was stout you'd be

shit out of luck.

 An Icelandic woman in a Care Bear outfit!

An opportunity has arisen to assuage our loneliness!

 James, wake up. You're drooling on the poor lady.

 Me, hidden by the hug I'm getting from the lady

who overheard me complaining I get no hugs in Iceland.

And she didn't get offended when I lifted her up,

AND she made the guys jealous. You're awesome, strange lady!

 This brave Care Bear was very busy that night.

 If the Mad Hatter was Indiana Jones. And Santa Claus.

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

It was, in fact, the blackest of nights. Winter approaches, it's getting dark early, and the beer was flowing dark as pitch and malty as dwarven sensibilities. Íslenskur Urvals Stout was the choice of the night for many rounds, and then Black Death, which was milder and hoppier, possibly some kind of porter. A break for whatever we were drinking above (possibly we weren´t tasting it that well. It was kind of sweet?). And a final pint of Guinness at Ölsmiðjan finished off the evening. We were home at about 3:30 (still quite early by Icelandic standards) and my sleeping happened somewhere between five in the morning and noon.

Hopefully this will get the socialites off my back for awhile. There is much reading to be done, writing of papers and translating of gnomic texts of (orthographically regularized, alas) of the deeds of the ancient gods worshiped by the HEAD-HUNTING MEAD-DRINKING ROMAN-KILLING POETRY-SPOUTING CLANS OF OUR TEUTONIC FOREFATHERS! . . . And within such a schedule, there's little room for frivolity.

Historiography of runic inscriptions, ethics and mentalité of the 'Saga Age' (of defined relativity and fluid absolutism), Egils saga (soon to transition to Njals saga), the Snorra Edda, and as soon as the air clears a bit back to Trojumanna saga, and likely some background scholarship on the whole nativist vs European-origins-of-literature debate. Because apparently that's the only place anybody feels like bringing up poor Trojumanna. And likely it will mean I'll need to read more bastards like Hermann Pálsson with their rediculous concepts of the monolithic all-encompassing comcept of Christian ethics, "Oh the unknown and unnamed author of such-and-such saga almost certainly had an excellent education, which probably means he went to Europe, which means that EVERYTHING IN THE SAGA IS A DIDACTIC REFERENCE TO THE BOOK OF JOB!" Bastards.

Enough time writing. I need tea and porridge.