Oh the Mountain's Wind and Snow

Not much to report. Jonas left this morning. I am now thoroughly alone. There is an odd sense of dominance about the situation-lo, behold! This is my domain! Lo, therein all the food of the kitchen is mine to eat, and all space of the hallway is mine to walk! A sad state of affairs, I suppose, but we take pride in what we can.

Barbara the German invited me up to Esja, and we went with a group (I think it was an Inspired by Iceland trip?) which meant we got a tour guide and his dog-which is always lovely and has grounded my very positive image of the Icelandic guide and his dog-as well as hot chocolate afterwards. And I have been invited by Barbara and my new acquaintance Sara the New Zealander to hit the climbing wall tomorrow evening. I'm excited.

So there are copious things, it seems, removing me from my hole. My writing schedule might suffer a bit. But I've finished all the nine chapters I wanted of my novel to complete before I gave it off to people to read, and it just remains to edit it for skipped sections, discontinuity, and other glaring errors; then all the people who agreed to read it shall, and those few (if any) who might enjoy shall likewise. It's officially longer than my undergrad thesis, and about a third the length of the wretched novel that I wrote in highschool. I'm nervous about the inconsistencies, the inevitable sections wherein I was inspired and the many more wherein I simply drug myself through, and whether any sense of wholeness or style will shine through. But we'll see. Hopefully I've gathered myself a large enough body of readers (And thanks a lot, to all of you, I really appreciate it) that I will get a clear sense of what needs to be done, and where to go for what will hopefully be many hundreds more pages.

Enough of that. Pictures.

 The largest forest in Iceland. . .and all Norwegian trees. Planted

to see if they'll grow in the climate, because some trees on

the mountain would make Reykjavik less than absurdly windy.

 Barbara and Sara, showing their exhaustion.

All Icelandic guides have voraciously energetic dogs,

and red parkas. ALL of them.

 Off in the gray distance straight ahead is Reykjavik, also gray.

'Cause, you know, camouflage.

 Sledded down this on nothing but my jeans and my

will to slide. Awesomeness.

Not really sure what he was doing. Just part of the show,

I suppose. But that's the owner of the restaurant at the bottom

of Esja, and he came back down to bang on the walls on

windows of his restaurant with a big ass stick. Some kind

of tradition in Icelandic Christmas. They make strong

windows in Iceland.