HERRING BOOM!

Today felt the most like Washington since we've been here.  A solid grey sheen of cold mist

blocked the mountain tops from our view.  In Olafsfjordor, the waves are crashing just outside

our house, resonating through the ground, and the smell of fish is as thick as the draping fog.

Just after french toast, our friend Will came to take us for a short tour in Siglufjordor,

where he, his wife, Jen, and son have been residing.  Just last night, they opened their
first show in Iceland, exhibiting their work they've created during their visit here.  

 We celebrated their success with them and enjoyed our first concert here in the fjords, 

featuring an Iceland native band, Valdimar.  For one band, the show had quite a 

lengthy duration, but the music was upbeat and enjoyable, and the company was good.

Following our festivities of the night, we woke to a mood that matched our atmoshper-

hazey.  

We find ourselves clambering from one museum to another, trudging through

 sleet, and then turning to billowing snow.  From an ancient house of 

folk music, to the relics of the Herring boom, everything is perfectly

preserved- as though the ghosts of the past may return by night and

continue singing the old songs and carrying on gutting and canning,

going back to work amidst the thousands of fish carcasses, boats lining up,

emptying out their catch by the ton, and all resting at the end of their days in

box framed beds just large enough for one to lay still.  We walked through their

living quarters, to factories that once swarmed and heated with life, but now lay quiet

and perfectly still as a picture, and then we finally climbed upon their vacant boats,

silently housed at bay, not to fish another day.  Once, this was a place of happening.

Now, it perseveres as a place of history, holding on to a community of descendants.

We come as visitors to a place so rich in its culture, its natural beauty, and its fantastic

tales, that even now, we are still being told of.  It seems only right, to tell others, too.

But this is just one more day here since we arrived.  And there's still so much more-

to do, to see, to hear...  we'll try our best to share what we can along the way.