Monday Ice: Eldur Á Himni - Fire In The Sky

Even though the northern lights season is over, here is a taster of what you could see during the winter months if you are prepared not to sleep much at night.

Boris Schaarschmidt is a film-maker who was at Nes for the Weight of Mountains residency.  During his 3 month stay he chased the lights relentlessly. Eldur Á Himni - Fire In The Sky is the result of his determined and unwavering hunt for the Aurora Borealis.

Eldur Á Himni - Fire In The Sky from Boris Schaarschmidt on Vimeo.

Mývatn and Dimmuborgir

The weather the last few days has been fabulous, sunny, windless with clear blue skies and the light is just magical.  The days are much shorter now, dark by 6.30 in the evening and not light until about 8am...a few weeks ago there was a little window where we had what I would call normal day/night hours...light by 6am and dark by about 7.30pm.

Sunday the weather was stunning, so with geocaching buddies Patricia and Bjarki we headed off to Mývatn to do a few caches and end the day with a soak in the Mývatn nature baths.  Mývatn is about a 2.5hr drive from here, although we did not set of until 1.30 in the afternoon we managed to see quite a bit.

First stop along the way was Goðafoss the waterfall of the gods, a spectacular waterfall and very accessible...as you can see by my photos you can walk to the edge of the cliff to get a good view...at your own risk of course.  Only 3 other people viewing at the same time as me...but I imagine in the peak season it would be quite crowded.

Around the year 1000 Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði made Christianity the official religion of Iceland and it is said that he threw his statues of the Norse gods into this waterfall.

Next was the pseudo craters at Lake Mývatn

The place is stunning and felt quite out of this world

The air was cool and still, with a little ice on the lake surface.

We then headed off to Dimmuborgir where there are unusual lava formations.

You can just make out the lacy lava wall, a natural structure across this ridge,

it looked amazing with the light shining through (this pic does not do it justice)

Here are a couple of close up views

This is the incredible view from one of the caches we found in Dimmuborgir

After stopping for a bite to eat we then headed off to Jarðböðin the nature baths.

picture source

My body felt like it was melting as I soaked in the lagoon, it felt sooo good and as I floated on my back looking at the stars the northern lights also put on a spectacular display...the perfect end to the perfect day!

The Aurora Borealis apparently put on a display around the country as my little camera does not do the lights I thought I would share this video by Olgeir Andresson which was taken on the same night.

NES Artist Residency

Sometimes you don't realise what you miss until you taste it again. Back in Australia I had a circle of artist friends and whilst we may not have soley just talked art...it was always a regular topic that would flow naturally into our conversations.  So when out of the blue I received an email from a printmaker who was in Iceland on an Artist Residency who wished to pop by and meet me...I said yes!

Hideki as he desribes himself is a 6ft Japanese with an English accent who is on his 3rd visit to Iceland (staying longer each time) and considering a 4th. When Hideki and another NES artist Mia were in Sauðárkrókur one day they called by for a Kaffí and chat.  Hideki had come across my name in a brochure that was advertising adult education workshops and thought this is no Icelandic name and through the power of the internet came across my blog and in reading realised I had also met Emma Lindsay as he did when she was here.

Hideki was one of the September group of artist at the NES Residency in Skagastönd about a 40 minute drive from here.  Last week there was an open day to share this group of artist's work with the community before they all leave for their homelands.  I had been meaning to visit the residency before this...but just had not got around to it.  Meeting Hideki and Mia earlier in the week ensured that I would not miss this open day.

 

Hideki and I at the Open Studio event

Photo by Ingeun

The NES Residency which is set up quite differently to Bær, offers studio space and living quarters for a small fee. The housing provided is quite separate to the studio space and the participants reside in four houses/apartments scattered around the small town.

The studio space is a large building (shed like) near the docks located right on the beach where all the artists communally share the space...dividing it up into smaller areas for each to work in...reminding me very much of the studio areas at art school.

The open studio evening was great, I thoroughly enjoyed walking around each artists space and chatting with them about their work.  It was inspiring to see such a diverse group from around the globe, America, UK, South Korea, Australia, Italy and Germany plus to get a little peek in to their artistic practice.  

 

 Hideki's space

 

Hideki chatting to a group of children about serious art business!

 Annika Bastacky

Matthew G Shelley

Unfortunately I was too busy chatting and not taking the time to photograph all the works on show...will try and do a better job at the next one. However the group of artists at this residency for the month of September 2011 were...

Lily Angotty - American

Hideki Arichi - British

Annika Bastacky - American

Ben Borden - American

Joseph Breikers - Australian

David Ertel - American

Mia Hochrein - German

Ingeun Kim - South Korean

Dario Lazzaretto - Italian

Matthew G Shelley - American

Later that evening when I was taking Perla for a walk and gazing up into the northern lights that were putting on quite a show, I realised just how much I missed viewing and chatting about art.  However even though this town is a little isolated I am still only 30-40 minutes away from two wonderful International Art residency programs where I can meet artists from around the world.  So I intend to be a regular visitor at any open days that NES or Bær run in the future.

This is an old pic from Olga's camera last year...my little point and shoot camera will not successfully photograph the  

Aurora Borealis.

Italian week in Sauðárkrókur

This past week was a bit like Italian week and we have made pasta, salami sausages, roasted capsicums and fried pizza dough.  Ross' dad, Nick (my ex) and his sister Irma came visiting from Australia, the main attraction was of course Henry.

 Nick with our grandson.

Henry with his great aunt Irma

 Irma stayed with me and spent the week at the old post office. 

 

Irma and I as sister-inlaws have always got on well and it was lovely to spend the past week with her and catch up on all the news of the Di Blasio families.

We didn't do much site seeing as they both really came here to spend time with Henry, Ross and Olga.

 

 

 Color coordination by grandparents purely accidental.

Nick likes to swim regularly so Ross took everyone to the fabulous Hofsós pool on the Sunday.

I stayed behind and looked after Henry.

Olga, Irma and myself had a good long soak in the hot pots at Grettislaug on the Wednesday.

 

and the last day they were here we went for a drive to Holar where we had a beer at the beer club (Irma and Olga that is... I was the driver) and checked out the horse museum which I had not been through before.

old horse saddles, reins, stirrups etc

 Old drawings by a 14 year old girl

Saddle making machine and other equipment

Iceland also did put on a little show for them...the day before they arrived it snowed and the mountains were white, plus on the night they arrived they saw a spectacular Aurora Borealis display.

In between the little bit of touristy stuff, we did extract as much info as we could from Irma and Nick re the traditional Italian foods that Ross remembers ever so fondly from his childhood.

One of the ones that we had no idea how it was made was Sfinges ....(or to spell...it is probably an old Italian dialect name, however if you click on the link someone else spells it this way, so that is good enough for me). Sfinges are basically fried pizza dough, we always ate them as is straight from the pot or later with salami, cheese etc, although on the internet I see many people sprinkle them with sugar...not the sort of food you want to eat all the time but on the odd occasion you might be able to get away with it.

Sfinges

Irma showed us how to make them, we were given no strict quantities...just a bit of this and a bit of that and if that doesn't look right then a bit more of this...Olga and I took lots of photos of the process and I also filmed a little, so hopefully we will be able to reproduce the recipe later on.

Ross had tried to make salami sausages before in London and whilst his housemates thought they tasted great, Ross was disappointed as they did not taste like the ones his Nonna and Nonno make,  so he was very keen to have another go when his dad and aunt were here.

Sausages of any sort are not made here in Iceland (except maybe hotdog ones) so trying to buy the intestines for the sausage casing was quite difficult...eventually Olga managed to track down some synthetic skins which we ordered but they were very narrow and Ross had to be creative in making the spout from the grinder fit them.

Here is a video of Ross and his dad mixing the meat with the spices, vegetarians look away now. Note how the meat is in the shape of Australia at the beginning of the video.

But with patience it all managed to come together and Ross' cellar is now looking very Italian...with the sausages hanging up and his bottles of homemade wine stacked on shelves (not in photo).

Ross and Olga also had Joe visiting, he is Henry's godfather but not of the Italian variety,

 

Joe of course is one of the members of the band Snowman (now defunct) and he serenaded Henry at every opportunity.

Andy was also suppose to be visiting at the same time and it would have been the first time in a year that the band were once again all together.  However Andy had difficulty getting his schengen visa, there was a huge delay in processing it...apparently if your Indonesian, Muslim and have been to Mecca there is no quick rubber stamping of your visa...not sure if the extra long delay had anything to do with it being the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at the time.  The delay sadly meant that Andy would not make it when Joe was here. Andy will now visit in the first week of October and the silver lining is he will not have to share Henry with any other visitors.

As Joanna Lumley said "I can die happy now"

Well last night we got to see the Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis which was absolutely fantastic, we drove up to the graveyard where there were no town lights to diminish the experience, it lasted for several hours building up with intensity as the time went on.  I didn't have my camera set at the right shutter speed so did not get any photos, however I have pinched a couple of Olga's which turned out quite nicely.  The camera is now set correctly and if they come again I am ready!

 

Yesterday we also took a drive to Akureyri which is the largest town outside of the capital Reykjavik with a population of around 17,000...just a tad smaller than Geraldton.  The drive there is absolutely spectacular with mountains on each side of the road and takes a bit over 2 hours to get there.

The snow had started to melt on some mountains creating zebra patterns.  These pics are taken whilst in a moving car and through a dirty window.

However, in some areas the mountains were still covered with snow and the fjords were frozen.

The town of Akureyri has some great views from the main shopping area.  This is a photo from the carpark.

 The town also has a logo which is a red heart and heart stickers are on many of the shop windows and doors, also traffic lights.

 

Also once again the colour blue appears!

Last Sunday Olga's family have a get together once a month and this month Olga's amma, Kristin provided a traditional Icelandic feast known as Þorrablót, which consisted of such tasty delights as, sheeps heads, rotton shark, whale, diced pickled rams testicles, I tasted everything except the whale, after the rotton shark I could not stomach it, however, the rams testicles were not too bad!

Fortunately there was still plenty other food I could fill up on, smoked lamb, lamb cutlets, dried fish and homemade Rye bread which is delicious with lots of butter of course...thank goodness I have'nt come across a set of scales!!!

Lambs head!

Looks innocent enough but looks can deceive, this is the rotton shark which I found to be nearly indigestible!

 After the rotton shark I could not bring myself to try the whale!

But the diced pickled Rams Testicles weren't too bad, they have very much the same texture as sheep's brains, not sure what that might mean!!!