Merry Christmas everyone. If you're waiting for a Christmas card from me you're not getting one this year. The reason is not that I've stopped loving you or that I've decided to save the forest. The reason is Mom wasn't organized enough to buy Christmas cards in October. Luckily for me though she bought the Christmas presents in October and I also rely on the 13 Icelandic Santas that put a present for you in your shoe 13 nights before Christmas if you leave it in the windowsill (if you've been nice). As you might have guessed from the frequent blog posts things have not quiet been the same lately. We moved out in the beginning of November and had to stay away from home for almost 5 weeks while we got a new bathroom. Then we've been busy moving back in and transforming the apartment back into a liveable condition. Until now. Mom hasn't been feeling well and I get no service from her whatsoever. The reason is I'm having a little brother or sister possibly for Christmas. I did actually tell you about it.
Today is that Icelandic rotten fish day, you can read about it if you press the typically Icelandic button among my blog labels. My uncle is coming from the US. He is famous as the one that says Spiderman. Mom says Spindelmannen and Dad says Köngulóarmaðurinn.
Do remember to bring all the gear when you go to sleep, to wear a Santa hat, to put your shoe in the window and to sing all your Christmas carols until you fall asleep. If you fall asleep Santa might come. Mom might also come and secretly take off your spiderman socks that you've insisted on wearing for 2 days in a row to put them in the washing machine. See you next year.

On June 17 we barbecued 140 hot dogs for our yearly garden party. Dad went swimming in the sea in the morning and in the hot tub afterwards he complained about having to go to several different supermarkets to be able to find 150 hot dog buns. Then a guy next to him who turned out to be the owner of a bakery made a call and one hour later we got 150 hot dog buns delivered to our door. It's like someone would bother driving 150 boxes of strawberries to your door at Midsommar just like that with absolutely no notice. Because of all the parades our street is closed off by the police so we are still not quiet sure how it happened, but if you ever have a problem in Iceland it can be solved in the hot tub for sure. It's like the pub to the Brits.

I forgot to post these pictures, last week was bolludagur bun day. I'm extremely polite these days I say no thank you and yes please, whenever asked a question. But as a true 2 year old I of course say no 99% of the times. So if Mom asks me if I need to go go to the toilet the answer is no thank you. Polite terrible two.

In February we have the rotten food festival in Iceland. We even drive with take away rotten food to remote locations in the Highlands. One would think you could just save yourself the trouble and head out with normal food and it would have gone bad by the time you reached your destination, but no. Here are some pictures from Dad's yearly rotten food trip.
If you were wondering about my last post Dad was testing our GPS device for the trip and it didn't work inside our house. In stead of going out in the garden he stuck it out of the window using our floor mop. To his defence I wasn't feeling well so I was not allowed to play outside. You hook the device up with your laptop and it makes it possible to navigate your car offroad even if you are for example blinded by a snowstorm. You will then see your car following a track on the computer screen even if you can't see a thing out the front window. Not reccommended though if you drive where there's traffic.
As you can see we haven't got any snow here this winter, even this far up the mountains you can see the stones sticking up.
I went to visit my friends this weekend and had very nice food.

Iceland got a lot of international publicity for being one of the first rescue teams in Haiti after the earthquake. It was funny how some 15 minutes after the first telegram of the big earthquake was posted on the online news site there was another piece about the rescue workers preparing for takeoff. They figured they'd get all their papers and permits ready once they were in the air.
The Swedes that got a lot of bad publicity for being extremely slow sending help after the big Tsunami a few years ago were still discussing the best way to help Haiti on TV when the Icelanders had been digging out people from the ruins for 24 hours. I think it's not so much the fact that Icelanders are living in an earthquake area but the mentality that things will work out. In Sweden you need to do things the right way even if peoples lives are at stake. And that still seems to be the case.
The rescue workers are now back again after working 48 hour shifts and sleeping 3 hours for one week. In an interview one of them said they never got permission to land in Haiti. The coast looked clear and the Icelandic pilot just landed the plane anyway and the team used a ladder to get out. And the government is now sorting out who is going to pay for the rescue operation. Everybody's happy.

This hat that disappeared from the face of the earth outside the swimming pool in April turned up again yesterday in my box at playschool. It had my name and phone number on it. Good thing it finally turned up again.

We're celebrating independence day very traditionally today. Dad is swimming from Reykjavik to Kopavogur. It's the Wednesday madness sea swimming extended edition. People that swim in the sea when the hot tub is 37 degrees must be mad. The lowest water temperature they've had is 1,8 degrees.
Then we're barbecuing 100 hot dogs. So if you're in the neighbourhood and have figured out where we live you are welcome at 3pm.

Here is my great grandfather in his boat. I forgot to write about why we went to the Westfjords. We are collecting down feather from the nests of these birds for bedding and pillows etc. The bird on the pic does not care about the bird scarers but the birds who eat it's chicks does. They also collect eggs in Iceland. This time of year you can buy eggs from wild birds in your local 10-11 supermarket.

Clue: click on the last picture and view it in fullsize.

Today we celebrate first day of summer. I wonder who decided this national holiday should be in April. It's just as cold every year. Today it was 4 degrees Celsius. On the other hand we don't get much summer here so they might just as well get it over with. People kiss and wish eachother a happy summer. The kids get presents. I went to the playground and practised throwing stones.

We went to a summerhouse this weekend with my friends. All pictures above are taken earlier today in just over an hour time span. I think they are very representative for Icelandic weather. They say if you don't like the weather here you just have to hang in a minute and then you're in for something completely new.

Our neighbour gave me sour sheep balls earlier today, yummy. Now is the time of the year you'd better stay away from Iceland if you don't like the whole idea of having intestines, rotten or sour foods. Icelanders love offering their rotten shark and sour sheep balls to polite foreigners. The rotten shark is prepared by digging a hole in the ground and leaving it down there for quiet some time.
It's a mystery why people in the rest of the world don't have rotten food festivals this time of the year? Why not celebrate the good old times when they didn't have refrigerators and the foods from last season would have gone really bad? In case you like the sound of it you can get a burned sheep's head all year round in the downtown drive through fast food place. This dish is also very delightfully presented staring back at you from the plate. I don't want to scare off any of my readers but if you feel up to it you can see this masterpiece of Icelandic cooking by clicking here.

On December 23th Icelanders go downtown to get rid of the fish smell and buy the last Christmas presents. The shops are open until midnight. Many people like Dad buy all their Christmas presents this evening. I got to see the moving toy penguins. We didn't see any live penguins in the streets this year.

Here I am back at the airport in Iceland at midnight. The trip went really well. Mom didn't cry at all. I convinced the boss flight attendant that Mom was a really annoying Mom that couldn't stay still for a second so I got a seat for Mom though the flight was crowded and there where maybe 15 babies bringing their Mom's home for Christmas. I didn't sleep at all though I was so busy looking after her.
Today we celebrate Rotten Fish Day. Yesterday they had Ammonium fish at Dad's job. When he came home he had to change his clothes he smelled so bad from just beeing in the same room as the fish dish.